The effect of increased women's representation in parliament: The case of Rwanda

There is an increasing amount of work on whether a higher level of women's representation in parliament leads to a different style of parliamentary politics. To date, most studies have focused on Western cases, and the results have been mixed. Women add new dimensions to the policy agenda, but there is little evidence that increased women's representation changes policy outputs. The little work that has been conducted outside the Western context confirms the mixed nature of these findings. In sub-Saharan Africa, women have added issues such as HIV/AIDS and property rights to the policy agenda, but there is little evidence to suggest that increased women's representation has altered policy outcomes. In this article, we examine the case of Rwanda, which now has the highest level of women's representation in parliament in the world at 48.75 per cent. Based on face-to-face interviews with women representatives in the Rwandan parliament, we confirm that the Western-based work has validity in a developing world context. In Rwanda, women representatives considered themselves to have a greater concern with grassroots politics, although there was also some divergence of views on the matter; there has been no change in the working hours or calendar of parliament. In terms of the policy agenda, women's issues are now raised more easily and more often than before, and there has been a strong advocacy of 'international feminism' by many deputies. However, increased women's representation has had little effect on policy outputs.