Réjane Sénac-Slawinski apprehends parity as an object that questions political and societal order as a whole-which, in other words, acutely scrutinizes the question of power.
The adoption of the law on parity of June 6, 2000 by the French Parliament has caused a lot of ink and has earned France the international reputation to be a pioneer in the promotion of equality between women and men in politics. This law introduced the principle of balanced (joint) representation between women and men at the level of applications for the main elections in France, including legislative elections. In application since 2001, it has had contrasting effects.
In his work “ Parity “, Réjane Sénac-Slawinski returns to this famous law-its history, the circumstances of its adoption, its effects-while situating it in relation to the international context. The work is divided into two parts: the first is dedicated to the “ Geopolitics of the joint claim And places this law in relation to the evolution of the question of equality on the inter and transnational levels. The author first exhibits (chap. I) in a synthetic and well -documented way the many initiatives taken by theUN In favor of the promotion of gender equality in the 1950s, as well as those of the Council of Europe which actively engaged in the promotion of equality in 1979, and finally the actions of the European community (then Union) which followed by the step from the early 1990s. It then proposed (chap. II) A “ Panorama of the strategies implemented worldwide to compensate for the under-representation of women in politics ». This presents quota policies which, between the early 1990s and today, have quickly spread around the world and which are currently the most effective means for a strategy of “ fast track “(Fast route) to gender equality in politics. The chapter presents in turn the three most important quotas types: legal quotas (generally candidates’ quotas) ; Reserved seats ; And the partisan quotas, adopted by political parties on a voluntary basis. Each of these three types of quotas is illustrated by several well -chosen exemplary cases. Thus, we obtain an instructive panorama of the methods of applying quotas in contexts as diverse as Belgium, Argentina, Mexico, India, Pakistan, Scandinavian countries, Germany, Russia or the United Kingdom. Compared to the information given in the book, the situation in Portugal and Spain has evolved: the two countries have in the meantime adopted (3) on the international dissemination of quotas, work of a certain interest in who would like to deepen its knowledge of the world of quotas.
The second part of the book is devoted to the law on parity in France. It deals first (chap. I) of its history, starting with the first partisan quotas introduced by the Socialist Party in the 1970s, then the adoption, by the Parliament, of a quota law for the municipal elections in 1982. This law was then declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Council on the basis of the principle of indivisibility of the electoral body, and it is against this important decision that claim “ joint », Applicating equal access by women to political power. This was based on a logic that wanted to be different from quotas in the sense that it was anchored not in an idea of promoting a group or a category of discriminated people-typical of quotas-but in a more universalist vision. Indeed, in the logic of parity, it was “ widen “Republican universalism so as to” sexuer The principle of abstract equality between citizens who is the foundation. This chapter returns to the mobilization-associative, partisan, media-around the principle of parity and presents the main controversies which it generated beyond the left-right divide: that of whether parity was a salutary reformulation or on the contrary a dangerous subversion of republican universalism ; If parity was really a measure of inclusion of women or on the contrary a doubtful biologization of policy opening the door to new exclusions ; If yes or not the application of the principle of parity to electoral candidacies would potentially lead to a “ communitarianism ».
The next chapter (chap. II Second part) exhibits the debates around the law on parity proper, within the institutional arena. He first focuses on the 1999 constitutional reform creating the basis for the law on parity, which gave rise to heated debates in principle between the Senate and the Assembly in particular on the question of the need for constitutional reform and on the exact formulation of the principle of parity: the question of whether the Constitution must “ ensure ” Or “ to favor Parity in access to political mandates. The chapter then exposes-perhaps somewhat bushy for uninitiated readers-all the legislative acts constituting “ there »Law known as parity: the initial law of June 6, 2000 which, in various forms, establishes the principle of gender parity at the level of candidates for the legislative, senatorial, municipal, regional and European elections, accompanied by sanction mechanisms for parties which would not respect the law. Also presented are significant subsequent amendments (2003, 2006, 2007). Finally, the chapter presents and comments on the effects of the law so far. The latter were more important at the regional, municipal and senatorial levels, but lower at the level of the legislative elections. The author shows that these results are directly attributable to the methods of applying the law and that these do not seriously share the main “ bastions »From virile power.
Finally, the last chapter of the work (chap. III), addresses the links between parity in politics and the sexual/gendered order. The author proposes to apprehend the debates related to parity in politics as part of a reconfiguration of the links uniting the political system to society, through a redefinition of the rules of the sharing of power, republicanism, as well as links between the public and the private and between equality and difference. Rightly, she places French parity as an issue societal affecting the conceptual articulations which found the political institutions of representative democracy. This perspective draws attention to the importance of discourse as a place of negotiation of standards and categories that structure political space and legitimately legitimately democracy. It puts the finger on the strategic field that any renegotiation of conceptual boundaries as important as those between biological, social and politics, public and private, men and women, equality and difference.
The structure chosen gives this small work a remarkable clarity and wealth, at the same time that it also marks an interesting conceptual ambiguity concerning the link between parity and quotas. On the one hand, the author places parity in the continuity of quota policies (first part). It thus breaks to a certain extent with the dominant vision in France wanting parity to be fundamentally different from quotas, because philosophically founded in a universalist vision of representative democracy and not in an explicit logic of anti-discriminatory policy. But on the other hand, his analysis of parity in France (second part of the work) takes quite little distance from this dominant vision making the law on parity a “ exception ». Although his last chapter on the links between parity and sexual order gives him the analytical tools, the author does not really extract from the French context to understand how the debates on parity were special. The author evokes the importance of the decision of the Constitutional Council of 1982 but does not insist on the extent of the effect proper “ plumbing “That she worked on the debate concerning the place of women in politics, nor on the strong constraint that it imposed on the discursive field, forcing pro-players to resort to paradoxical argumentative maneuvers: it was necessary to make plausible thresholds of political representation at the level of electoral candidates are something other than a quota when this is the very definition of the quota ; It was necessary to defend ourselves of an anti-discriminatory aim when the only reason for being of such a law consists in a demonstrated necessity of having to resort to binding institutional mechanisms to counterbalance a discrimination ; It was necessary to pass the idea that universalism could be conceptually “ dual And sexual ; And finally it was necessary to reconcile an argument based on sex, through the argument of the “ diversity »Inherent and irreducible of humanity which would be the normative foundation of parity, while defending itself in falling into a biologizing essentialism with doubtful emancipatory potential.
In short, the exercise was perilous and the result is only coherent from the angle of political power, and not of philosophical logic. The question today is whether feminism really gains to want to maintain this interpretation of parity as “ exception “,” Revitalization of politics “,” ACCREATION OF UNIVERSALISM And expression of the gendered character of humanity, or if it would not have a better time to recognize that parity is a quota with its technical and normative specificities which, like any quota, can in all consistency aim at fighting discrimination, shake the foundations of structural inequalities, and therefore present an additional tool to make society more fair.
Anyway, in this work, we will find a clear and well documented presentation of the context of the implementation of parity, the technical aspects of the law and a certain number of issues that underlie it. With readers who are not familiar with parity and quota policies, this small work will serve as an accessible and readable start. To those who already know these questions, he offers an enlightening perspective and capable of fueling a more in -depth reflection. To these two categories of people, one could recommend to take this work as a starting point for a reflection which takes seriously the invitation of the author to apprehend parity as an object which questions the political and societal order as a whole – in clear which poses in an acute way the question of power, of its articulation through institutions, its effects on one (e) s and others, social projects that we want to combat or fight.