Gender quota spill-over in Sweden : from politics to business?

Ever since the 1990s, legislated gender quotas have been adopted across the world as a means to increase the number of women in elected bodies. In recent years, legislated gender quotas have also been adopted to rectify the under-representation of women on company boards. Sweden diverges from this trend. Despite the fact that Sweden has been recognized as a model of gender equality, being ranked among the most gender equal countries in the world and having achieved gender balanced political assemblies, legal gender quotas have not been enacted, neither in the political sphere nor in the economic sphere. This paper analyses women’s path to power in Sweden. It studies the adoption of special measures and provides an assessment of the factors that facilitate or hinder increases in the proportion of women decision-makers in the political and economic sectors. By applying feminist institutional theory, the dynamics of institutional configurations facilitating or hindering change is investigated. It is argued that the interplay of institutions in the political sector operated in a mutually reinforcing way, thereby constituting a good fit, while the interaction of institutions in the economic sector functioned in a conflicting way. It is also claimed that women’s movement organisations (working both within and outside of the political parties) represented critical actors in implementing party quotas in Sweden. Such coordinated efforts did not exist in the corporate sector. There, the forces of resistance were much stronger than the forces for change, thereby hindering the introduction of a legal corporate gender quota

Vägen till Varannan damernas : Om kvinnorepresentation, kvotering och kandidaturval i svensk politik 1970-2002

The aim of this dissertation is to analyse women’s political representation in the Swedish parliament 1970-2002, a period during which the share of women parliamentarians increased from 14 to 45 percent, and to assess changes in party rules and party norms in terms of regulative and discursive continuity and change. Inspired by Carol Lee Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem? Approach,” with its focus on the construction of political problems rather than “the problem” as such, this dissertation studies how Swedish political parties have formulated the problem of women’s exclusion from parliamentary politics, what causes of women’s under representation they have identified and what solutions they have proposed. The dissertation also studies how party rules to increase the number of women have been implemented in the 2002 nomination process. The dissertation is based on party documents from the period 1970-2002, a national survey to all nomination committees in the parliamentary election in 2002 and 70 interviews with nomination committee members for three political parties in two electoral constituencies. The analysis shows how both party rules and party norms regarding women’s political representation have changed over time. The analysis also shows that the framing of women’s representation changed over time: from an optimistic view of historical development, gender equality as ‘equal opportunity’ and harmony between the sexes to a critical view on historical development and gender equality as ‘equality of results’. The analysis of the nomination process shows that gender is still a key issue in the composition of party lists but that the number of women on party lists in some parties is dependent on women gatekeepers on the nomination committees. It also shows that the ordering of the list is highly dependent on the candidate list from the previous election and that this order of succession also covers non-winnable seats

Beijing + 15: The Platform for Action and the European Union : Report from the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union

The official document adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing 1995 is called the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for Equality, Development and Peace (PfA). The PfA is an agenda for women’s empowerment that reaffirms the fundamental principle whereby the human rights of women and the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. As an agenda for action, the platform seeks to promote and protect the full enjoyment of all human rights and the fundamental freedoms of all women throughout their life cycle.The report Beijing + 15: The Platform for Action and the European Union is the third review of development at the EU-level in relation to the 12 critical areas of concern of the PfA, building on the follow-up by the EU in 2000 and on the report from the Luxembourg Presidency in 2005. The report is based on the Council Conclusions on the follow-up of the Beijing PfA since 2005 and on information provided by the Member States in their answers to the UNECE questionnaire sent out in January 2009.   The report has been realized under the supervision of the Ministry for Integration and Gender Equality in Sweden and Director Marianne Laxén has been responsible for its compilation. An expert group of researchers has contributed to the analysis: Maria Eriksson, Department of Sociology at Uppsala University, Lenita Freidenvall, Department of Political Science at Stockholm University, Annica Kronsell, Department of Political Science at Lund University, Anita Nyberg, Centre for Gender Studies at Stockholm University, Malin Rönnblom, Department of Gender Studies at Umeå University and Barbro Wijma, Division of Gender and Medicine at Linköping University. Lenita Freidenvall, Stockholm University has been the co-ordinator of the research group

The speaker’s gender equality group in the Swedish parliament a toothless tiger?

A recent wave of research has engaged with gender-focused bodies within parliament studying their status, organization, and function. One type of body scarcely studied is issue-based parliamentary groups such as the Speaker’s Gender Equality Group in the Swedish Parliament. This article focuses on the form and function of this body, as well as its potentials and pitfalls. On the basis of secondary sources, two waves of interviews with men parliamentarians (MPs) and inside observations the Speaker’s gender equality group is analyzed from the 1990s until today. We conclude that despite lacking formal legislative power, this body has a key symbolic and informal role, manifested in the political will and engaged leadership to ensure that equal working conditions for women and men MPs are promoted. We also find constraints in terms of the limited and general (rather than expert) administrative support as well as the need for consistent authorization

Electoral Gender Quota Systems and their implementation in Europe

Abstract The report maps the diffusion of electoral gender quotas in the 30 EU/EEA countries. In 21 of the countries some type of gender quotas are in use, either legislated or voluntary party quotas. The report evaluates the effectiveness of different quota types in different electoral systems. Some gender quotas have resulted in major leaps in women‟s representation, while others had led to almost no change. The conclusion is that in order to be effective in changing women‟s historical under-representation electoral gender quotas have to fit the electoral system and should include regulations about the rank order of women and men on the electoral lists as well as sanctions for non-compliance. In general, the report reveals a mixed picture in Europe when it comes to women‟s representation. This up-dated version of the 2008-study (PE 408.309) shows that women‟s parliamentary representation increased only from 23.6 % in 2008 to 24.7% in 2011. In the most recent parliamentary election in 13 of the countries as well as in the election to the European Parliament women‟s representation increased, but ten countries experienced stagnation and in seven for the countries women‟s share of the MPs dropped. Eight case studies on Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom are included in the report.European Parliament. Policy Department C: Citizens Rights and Constitutional Affairs

Exploring Sustainability in Parliamentary Gender Equality Work : Insights from the Swedish Riksdag

Recent research has pointed to the need for addressing gender equality in parliaments in a broader perspective, focusing on “gender sensitivity” in parliaments in relation to structures, operations, methods and work. Up to now, however, the question of what it takes for this work to be long-lasting and sustainable has received limited attention. This article seeks to address this gap through a case study assessing the sustainability of the internal work of the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament) with regard to gender equality, focusing on the durability and renewal of early initiatives and reforms. On the basis of Riksdag documents and interviews with MPs during the period 1994–2022, we ask: How sustainable is the internal gender equality work of the Riksdag with respect to the three key areas of representation, infrastructure and culture? We find that the Riksdag has managed to conduct sustainable gender equality work over the course of three decades. Major factors in this success are the institutionalization of a Gender Equality Group, the adoption of Action Plans for Gender Equality every parliamentary term and the legitimacy provided by the support of the Speaker of the Riksdag and the Riksdag Board

Framing Women Politicians in Old Democracies

This chapter looks at the changing ways in which women politicians have been framed over time. The dominant attitude at the time when women got the vote was that women's proper role was in the family and not in politics (maternal discourse). A more recent discourse, 'no democracy without parity', refers to a democratic deficit if women or minorities are not fully included in the political institutions. The most commonly used arguments for more women in politics were that women would bring specific knowledge and priorities to politics, that as equal citizens women should have equal rights to participate in the decision-making and that women would change the way politics was done. The most recent discourse is that women are needed in politics to clean up the mess caused by men