Approaches to political gender equality in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract: How can the low representation of women in politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina be understood and what can a different approach add to already existing approaches to make Bosnia-Herzegovina more gender equal in terms of political representation of the genders? There has been established a Gender Equality Law that demands a 40% gender quota of political representation, but the gender representation has only reached a number of 26% at most. It can fairly be claimed that the top-down approach itself is deficient in this area based on the amount of laws and regulating documents that have been determined by the state to improve the gender inequality issue. That is why I am going to try to understand the underrepresentation using a bottom-up approach. I am going to have an anthropological feminism perspective during this research, which will help me clarify the importance of gender symmetry and that the issue has to be approached from the bottom and up. In this single case study I am going to combine theories with the aim to understand the underrepresentation of women in Bosnia-Herzegovina. My primary material consists of interviews, reports and documents from EU, UN, NGOs and governments. The conclusion to my research question, which is what a bottomup approach can add to the top-down approach to increase women’s representation in politics, is the understanding of the need to have a fully supported and financed bottom-up system. Gender stereotypes, cultural norms and corruption permeate the higher political positions and are preventing an equal gender representation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Key words: gender equality, Bosnia and Herzegovina, women in politics, female underrepresentation, NGO, bottom-up approach, top-down approach, policy implementation, awareness-rising, gender-responsible budgeting, women in governments