Date : 2024-09-10

Wednesday Gender Seminar

When Socialist Legacy Meets International Norms: Gender Quota Adoption and Institutional Change in China

Date: September 25, 2024

Time: 12:30 – 2:00 pm HK Time

Speaker: Dr. JIANG Xinhui (Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Nanjing University)

Moderator: Prof. SONG Jing (Associate Professor, Gender Studies Programme, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Venue: Online only (Zoom link to be provided after registration)

Abstract:

Gender quotas have a long history in China, with the earliest gender quota introduced in 1933 in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s border regions. Yet, research on China’s gender quotas has been scarce. This study addresses the gap by examining the process of gender quota adoption in China’s subnational Party-States and the People’s Congresses. Using an institutional approach, we argue that quota adoption in China was a process of “institutional layering” that lasted from the late 1980s to the 2010s, during which domestic actors contested the CCP’s existing personnel rules and strategically exploited the CCP’s ideological commitment to gender equity and its need for an improved international image during the second wave of global gender quota adoption. During the process, we see two changes: the slow diversification of domestic actors, including both state and non-state ones, and the shifting of the actors’ working strategy from an informal and network-based approach to an institutionalized one that operated through formal channels. In so doing, this article expands the comparative literature on gender quotas, which has been preoccupied with quotas in elected parliaments, and enriches understanding of Chinese politics.

Speaker’s Biography:

Xinhui Jiang is Assistant Professor at Nanjing University, China and her research examines gender and politics, local elections, and representation in China. Her work has appeared on Government and Opposition, The China Quarterly, Regional Studies, and Politics & Gender, among others, and she is the winner of the 2016 Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics. She holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Delaware, US. Before joining Nanjing University, she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Freie University Berlin, Germany.

Registration: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13694182