Representation of Women in Bangladesh Parliament – Does the Presence of Women Reflect the Substantive Representation?

In the premise of substantive representation of women parliamentarians and using contextual and institutional settings, this paper attempts to establish a relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of women in parliament. By taking women in Bangladesh parliament as a case, this paper aims to explore how the numbers of increased women MPs are able to influence the policy agenda related to women’s issues inside the parliament. Therefore, the paper explores the question ‘how the presence of women MPs resulted into substantive representation in parliament i.e. how is substantive representation enacted regardless of the outcome?’ Bangladesh has its critical importance as being a developing country with a Muslim majority and a traditional patriarchal society that has also made significant gains in advancing women's by introduced the quota as a fast track measure. In recent times, the number of women parliamentarians has experienced a rise from 30 in 2001 to 71 in 2013. A significant numbers of study on substantive representation have been done in the context of developed countries and in well-functioning electoral settings. Researching a developing country with a different political, socio-economic and cultural context captures different trajectories for analyzing women’s representation in parliament. Keeping this in mind, this paper argues that it is important to map diverse dimensions of who the ‘women’ are representing in parliament and what women need in order to make substantive contributions in a specific context. In order to establish the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of women, the paper is looking closely at legislative activities of women members of parliament during the period 2009 to 2013 combining with 20 in-depth interviews include women parliamentarians and experts from civil society and international development agencies. The analytical framework of this research assumes that the presence of women in parliament does not automatically translate into substantive representation rather it is an outcome of institutional, organizational and sociological aspects that play the driving roles for the substantive representation of women MPs in a specific political environment.