Electoral gender quotas systems and their implementation in Europe

differences across the political parties: Labour elected 28 per cent women, the Liberal Democrats16 per cent and the Conservatives 9 per cent (Childs, Lovenduski and Campbell 2005: 19).In the 2007 elections to the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales, women’srepresentation declined slightly. In Scotland, the proportion of women fell from 39 per cent to34 per cent. Interestingly, all parties elected a higher percentage of women than they had in 2003(Scottish Parliament 2007a; Scottish Parliament 2007b). However, the distribution of these seatsshifted in significant ways, with the SNP – a party that elected only 28 per cent women – gaining20 seats, while Labour – which had the highest proportion of women elected, 50 per cent – lostfour. Similar patterns prevailed in Wales, as women’s representation dropped from 50 per cent to47 per cent, at the same time as Labour lost three seats and Plaid Cymru and the Conservativesgained three seats and one seat, respectively. While both Labour and Plaid Cymru elected fewerwomen than before, moving from 63 per cent to 62 per cent and 50 per cent to 47 per cent, themost significant drop was among Conservatives, from 18 per cent to 8 per cent (National Assemblyfor Wales 2007).5. ConclusionsDebates over gender quotas thus have a complicated history in the UK, stemming in part from thestructure of its electoral system organised around single-member districts. Recent developmentsindicate ongoing efforts to promote women’s representation, even in parties that have beenresistant to positive action strategies. However, they also suggest that the numbers of womenelected to various political bodies are subject to changing electoral fortunes, as parties on oppositesides of quota debates win or lose in relation to their opponents. The main difficulty seems to bethe permissive nature of the reforms made to the SDA, which enable parties to decide to apply ornot apply quotas, leading to mixed results across the parties in terms of the increased election ofwomen.ReferencesBochel, Catherine and Bochel, Hugh, ‘Women “Leaders” in Local Government in the UK’, 2008,Parliamentary Affairs online early access, doi:10.1093/pa/gsn010Bradbury, Jonathan, Denver, David, Mitchell, James and Bennie, Lynn, ‘Devolution and PartyChange: Candidate Selection for the 1999 Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly Elections’,Journal of Legislative Studies, 6/3 (2000), pp. 51–72Brown, Alice et al., ‘Women and Constitutional Change in Scotland and Northern Ireland’, inKaren Ross (ed.), Women, Politics, and Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002),pp. 71–84Campbell, Rosie, Childs, Sarah and Lovenduski, Joni, ‘Women’s Equality Guarantees and theConservative Party’, Political Quarterly, 77/1 (2006), pp. 18–27Childs, Sarah, ‘Concepts of Representation and the Passage of the Sex Discrimination (ElectionCandidates) Bill’, Journal of Legislative Studies, 8/3 (2002), pp. 90–108Childs, Sarah, New Labour Women MPs: Women Representing Women (London: Routledge, 2004)Childs, Sarah, Lovenduski, Joni and Campbell, Rosie, Women at the Top: Changing Numbers, ChangingPolitics? (London: Hansard Society, 2005)Eagle, Maria and Lovenduski, Joni, High Time or High Tide for Labour Women? (London: FabianSociety, 1998)Lovenduski, Joni, ‘Gender Politics: A Breakthrough for Women?’, Parliamentary Affairs, 50/4 (1997),pp. 708–19National Assembly for Wales, ‘Assembly Member Profiles’, 2007,116