Failed Adoptions: International Norm Rejections and the Case of Gender Quotas

Gender quotas have been adopted by over 130 countries around the world. Although present in varied forms, generally quotas are tools that promote the numerical increase of women in legislative bodies, namely Parliaments and Congresses. Quotas have aided descriptive or numerical representation across regions of the world. Currently, women make up an average of 25.8% of Parliamentarians worldwide, up from 13.8% twenty years ago. With most countries adopting quotas, what explains the decisions of countries to not adopt them? The international norm literature has mostly focused on norm adoption, but what factors can explain norm rejection? Using gender quotas as an example of an emerging international norm, this research aims to explain quota rejection by first analyzing quota adoptions worldwide, then across regions and finally within selected cross-regional case studies, where a more detailed analysis will lead to a working explanation of quota rejection.