ELECTORAL SYSTEM EFFECTS ON WOMENS REPRESENTATION - THEORETICAL ARGUMENTS AND EVIDENCE FROM COSTA-RICA

This study considers the effects of electoral system structure on wome n's representation in national legislatures. Research done in Western Europe finds women's representation is positively affected by party ma gnitude; tests for similar effects in Costa Rica are done and confirm this hypothesis. The effects of electoral thresholds are also consider ed. The Costa Rican electoral threshold increases disproportionality a nd enhances the likelihood of producing parliamentary majorities, as e xpected. Moving beyond these traditional findings, the threshold also has a positive effect on the descriptive representativeness of the leg islature by increasing party magnitudes and thereby increasing the rep resentation of women. The study ends by suggesting the electoral studi es field needs to expand its evaluation criteria to not only consider representativeness in terms of reflecting party support, but also cons ider representativeness in terms of accurately mirroring society at la rge, that is, descriptive representation.