Electoral quotas take time to produce actual effects (Caul, 1999). From a longitudinal perspective, the Belgian case is particularly interesting. The Belgian parliament has imposed rules increasingly constraining for political parties. A first quota legislation was adopted in 1994 and a more far-reaching legislation is in force since 2002. Lists have to be perfectly balanced in gender terms and the first two places have to be allocated to candidates from a different sex. Nearly two decades after the first quota act has come into force, this paper offers a detailed analysis of the impact of the gender quotas on the candidate selection processes within parties. Two main subquestions are asked: who select candidates and how do they select candidates? Since by now half of the candidates have to be women, one may expect women to be more present and influential during the selection process as well.
The paper answers these questions first longitudinally (1994-2012) by analysing changes in political parties statutes resulting from the quota legislation. Second, we adopt an internal perspective through an analysis of qualitative data collected in 2006 under the direction of Meier and Rihoux. The study relies on 36 interviews among Belgian political elites. We seek to grasp how politicians perceive changes in candidate selection processes. We trace differences between parties along the left-right ideological continuum. Leftist parties are said to be more proactive as far as gender is concerned whereas rightist parties may be more passive, even if this difference tends to decrease (Caul, 1999; Meier, 2004; Krook, 2009).
