Who benefits from gender quotas? Assessing the impact of election procedure reform on Members of Parliament’s attributes in Uganda

Abstract

Employing a before-and-after comparison, this article exploits a reform of the Ugandan quota law to test if a change in election procedures affects the types of women elected through quotas. In Uganda, a change from indirect to direct elections was anticipated to bring in women who were more representative of female citizens at large and less loyal to the sitting regime. Using original data from 1296 biographies of Ugandan legislators spanning four mandate periods (1996–2016), this study shows that women elected before and after the 2006 reform are similar in most regards. Yet, compared with the indirectly elected women, women elected by universal suffrage in 2006 have higher levels of education and are less likely to report an interest in women’s issues. Comparisons with non-quota representatives suggest, however, that these trends are not due to the change to direct elections, but rather the effect of something that influences all legislators in a similar manner.