After decades of resistance to quotas – or reserved seats – as a means of addressing women's lack of representation in politics, Sri Lanka introduced a highly complicated and little-understood series of electoral laws to establish a quota for women at the local government level (LGL). Local government elections in February 2018 marked their inaugural implementation. Drawing on nearly five decades of global academic literature analysing quotas and utilising a five-pronged framework for understanding the goals that quotas are designed to achieve, this paper assesses the LGL quota against those objectives. Based on key-informant interviews and data from the 2018 election, I consider (i) the extent to which we might expect an increase in the space and respect for women politicians in Sri Lanka; (ii) the likelihood that elected women can deliver a gender-responsive political agenda for their female constituents; and (iii) the extent to which the quota can help redefine political norms in Sri Lanka.

数十年来抵制配额制（或保留席位）作为解决妇女在政治上缺乏代表性的一种手段后，斯里兰卡推出了一系列非常复杂且鲜为人知的选举法，以在地方政府一级建立妇女配额制（LGL） ）。2018年2月的地方政府选举标志着其首次实施。借助近五十年的全球学术文献来分析配额，并利用一个五管齐下的框架来理解配额旨在实现的目标，本文根据这些目标评估了LGL配额。根据2018年大选的关键信息采访和数据，我认为（i）我们可以预期斯里兰卡的女性政客的空间和尊重程度在多大程度上增加; （ii）在当选的妇女可以为自己的女性选民提供一个性别敏感的政治议程的可能性; （iii）配额可在多大程度上帮助重新定义斯里兰卡的政治规范。