Féminisation des parlements, quotas et transformation de la représentation en Inde et au Pakistan

• Published in: Critique internationale (Paris. 1998) no. 55; pp. 137 - 158
• Main Author: Dutoya, Virginie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: French
• Published: Presses de Sciences Po 01-04-2012
• Subjects: varia
• ISSN: 1290-7839; 1777-554X

In India and Pakistan, the political representation of women is today presented as a democratic imperative. In 2002, Pakistan (re)established quotas for women in Parliament. In India, quotas only exist at the local level, though there is a project to extend them to the parliamentary level. This development has led to a change of parliamentary lineup and has encouraged the spread of a model according to which representation should "mirror" the population. Omnipresent discussions of the place of women in politics and sexist views of the division of political labor have led politicians to strongly promote the "representation of women". Yet it is only in Pakistan, where quota mechanisms exist, that women have taken on new parliamentary roles. Confronted by the "threat" of feminization and an erosion of "masculism" in politics, men in both countries have recognized the legitimacy of women's representation even as they reaffirm traditional models of representation and seek to indirectly discredit female representatives.