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| The Politics of Representation in Pakistan |
| Farzana Bari* |
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| Since 2001 a gender quota of 33 per cent seats reserved for women at the
local government level and 17 per cent in the National Assembly, Provincial
Assemblies and in the Senate has been bringing a significant number of women in
the formal arena of politics in Pakistan. The contradictory reality of the
country’s weakening indicators vis-à-vis human and women’s development and an
increasing level of women’s representation in the formal political structures
has given rise to a new set of questions with regard to women’s descriptive and
substantive representation. The effectiveness of women’s representation is
often viewed as an isolated phenomenon, as a result of women’s own capacities
and capability. The paper will situate the issue of the effectiveness of women
legislators in terms of representing women’s concerns and interests in
legislation, policy and programme within the larger context of political
processes and power relationships. I will examine the following to delineate
the impact on women’s ability (or inability) to effectively perform their roles
as public representatives: the nature of the state; gendered citizenship; state
of democracy; masculine nature of political parties and the parliament; and,
the connection and disconnection with women’s movement. The paper will
summarize the debate on gender quota in politics and will draw on Giddens’s
theory of structuration to scrutinize the tensions between structures and
agency as they impact upon women’s legislator role in politics.
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Dr. Farzana Bari is a human rights activist and university professor at
the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad, Pakistan. She heads the Gender
Studies Department at the QAU.
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