Gender Quotas and Women’s Political Participation in Slovenia and Croatia: When Similar Historical Developments and Homogeneity of Design Yield Different Outcomes

This 2018 paper summarises the literature on gender quotas as a pathway to women's political participation and assesses the effectiveness of different implementation approaches. It uses a cross-national comparison of Slovenia and Croatia, two countries with similar political, social and historical development but differing levels of women's political representation, combined with a review of prior literature. The paper concludes that women's movements maximise gender-quota effectiveness by appealing directly to voters and the public during election periods on issues such as gender equality, informal barriers to entry, and party "traditionalism", rather than relying on legislative or lobbying channels.