@article {221211,
	title = {Resolving the Democracy Paradox: Democratization and Women{\textquoteright}s Legislative Representation in Developing Nations, 1975-2009},
	journal = {American Sociological Review},
	volume = {77},
	number = {3},
	year = {2012},
	pages = {380-408},
	abstract = {Increasing levels of democratic freedoms should, in theory, improve women{\textquoteright}s access to political positions. Yet studies demonstrate that democracy does little to improve women{\textquoteright}s legislative representation. To resolve this paradox, we investigate how variations in the democratization process{\textemdash}including pre-transition legacies, historical experiences with elections, the global context of transition, and post-transition democratic freedoms and quotas{\textemdash}affect women{\textquoteright}s representation in developing nations. We find that democratization{\textquoteright}s effect is curvilinear. Women in non-democratic regimes often have high levels of legislative representation but little real political power. When democratization occurs, women{\textquoteright}s representation initially drops, but with increasing democratic freedoms and additional elections, it increases again. The historical context of transition further moderates these effects. Prior to 1995, women{\textquoteright}s representation increased most rapidly in countries transitioning from civil strife{\textemdash}but only when accompanied by gender quotas. After 1995 and the Beijing Conference on Women, the effectiveness of quotas becomes more universal, with the exception of post- communist countries. In these nations, quotas continue to do little to improve women{\textquoteright}s representation. Our results, based on pooled time series analysis from 1975 to 2009, demonstrate that it is not democracy{\textemdash}as measured by a nation{\textquoteright}s level of democratic freedoms at a particular moment in time{\textemdash}but rather the democratization process that matters for women{\textquoteright}s legislative representation.},
	author = {Fallon, Kathleen M. and Liam Swiss and Viterna, Jocelyn}
}
