2015 Jill Vickers Prize

Jun 3, 2015 | Jill Vickers Prize

Winner: Karen Bird

2014 CPSA conference paper – Challenges to Intersectional Inclusion: Institutional Dynamics of Ethnic Quotas and their Impact on Ethnic Minority Women

Photo: Karen Bird holding the plaque for the 2015 Jill Vickers Prize. CPSA President’s Dinner – June 3, 2015 – Roof Top Terrace at National Arts Centre, Ottawa.

Excerpt from jury report: Karen Bird’s paper makes a rich and original contribution by bringing together two significant areas of inquiry: ethnic and gender quotas in electoral and representational politics and feminist institutionalist theory. The paper is cogently written, convincingly argued, and ambitious in its methodology, containing an impressive comparative case study of 18 countries where ‘dual’ quotas (gender and race/ethnicity) are in effect. Bird argues that “we need to pay closer attention to intersectionality in the domain of electoral quotas for enhanced political representation of women and ethnic groups.” Her analysis raises questions about the utility of quotas alone to improve the representation of women’s diversity in a variety of contexts, and helps push the quota literature in new and intersectional ways. The study of women, gender and politics is enriched by the paper’s ground-breaking insights and its fertile directions for further research.