Description
Women’s meaningful participation in peacebuilding and their representation in leadership positions are associated with the success of peace processes. Hence, reserved seats for women, often known as gender quotas, are adopted to increase women’s participation in postconflict countries. Evidence shows that countries with gender quotas have 25.6% more women in politics on average than countries without quota provisions, and postconflict countries have achieved rapid progress in improving women’s participation in politics. Despite the increasing number of women in postconflict politics, the question of “representation” seems to be central to the gender and quota debate. The current debate on women’s representation is mainly divided into two categories: ‘descriptive representation’ and ‘substantive representation’. Although these overly simplified binary categories may have made it easier to understand the very complex, dynamic and unique experiences of women representatives in a black and white fashion, this divide is problematic in many ways. In this paper, I am interested in exploring the effectiveness of gender quotas and the question of representation through the lives and lived experiences of women politicians in Nepal. In doing this I pay close attention to innovative and dynamic networks and connections between women inside and outside the government and examine what these tell us about the representativeness of women politicians in Nepal.
