Portugal's Quota-Parity Law: An Analysis of its Adoption

Abstract

In August 2006, Portugal approved a new quota law, called the parity law. According to this, all candidate lists presented for local, parliamentary, and European elections must guarantee a minimum representation of 33 per cent for each sex. This article analyses the proximate causes that led to the adoption of gender quotas by the Portuguese Parliament. The simple answer is that the law's passage was a direct consequence of a draft piece of legislation presented by the Socialist Party (PS), which enjoyed a majority. However, the reasons that led the PS to push through a quota law remain unclear. Using open-ended interviews with key women deputies from all the main Portuguese political parties, and national public opinion data, among other sources, the role of four actors/factors that were involved in the law's adoption are critically examined: notably, civil society actors, state actors, international and transnational actors, and the Portuguese political context.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of those Portuguese MPs and political actors who agreed to be interviewed for this project, in particular the MP Helena Pinto for responding to email follow-ups. We also thank the National Committee of Elections (CNE) and the political parties for the data they provided us. Lastly we wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and Jocelyne Praud for their insightful comments, all of which made the paper significantly better. Of course, all errors of fact or interpretation are ours alone.

Notes

1. By gender quota policies we mean any of the specific means that political systems adopt to increase the number of women elected to political office. The three main types of quota measures are reserved seats, voluntary party quotas, and legislative quotas that are made into law, whether as part of electoral law or as a constitutional obligation. For a review, see Krook (2009: 6).

2. As of 2009, 26 European countries had adopted either voluntary or legal quota laws. Although quota laws like the parity law in Portugal have tended to be most predominant in Latin America (Matland 2006), they are quickly making inroads in the European context as well, with six countries having adopted legal quotas to date.

3. For a discussion of this problem, see Krook (2007).

4. But see, in Portuguese: Baum and Espírito-Santo (2009) and Monteiro (2011) that provides a useful critique of an earlier version of our analysis.

5. Nonetheless, see Meirinho Martins and Teixeira (2005) as well as Viegas and Faria (2001) and the as yet unpublished PhD thesis of Rosa Monteiro (2011).

6. All questionnaires were applied between 7 July 2008 and 22 September 2008.

7. All interviews took place between 21 July 2005 and 18 August 2005.

8. Three NGOs were visible in the media in favour of the adoption of the 2006 parity law: União de Mulheres Alternativa e Resposta (UMAR), the Portuguese Platform for Women's Rights (PPDM), and the Portuguese Network of Young People for Gender Equality (REDE).

9. However, our analysis of these groups and their role in the quota debate is available in English upon request, and in Portuguese in Baum and Espírito-Santo (2009).

10. Proposta de Lei 194/VII, DAR II série A No.68/VII/3 1998.07.09 (1601–1603). All bills can be found online through this website: http://www.parlamento.pt/ActividadeParlamentar/Paginas/IniciativasLegislativas.aspx

11. Proposta de Lei 40/VIII, DAR II série A No.59/VIII/1 2000.07.15 (1884–1891), and Projecto de Lei 251/IX, DAR II série A No.76/IX/1 2003.03.13 (3221–3222).

12. Projecto de Lei 388/VIII, DAR II série A No.38/VIII/2 2001.03.03 (1453–1456) and Projecto de Lei 324/IX, DAR II série A No.110/IX/1 2003.07.04 (4430–4432).

13. Projecto de Lei 224/X, DAR II série A No.93/X/1 2006.03.11 (25–26).

14. BE presented three bills, instead of one, because they preferred to dedicate one bill to each political layer (legislative, European, local), hence three. Projectos de Lei 221/X, 222/X, and 223/X, DAR II série A No.93/X/1 2006.03.11 (17–25).

15. All bills on the same matter (presented by the different parties) are first voted on general principles on the floor of the Plenary. Those which pass are then submitted to a discussion and put to a vote on the details (i.e. article by article), usually within the parliamentary committee responsible for the specific matter. That process originates a single document termed the ‘final text’ which is submitted to a final overall vote on the floor of the Plenary. If it passes, it starts being termed a ‘decree by the Assembly of the Republic’ and is sent to the President of the Republic for enactment.

16. In most national contexts the term gender quota is usually reserved for efforts to guarantee representation (on candidate lists or in elected assemblies) at some proportion less than 50 per cent, whereas ‘parity’ is usually reserved for efforts that promote a democratic principle providing for the equal presence of both genders in elected assemblies, or at least women and men's equal access to elective positions. This was not the case in Portugal. When we refer to the law as the ‘parity law’ we are using the name it was given in the Portuguese context.

17. Decreto 52/X DAR II série A No.111/X/1 2006.05.17. See note 15 for a brief description of the Portuguese common legislative procedure.

18. We discuss the President's role in the veto and then passage of the parity law in more detail below, in the section where we analyse the roles of state actors.

19. Decreto 72/X DAR II série A No.131/X/1 2006.07.22 (10–12).

20. Lei Orgânica 3/2006, DR I série No.160/X/1 2006.08.21.

21. Each municipality (concelho) is composed of a few or many communities (freguesias). Each one of these geographical divisions has its own political body and therefore also its own electoral list.

22. This information was provided by DGAI/MAI – Administração Eleitoral, by email.

23. From the 22 electoral districts that exist in Portugal, three elect only two MPs.

24. An earlier embryo of what would become the Portuguese Socialist Party, the ASP, was actually founded in November 1964 in Geneva.

25. In 1999, the internal quota system began being applied to the national party organs. In 2003, the internal quota system changed from 25 to 33 per cent minimum representation of each sex.

26. Between 1995 and 2005, the proportion of Socialist women elected grew an average of 23.3 per cent, while between 1976 and 1995 it had grown approximately 13 per cent.

27. I.e. it is not written into the party statutes.

28. The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, http://www.cses.org/ (accessed 10 September 2009).

29. The PCP consistently elected the highest percentage of women in all legislative elections, except in the 2005 and 2009 elections, when it was passed by the other leftist parties.

30. Two leaders, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (March 1996 to February 1999) and Durão Barroso (May 1999 to June 2004), particularly the latter, are associated with a period characterised by a greater level of concern with gender than either the previous period or the one directly following it.

31. In fact, some of the MPs interviewed were pro-quotas while others were against.

32. For a more nuanced analysis than space allows here, see Jimenez (2009).

33. The PS has been a full member of the Socialist International since 1973, one year after the organisation which eventually became the PS, the ASP, was admitted to the SI.

34. A similar law was instituted in France the same year.

35. This concept of a ‘parity democracy’ was launched by the Council of Europe in 1989, and both the PS and the BE have embraced it – at least in theory.

36. Namely, Proposta de Lei 40/VIII, DAR II série A No.59/VIII/1 2000.07.15 (1884–1891).