The Inclusion of Excluded Majorities in South Asian Parliaments: Women, Youth, and the Working Class
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: This article provides a new perspective on parliamentary representation in South Asia, focusing on the collective under-representation of population majorities based on the macro-demographic categories of age, class, and gender. Situating this analysis within debates on descriptive representation, it presents the first comparative analysis of the contemporary demographic characteristics of members of parliament (MPs) in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Highlighting three major gaps in parliamentary representation, it finds quotas, proportional representation electoral systems, and leftist parties to have positively impacted the descriptive representation of South Asian women, the working class, and young adults.
Author: Devin K Joshi
Institution: University of Denver
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1967503255