Electoral gender quotas systems and their implementation in Europe

Case studyThe United Kingdom: political parties and quota reformMona Lena Krook1. Overview and summaryCampaigns for gender quotas in the United Kingdom go back more than 20 years. In the light ofthe FPTP electoral system, quota strategies have focused on the composition of candidateshortlists, the final lists of candidates being considered in each single-member electoral district. In1993, the Labour Party adopted the most controversial of these policies in the form of all-womenshortlists (AWS), which required certain districts to consider shortlists consisting entirely ofwomen. When an industrial tribunal declared this policy illegal in 1996, activists devised other quotastrategies, known as ‘twinning’ and ‘zipping’, in the run-up to elections for the new devolvedassemblies in Scotland and Wales in the late 1990s. In 2002, the Sex Discrimination Act wasamended and AWS were reintroduced.2. Historical background and gender quota debatesThe policies of all-women shortlists, twinning and zipping grew out of earlier efforts to get partiesto select more female candidates. The first party to pass a measure was the Social Democratic Party.In 1981, its party congress approved a resolution that at least one woman be included on everycandidate shortlist. This was then increased to at least two women per shortlist in the run-up toelections in 1983. Two years later, the Liberal Party passed a similar resolution that at least onewoman be included on every candidate shortlist. When the two parties merged to form the LiberalDemocrats in 1988, they agreed to retain the policy of at least one woman per shortlist.The Labour Party first established a goal to nominate more female candidates in 1987, when itdecided that in electoral districts where women’s names had been suggested, at least one womanhad to be included on the shortlist. In 1989, the party conference approved Composite 54,accepting that quotas were the only way to ensure equal representation at all levels of the party. Yet,despite support for quotas for internal party positions, delegates strongly opposed the use of quotasfor the selection of candidates to Parliament (Russell 2003). In contrast, the Conservative Party didnot consider any proposals to nominate more female candidates during this period. At a moreinformal level, the party nonetheless sought to include at least 10 per cent women on its approvedlist of candidates.Around this time, Labour women learned about gender quotas in other socialist and socialdemocratic parties across Europe (Short 1996). They distributed a pamphlet at the party conferencein 1990, stressing the need for AWS for the selection of candidates to Parliament. In response, theconference agreed to a 40 per cent quota for women in positions inside the party and a target of50 per cent women among the party’s MPs within ten years or three general elections. Although theparty leadership urged local parties to adopt AWS, most parties had already selected theircandidates, and thus only one AWS was considered before the 1992 elections (Eagle andLovenduski 1998). While the party did nominate more women, most of them were placed inunwinnable seats (Russell 2003: 69).After the party’s loss to the Conservatives, research suggested that a means of expanding supportamong female voters was to nominate more female candidates. Women inside the party stressed110