Regendering Politics: The Impact of Electoral Parity in Tunisia

Electoral gender quotas have diffused rapidly around the globe in recent years, leading to an unprecedented rise in the share of women elected to national parliaments around the world. Yet debates over quotas often revolve around a host of claims beyond their numerical effects, with both advocates and opponents speculating on the impact of quotas on the diversity and quality of elected representatives. In this paper, we develop and evaluate these claims with empirical evidence from Tunisia, the first country in the Arab world to introduce a law on gender parity for elected positions. We find that quotas in Tunisia provide a ‘diversity bonus,’ electing not only more female but also younger and more educated members of parliament from a wider range of professional backgrounds. We also find that quotas entail a ‘quality bonus,’ with the women elected through quotas being more diligent and effective parliamentarians. We conclude that while quotas have not eliminated all biases against women in candidate selection processes, they have a ‘net positive’ impact by opening up parliament to well-qualified and committed legislators. Our study validates the conclusions drawn from related studies in other regions of the world, indicating that quotas provide democratic benefits beyond simply increasing the numbers of women elected.