2
Abstract
In the past decade, twenty-two countries adopted gender quota laws that require between
20% and 50% of all legislative candidates to be women. What explains the adoption of
these laws? This analysis argues that three factors make politicians more likely to adopt
gender quota laws. First, a contagion effect links voluntary quotas at the party level and
national quota laws: parties or majority coalitions in congress support quota laws in order
to disperse the electoral advantage (or disadvantage) that individual parties might gain
from them. The prospects for party quotas to diffuse to the national level depend on
political context. Second, non-electoral branches of government support quotas as a way
to demonstrate their autonomy from other branches, in the context of efforts to establish
separation of powers. Finally, cross-partisan mobilization among female legislators
raises the costs of opposing such legislation by drawing public attention to it. I examine
these three claims with regard to Mexico, where the federal congress passed a 30%
gender quota law in 2002.
Convention