Gender quota laws in Latin America: Explaining cross-national and sub-national diffusion.

摘要

This dissertation attempts to explain the diffusion of legally mandated gender quotas for legislative candidates from Argentina to twelve other Latin American countries in less than a decade. It also attempts to explain the diffusion of quotas within Argentina from the federal to the provincial level in the same time period. This research is highly significant for both practical and theoretical reasons. Compulsory gender quotas mandates by national legislation are the most effective way of rapidly increasing the election of women, and this mechanism is primarily a Latin American phenomenon.; Although the dissertation argues that the adoption of quotas is best explained as a consequence of diffusion, it makes important contributions to the field of comparative politics as well as to the discipline of international relations. Its research design incorporated both external and internal variables and employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Thus, the present work "is within the tradition of scholarship that seeks to bridge the often artificial gap between the studies of interactions among nations...and comparative studies of the system and within-system attributes of nations" (Walsh, 1984, p. 3).