Substantive Representation of Women in Asian Parliaments

Front matter

SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN ASIAN PARLIAMENTS

“Analyzing an impressive array of countries, ‘Substantive Representation of Women in Asian Parliaments’ fills a considerable gap in the women in politics literature. With findings based on original interviews with leading political experts including parliamentarians, this collection goes beyond analyzing women’s numerical presence in legislative bodies to understanding how myriad factors shape women’s substantive representation. This book will be a vital resource for scholars and policymakers alike and anyone interested in advancing women’s policy representation in Asia and beyond.”

— Dr Farida Jalalzai, Professor of Political Science, Virginia Tech

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Contributors Preface Acknowledgements

PART II Cases from Southeast Asia

5 Substantive Representation of Women in Indonesia Ella S. Prihatini

6 Substantive Representation of Women in Malaysian Legislatures: Parliament (Dewan Rakyat) and State Assemblies Ummu Atiyah Ahmad Zakuan

7 Filipino Women’s Substantive Representation in Electoral Politics Jean Encinas-Franco

8 Timor-Leste: Substantive Representation of Women Parliamentarians and Gender Equality Sara Niner and Therese Thi Phuong Tam Nguyen

PART III Cases From South Asia

9 Women’s Substantive Representation in the Parliament of Bangladesh: Understanding Key Trends and Tensions Syeda Lasna Kabir

10 Substantive Representation of Women Parliamentarians and Gender Equality in Nepal Aashiyana Adhikari

11 Toward Advancing Substantive Representation of Women in Parliament: Case Study of Sri Lanka Ruwanthi_Jayasekara

PART IV Conclusion 12 Conclusion: Comparing Women’s Representation in Asian

Parliaments Devin K. Joshi

Index

FIGURES

3.1 4.1

5.1

5.2

5.3

6.1

6.2

6.3

7.1

7.2 8.1

Number of Seats by Party in the Korean National Assembly Gender Proportion of Legislative Committees in the First Half of 2021

Percentage of Women in Lower or Single House in Asia as of June 2021

Women’s Share in DPR and DPD From 1999 to 2019 Female Elected MPs by Party in 2014 and 2019

Gender Demographics in the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament and in the State Assemblies

List of Special Select Committees in the Fourteenth Dewan Rakyat (May 2018—February 2020)

List of Special Select Committees in the Fourteenth Dewan Rakyat (March 2020—Present)

Elected Members of the House of Representatives by Gender (2001-2019)

Elected Members of the Senate by Gender (2001—2019) Swearing in of the Eighth Constitutional Government of Timor-Leste, June 2018

141 142

TABLES

3:2 3.3

3.4

4.1

4.2

5.1

5.2.

5.3

5.4

5.5

5.6

Numbers and Percentages of Women and Men in Ten Asian Parliaments (2021)

Comparative Indicators of Ten Asian Countries (2019—2020) List of Interviewees’ Profiles

Number of Seats per Party in the Diet (as of 5 February 2021) Annual Sessions in the Diet (Japanese National Parliament) Number of Diet Committee Members, Total and Women

as of February 2021)

Number of Bills Proposed in the Korean National Assembly by Source (1988-2020)

Number of Male and Female MPs in South Korea (1988—2020) Characteristics of Interviewees and Membership on KNA

=

Standing Committees

Women Members in KNA Standing Committees (June 2021) Backgrounds of the Interviewees

Revisions of the Gender Equality Employment Act in Taiwan Number of Seats in DPR from 1999 to 2019 and Top Three ‘Winners

Distribution of Respondents by Sitting Period, Gender, Committee, and Party

DPR Complementary Councils: Membership, Tasks, and Women’s Share

Legislation Passed to Enhance the Well-Being of Women (1958-2019)

Committee Gender and Prestige Type, Seats, and Women’s Share as of April 2021

Characteristics of the National Population and Elected MPs in 2014

105 109

Tables xi

6.1 List of Interviewees (March—May 2021) 122 7.1 List of Interviewees 144 8.1 Permanent Committees in the National Parliament of Timor-Leste 162 8.2 Women MPs in the National Parliament of Timor-Leste 163 8.3 Backgrounds of Timor-Leste Interview Respondents 165 9.1 Women’s Representation in Bangladesh National Parliament (1973-2021) 187 9.2 Profile of Eight Interviewed MPs 192 10.1 Nepali MPs Interviewed in the Study (March—June 2021) 210 11.1 Backgrounds of Sri Lankan Interviewees 230 11.2 Women on Committees in Sri Lankan Parliament (2021) 235

11.3 Women on Ministerial Consultative Committees in Sri Lankan Parliament (2021) 236

CONTRIBUTORS

Editors

Christian Echle is Director of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s Regional Programme Political Dialogue Asia, based in Singapore, since June 2017. He was responsible for the foundation’s regional media program in Sub-Saharan Africa, based in Johannesburg, from 2012 to 2017. Before that, he served as an online editor and social media expert at the headquarters in Berlin, from 2007-2012. He is a journalist by training and has worked for several newspapers and radio stations in the South of Germany between 1999 and 2007. During this time, he received Konrad- Adenauer-Stiftung’s scholarship for young journalists.

Devin K. Joshi is Associate Professor of Political Science at Singapore Management University. He was previously Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He earned his BA at Stanford University and PhD from the University of Washington. He was formerly a Deutsche Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellow at the Free University of Berlin. His research interests include Asian parliaments, women’s political representation, globalization, and human development. He is the co-author of the book Strengthening Governance Globally (Paradigm/Oxford University Press) and has written over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles. His recent articles have appeared in International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Politics & Gender, and Women’s Studies International Forum.

East Asia

Mikiko Eto is Professor of Political Science, Emerita, at Hosei University. She earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of Stockholm. Her main

Contributors xiii subjects are gender in politics and feminist political studies. Her recent publications in English are Women and Political Inequality in Japan: Gender-Imbalanced Democracy (Routledge 2021) and “Reframing Civil Society from Gender Perspectives: A Model of a Multi-layered Seamless World” in Journal of Civil Society (2012). She was awarded the 2006 North-Eastern Political Science Association (NPSA) Women’s Caucus Prize for the Best Paper about Women/Gender titled “Women’s Political Activism and Democracy in Japan Seen from a Comparative Perspective.”

Chang-Ling Huang is Professor of Political Science at National Taiwan University. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago, and her research interests are women’s political representation and state feminism. Her works have appeared in various Chinese and English journals including Developing Economies, Politics & Gender, and Pacific Affairs, and she is a contributor to many edited volumes. She has authored chapters for handbooks like Routledge Handbook of Democratization in East Asia and The Palgrave Handbook of Women’s Political Rights. She is a recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award and Outstanding Social Service Award of National Taiwan University.

Ki-young Shin is Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies at Ochanomizu University. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Washington. Her research interests include women’s political representation, comparative women’s movements, #MeToo, and gender policies in East Asia. She has organized an East Asian Research Network on Gender and Diversity in Political Representation (WondeR) to conduct comparative research on women’s political representation in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Her research has been published in international journals such as International Political Science Review, Politics & Gender, and Pacific Affairs, as well as edited volumes including The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory (Oxford University Press), Gender and Power (Palgrave McMillan), and many Japanese and Korean books. Her research won the best paper award twice (Western Political Science Association and International Political Science Association).

Southeast Asia

Ummu Atiyah Ahmad Zakuan is Associate Professor of Political Science at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). She is currently Research Fellow at the Institute of Excellence for Islamic Jerusalem Studies (IEIJS), UUM. She received her PhD from the International Islamic University Malaysia (IUM), and her research interests are gender in politics, leadership, and security. She is the author of Women in the House Leadership in the Malaysian Parliament (ITUM Press 2019) and co-author of Hard Talks With Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on Malaysia: on Politics, Economy and Society (Air Langga University Press 2020). She co-authored a chapter in Civil Society Organizations Against Terrorism: Case Studies From Asia xiv Contributors

(Routledge 2021) and Gender Economics: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice (IGI Global 2019). Her published articles include “Radicalization of Malaysian Women in ISIS: Profiling, Causes and Roles” (JATI- Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2018). She is a winner of the National Book Award 2020-2021 for Best Political Science Book Category for Women in the House Leadership in the Malaysian Parliament.

Jean Encinas-Franco is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines, Diliman. Her research covers women, gender, and politics, particularly concerning labor out-migration and women’s rights on which she has published multiple journal articles and book chapters. Previously, she worked for 15 years in the economic planning and policy division of the Senate, the Philippine’s upper house. She obtained her PhD from the University of the Philippines and has recently edited a book titled Looking Back, Moving Forward: Philippine Migration Issues, Policies, and Narratives containing the work of migration scholars from the Philippines.

Therese Thi Phuong Tam Nguyen heads the Community Development Department at the National University in Timor-Leste (UNTL). She is currently collaborating with Sara Niner on research relating to women’s role in agriculture in Timor-Leste, and a new program of research relating to local conceptions of social justice and gender equality in Timor-Leste that were recently presented at two international conferences. She has undertaken consultancies and program work with UN Women, Australian Aid, the RDTL Secretary of State for Employment and Vocational Training, and ILO, amongst others.

Sara Niner is an interdisciplinary researcher and lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. She is an expert in the field of gender and international development with a particular interest in those issues in the post-conflict environment of Timor-Leste, and has widely published in this field. As a regional gender expert, she has analyzed and reported on gender issues in Southeast Asia for local and international development agencies such as UNDP, UN Women, Oxfam, and International Women’s Development Agency. Prior to becoming a critical development scholar, she spent a decade working with the East Timorese diaspora in Australia, followed by many years of working and researching in Timor-Leste, after the nation became independent post-1999. She has disseminated research findings internationally in high-quality academic journals. She has edited Women and the Politics of Gender in Post-Conflict Timor- Leste (Routledge, Women in Asia Series, 2018) and Td Resist Is to Win: The Autobiography of Xanana Gusmão With Selected Letters and Speeches (Aurora Books 2000) and has authored Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste (Australian Scholarly Publishing: Melbourne 2009), translated into Portuguese as Xanana: Lider da luta pela independência de Timor-Leste (Don Quixote Publishing: Lisbon 2011).

Contributors xv

Ella S. Prihatini is Lecturer in International Relations at Bina Nusantara (BINUS) University, Jakarta, Indonesia. She graduated from the University of Western Australia with a PhD thesis investigating women’s parliamentary representation in Indonesia. She holds a BA degree in International Relations from University of Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta and a Master of Development Practice from University of Queensland, Brisbane. Her research focuses on women’s political participation, gender studies in Asia, young voters, and social media usage in Indonesia. She has published her works in Politics & Gender, Parliamentary Affairs, Contemporary Politics, and Women’s Studies International Forum. In September 2019, she was listed by the Australian as one of Australia’s Top 40 researchers who are less than ten years into their careers.

South Asia

Aashiyana Adhikari is Research Associate at the Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS), a premier Nepali think tank. She oversees regional seminars and conferences organized by CSAS and edits its publications. She completed her postgraduate degree in gender and development studies from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok. Her research interests include politics of inclusivity and regionalism, gender and development. Her writings have appeared in various international newspapers including The Diplomat and Geopolitics. In 2020, she authored a chapter in the KAS-Japan publication Digitalization, Tiade and Geopolitics in Asia. She also authored a chapter in the KAS-RECAP and COSATT publication, Water Security, Pandemic and Climate Change: Incorporating Public Health into Future Water Policy, and her recent chapter was included in the book Nepal’s Foreign Policy and the United Nations published by the UN Association of Nepal.

Ruwanthi Jayasekara is an honorary Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS). She received her BA from the University of Colombo and is currently reading a postgraduate diploma from the Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute (BIDTI). Her research interests include environment, sustainability, and national security. Her works have appeared in Defense Review 2020 and in publications by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. She is a Kautilya Fellow at India Foundation and a recipient of the Best Young Leader award at AIESEC in 2017 and was awarded “Best Position Paper” at National Youth Model United Nations in 2016.

Syeda Lasna Kabir is Professor of Public Administration at the Department of Public Administration, University of Dhaka. She has more than 25 years of undergraduate and postgraduate level university teaching experience in China, India, Bangladesh, and the UK. Her areas of academic and research interest include women’s political and administrative participation in South Asia, civil service training, e-governance, administrative culture, migration policies, comparative public administration, organizational behavior, and leadership. She has published three xvi Contributors books, four book chapters from reputed international publishing houses such as Springer, Palgrave Macmillan and more than 17 scientific research papers in international and national peer-reviewed journals in the fields of women’s participation in civil service, political representation, quota system, leadership, training, innovation, and organizational change. She is one of the editors of South Asian Journal of Policy and Governance (SJPG). She is also working as a national-level policy expert (gender sensitivity and human rights) for public organizations in Bangladesh, such as Bangladesh Police and National Security Intelligence (NSD.