Ideas, Legacies and Political Strategies in Candidate Selection Rules Reform: The Pioneering Quota Law in Argentina

Abstract

This article examines the invention of the women’s quota law in Argentina (the first to be passed in the world), with the aim of interpreting how a piece of legislation that installed gender equity measures in the candidate nomination process, but challenged the interests of actors who had veto power, managed to get through and become part of the rules that are taken for granted. The main argument is that the creation of the women’s quota was a response to a virtuous combination of ideas, legacies and political strategies promoted by women in political parties and the State, who managed to muster critical support for this electoral reform. Their success can be understood as the result of a configuration of conditions, rather than considering the ideas, traditions and strategies separately. In analytical terms, I propose a conceptualization of institutions that acknowledges their dual nature, as operative rules that shape political behaviour and normative agreements imbued with ideas that afford them legitimacy.