Paper Titles & Abstracts

The EU's 'positive actions' in the field of gender equality has recently begun to include quotas for women's representation, most notably in the Commission's well-publicised initiative to bring more women on corporate boards. This paper contributes to the growing literature on gender quotas by examining the adoption and implementation of gender quotas in the post-communist member states. The paper draws on emerging feminist institutionalist literature in order to compare the two main types of quotas in the region: legislative quotas in Slovenia and Poland, and voluntary party quotas in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Overall, the paper finds that the successful adoption and implementation of quotas depends on (1) the strength of an organised women's movement and (2) the strength of the sanctions applied to political parties in case of non-compliance with the quotas.