Women’s Representation and Implications for Fairness, Trust, and Performance in Local Government: A Survey Experiment in Sri Lanka

• Author: Hasan Muhammad Baniamin,Ishtiaq Jamil
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211009300
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211009300

Political Research Quarterly

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129211009300

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Introduction

Gender mainstreaming, that is, institutionalizing gender

equality in politics and administration has grabbed atten-

tion in recent years (Jamil et al. 2020; Phumessawatdi

2020). The main aim of this current wave of gender main-

streaming is to include women as they are underrepre-

sented in different political and administrative institutions

in different countries. The demand to increase women’s

representation at both the central and the local govern-

ment level has led to affirmative policies being formu-

lated in developed countries as well as in the Global

South. One of such key elements of affirmative policy is

to introduce gender quota. The quota indicates the mini-

mum amount of representation set for women in the insti-

tution or legislature (Clark 2015). Many developing

countries favor this quota much more than the consoli-

dated and advanced industrial democracies of Western

Europe (Bush 2011). The expectation undergirding gen-

der quotas is that the level of women’s participation will

extend beyond the elite level and empower women to the

point where they break free from their age-old subordi-

nate position in national life and become politically

involved (Zetterberg 2009).

A gender quota initially helps to increase women’s

descriptive representation by increasing the number of

women in politics and administration. This increased

number of female leaders and their activities may inspire

women to become more politically involved. The provi-

sion of quota may also lead to substantive representation

if female leaders started to articulate the demands and the

interests of women in policy processes. If gender quota

can inspire people or/and create expectations for true

(substantive) representations, then it will also result in

increasing citizens’ perception of fairness in governance

and can enhance their institutional trust. Nevertheless, in

a patriarchal society, the opposite scenario could also

emerge since people may evaluate a gender quota nega-

tively due to socially constructed gender norms. The

places where there are no such gender norms, they may

1009300PRQXXX10.1177/10659129211009300Political Research QuarterlyBaniamin and Jamil

research-article2021

1North South University, Bangladesh

2University of Bergen, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Hasan Muhammad Baniamin, Department of Political Science and

Sociology & South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance (SIPG),

North South University, Bashundhara, Dhaka 1229, Bangladesh.

Email: hasan.baniamin@northsouth.edu

Women’s Representation and Implications

for Fairness, Trust, and Performance in

Local Government: A Survey Experiment

in Sri Lanka

Hasan Muhammad Baniamin1 and Ishtiaq Jamil2

Abstract

How do quotas for women in Sri Lanka’s local government institutions affect key governance indicators such as

perceived fairness, institutional trust, and perceived performance? These dimensions of governance are underexplored

in the context of gender quota policies in patriarchal societies like that of Sri Lanka. The study hypothetically varied

the quota provision for women (decrease to 10%, increase to 45%, or keep at the current 25%) in local government,

and then tried to understand people’s opinions about the three governance indicators. When examining the results

of the experiment (around 1,200 samples), it was found that perceived fairness, institutional trust, and perceived

performance increased along with the greater quota provision. Possible mechanisms for the increases in institutional

trust and perceived performance may be associated with the signal of fairness generated by the increase of quota

provision for women.

Keywords

gender quota, representation, performance, Sri Lanka, survey experiment, trust

2022, Vol. 75(4) 1229–1239

Article