Contextualizing Quotas: The Political Systems of Germany and Austria

In this chapter, we outline the main political system features of Germany and Austria and explore their impact on gender equality and quota implementation on national and Lander levels. In both countries, the multi-party system invites the contagion of gender equality measures from the political left to the center. German party federalism allowed women’s activists to push for the institutionalization of women’s policy agencies and for quotas from their Land-level bases. Austrian party federalism, in contrast, exhibited corporatist, informal, and consensual decision-making on the national level that in turn stifled subnational equality activism. Delineating the origins of quota policies within respective political systems allows us to understand where and how these policies gained visibility and recognition over time.