Role of Electoral Systems on Women’s Parliamentary Participation (Comparative Study: I.R Iran & I.R Afghanistan)

The equal political participation of men and women is one of the fundamental goals of democracy and human rights principles. According to new researches one of the most significant and effective steps for political empowerment of women is to strengthen their parliamentary participation. However, the level of women's parliamentary participation is strongly linked to the electoral systems. The level of parliamentary participation of women in states which are using the proportional system is much better or higher than the states which are following the majoration system. So the main question in this article is what is the relationship between the electoral system and the parliamentary participation of women in Iran and Afghanistan? Based on the results of this study, it can be said that there is direct correlation between the electoral systems and the status of women's parliamentary participation. Due to the use of the two-round Plurality and Majoration system, the level of participation of women in the Iranian parliament is weak. In addition, the use of a Single Member non-transferable voting system (a system which has more overlap with the majoration family) in Afghanistan has also increased dependence on gender quotas. This article is applied research and data analyzed by using the Descriptive and deductive method.