5
These three institutional variables—placement mandates, closed-list PR and
district magnitude—account for much of the variation in quota law effectiveness, but
other factors not considered by the literature can also be significant. Enforcement
mechanisms stipulated by quota laws may shape effectiveness as much as placement
mandates or electoral rules. One case that illustrates the significance of enforcement
mechanisms is France, whose parity law requires women to constitute half of all
candidates for national and local elections. At the national level, candidates run in single-
member districts, where the small district magnitude should minimize the impact of a
quota law. But parties also face a financial penalty if they fail to comply: if the
difference between the percentage of male and female candidates in a party surpasses 2%,
that party must give up a percentage of its state-funded campaign funding. In France’s
2002 parliamentary elections, the smaller parties readily complied with the law because
they could not afford the fine, but the larger, more successful parties willingly paid rather
than comply. As a result, the percentage of women elected rose only 1.3 percentage
points, from 10.9% in 1997 to 12.2% in 2002. France has 577 single-member
districts—but small district magnitude does not explain the difference between small and
large parties. The French case suggests that the limited impact of the parity law resulted
from a weak enforcement mechanism that failed to compel the larger, more competitive
parties to comply.
Htun and Jones (2002) point to “good faith compliance by political parties” as a
key factor in determining quota effectiveness. Even with a strict placement mandate and
the most propitious set of electoral rules, a quota law will not increase the number of
women who win if the parties simply ignore it. What factors can make parties comply
Convention