Women’s political participation in some of the Western Balkan countries

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Balkan countries in the course of the great regime transformation have articulated and introduced a number of democratic changes and institutions. Most of them also provided at least a formal legal framework for a fair and equal representation for all citizens in political process. Nevertheless, almost twenty years later, many countries are still facing the phenomenon of gender inequality both in society and economy and in the political sphere, particularly in the political representative bodies on various levels. The theme of this research consists of the analysis of social and systemic factors that affect women’s participation in political life. The purpose of this research is to analyze and compare the representation of women in the political representative bodies. This research is focused on the representation of women in political representative bodies, analyzing a wider Balkan region – Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Serbia. For purposes of this paper, was made a survey of citizens in Macedonia, which included questions that citizens have expressed their stance over gender equality, the quota system and the effectiveness of mechanisms for gender equality. Finally, I draw some conclusions and make some suggestions in order to encourage research and other activities related to gender policies.