Suchergebnisse

The role of the international norms in domestic politics is a central question in international relations. This article examines the major international treaty on the human rights of women, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and its impact on Italian politics, specifically on domestic legislation, case law and civil society activism, and institutional structure. The research contributes to the general debate on international norms diffusion and implementation, and identifies the factors which enable states to comply with these norms.

In Italy, affirmative actions or gender quotas, especially in regard to political representation, began to be matters of public and political debate in 1995, when the Constitutional Court deemed illegitimate, and therefore annulled, the provisions of the 1993 electoral law introducing corrective systems for equal representation between men and women at national and regional level. Since then, the issue of ensuring equal access to elective offices has been constantly on the political agenda. The ongoing debate about the electoral reform for the Chamber of Deputies (named Italicum,) promoted by the President Renzi, may represent the last opportunity to introduce gender quotas for national elections. The paper aims to provide an historical overview of the Italian debate on gender quotas, by investigating the last two decades events and answering the following questions: what conditions and processes have facilitated the adoption of gender quotas? Are there areas in which it is (has been) easier to adopt gender quotas? What resistances – and raised by whom – have hindered their spread through policy field and levels of government? Why gender quotas are far from been considered a legitimate instrument for gender equality?