Where Is the Backlash? Quotas and Legitimacy in Age-Biased, Patriarchal Settings

• In Event: Perspectives on Gender and Identity

Abstract

When does the imposition of quotas that increase descriptive representation of marginalized groups in decision-making generate backlash in conservative societies? The existing literature suggests that imposing such quotas to increase the representation of women and youth may generate backlash. This backlash may be especially likely when quotas are imposed ‘from above’ on local communities by international actors or the state, and is expected to be larger for more ambitious quotas, which represent larger deviations from the societal norm. To investigate this, we use an embedded survey experiment fielded in five counties in pastoralist regions of Northern Kenya, an area widely considered to hold traditional patriarchal and age-biased norms. Our experiment varies the magnitude of gender and youth quotas for participatory committees, intending to induce variation in backlash, as measured by both legitimacy and expectation of performance. Surprisingly, we find the opposite effect. Higher magnitude quotas (resulting in highly diverse committees), compared to lower magnitude quotas (resulting in moderately diverse committees) were strongly perceived as preferable across a number of both normative measures (legitimacy and trustworthiness) and instrumental performance measures (decision quality and competence). We discuss the possible explanations for this counterintuitive finding, drawing on the debrief questions from our survey and the wider literature. We conclude that normative values are more complex than a binary ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ spectrum and argue that survey experiments, alongside other methods, provide an important complement to value surveys for unpacking when quotas and other normative interventions may produce backlash or enhance legitimacy.

Authors

• Kamran Lamin Hakiman, University of Pittsburgh

• Ryan M. Sheely, Mercy Corps