Gender quotas in Indonesia: Re-examining the role of international NGOs

Abstract

Women’s political representation in Indonesia has been rather limited and has fluctuated since independence in 1945. In a hope to improve this situation, a legislated gender quota of 30 percent for candidates in Indonesia was first implemented in the 2004 elections. In this paper, we strive to answer the question of what is the role of international NGOs in helping the process of the provision of candidate gender quotas in Indonesia. By analysing literature on the importance of gender quotas from theoretical perspectives, examples on the implementation of quotas of other countries, role of NGO in democracy as well as in women political representation, and interviews with six participants from two Indonesian NGOs and two International NGOs, who were directly involved in the process of endorsing gender quotas, we found that the influence of international NGOs has been significant and yet indirect as the pursuit of affirmative action policy is only part of the bigger project in promoting gender equality.