Women’s Entrance, Trajectories and Access to the Legislative – A Comparison between Brazil and Argentina

Abstract

This paper presents some results of the research Ten years of quotas in Brazil – evaluating the effectiveness of the short path to women’s access to the legislative. One of the items of the research consisted in the analysis of the relationship between the trajectories of the individuals, the form and the reasons for participating in politics, the role of political parties as mediators of these paths, the way that these aspects are transformed into political capital, and how these trajectories relate to the chances offered by the inclusion of quotas as a specific law. Argentina is taken as a positive counterpoint to the Brazilian case, given the fact that their experience has been considered paradigmatic. Among the results presented, the differences between the types of trajectories and political capital that are strategic, concerning the women from each country, are highlighted; and new forms of capital arising as important to the election. This situation seems to emerge as a result of a second moment of the process of democracy institutionalization in both countries.