Substantive Representation of Women in Asian Parliaments

Combining data from nearly 100 interviews with national parliamentarians from ten Asian countries, the contributors to this book analyze and evaluate the advancement of gender equality in Asia.
As of the year 2022, no country in Asia has gender parity in its parliament. Meanwhile, the proportion of national-level women parliamentarians in Asia averages a mere 20%. What is more important than simple descriptive representation, however, is whether outcomes for women are improving. Rather than focusing on numerical representation, the chapters in this book focus on the substantive representation of women. In other words, what do women and men parliamentarians do to advance women's well-being and gender equality? Using semi-structured interviews, the author of each chapter examines these efforts in the context of a specific Asian country. The case studies include Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Timor-Leste.
The book is an essential resource for scholars and students of Asian politics and the politics of gender.

Devin K. Joshi is Associate Professor of Political Science at Singapore Management University. He earned his BA at Stanford University and PhD from the University of Washington, and was formerly a Deutsche Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellow at the Free University of Berlin. His research interests include Asian parliaments, women's political representation, globalization, and human development. He is the co-author of the book Strengthening Governance Globally (Paradigm/Oxford University Press) and has written over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles. His recent articles have appeared in International Studies Quarterly; Journal of Contemporary Asia; Politics & Gender; and Women's Studies International Forum.
Christian Echle is Director of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung's (KAS) Regional Programme, Political Dialogue Asia, based in Singapore, since June 2017. He was responsible for the foundation's regional media program in Sub-Saharan Africa, which was based in Johannesburg, from 2012 to 2017. Before that, he served as an online editor and social media expert at KAS headquarters in Berlin from 2007 to 2012. He is a journalist by training and has worked for several newspapers and radio stations in the South of Germany between 1999 and 2007. During this time, he received a KAS scholarship for young journalists.