Episode 169: Women in the Moroccan Parliament

In response to the February 20 movement, the Moroccan government passed electoral laws that institutionalized and expanded gender quotas at the national and local levels, enabling women to win an unprecedented number of seats in the 2015 and 2016 elections. In this podcast, Delana Sobhani examines how reserved seats in the House of Representatives and communal councils have affected women's substantive representation (i.e., the representation of their policy preferences and priorities). She has worked with Professor Hanane Darhour at Université Ibn Zohr and the National Democratic Institute to investigate whether gender quotas can empower women as visible citizens whose interests are included in their communities' legislative agendas.

Delana Sobhani received her BS in International Political Economy from Georgetown University in 2018. After working as a data analyst for two years, she pursued a Fulbright grant to study the nuanced impacts of gender quotas. Delana has worked with the Ibn Zohr University in Agadir and the National Democratic Institute in Rabat to examine the effects of reserved seats in Moroccan legislatures on women's representation.

This episode was recorded on June 11, 2021 at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).