| 1. |
- Brunnström, Pål, Doktor, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Resisting Democratisation : Arguments Against Female Enfranchisement Among Members of the Swedish Parliament 1866–1918
- 2024
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Ingår i: Suffrage and Its Legacy in the Nordics and Beyond. - Cham : Palgrave Macmillan. - 2662-5822 .- 2662-5814. - 9783031523588 - 9783031523595 - 9783031523618 ; , s. 37-61
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this contribution, we analyse the parliamentary minutes debating the issue of women’s voting rights in Sweden from the start of the two-chamber parliament in 1866 until 1918, when women were finally granted voting rights on the same terms as men. We find that most arguments belonged to one of two broad categories: those that were against women’s suffrage as a matter of principle, and those that could accept women’s right to vote but not at the present time. The arguments of principle were without exception used by conservatives, and while some liberals did occasionally use postponement arguments, this was also the realm of conservative argumentation. Not a single social democrat argued against female voting rights in the analysed minutes. Furthermore, we find that the conservative arguments of principle were remarkably stable and essentially did not change during the 52 years our analysis covers. The postponement arguments varied more over time as some of the more common ones, such as the need for further investigation, lost credibility.
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| 2. |
- Erikson, Josefina, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Adverse Contagion? : Populist Radical Right Parties and Norms on Gender Balance in Political Institutions
- 2024
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Ingår i: Politics and Governance. - : Cogitatio Press. - 2183-2463. ; 12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How do male-dominated populist radical right (PRR) parties relate to and influence norms around women’s political inclusion and leadership in mainstream political parties? While research has focused on describing the male dominance of PRR parties or its influence on mainstream political parties’ policies, particularly immigration, we know less about how PRR parties relate to norms on women’s inclusion or gender-balanced representation in mainstream parties. In a theory-building effort, we posit that PRR parties may seek to (a) adapt to mainstream parties’ norms and include more women in leading positions (positive contagion) or (b) negatively affect or even challenge norms around women’s inclusion in mainstream parties (adverse contagion). Seeking to theorize this relationship further, we explore leadership selection in the Swedish Parliament, where gender balance constitutes a strong norm. Yet, following the 2022 elections, the proportion of women parliamentary leaders dipped below 30% for the first time in decades. At the same time, the Sweden Democrats, a male-dominated PRR party, emerged as the second-largest party in Parliament. Drawing on interviews with nomination committees, party documents, and data on leadership, we empirically investigate continuity and change in committee leadership appointments in the Swedish Parliament and the role of the radical right in this process. We do not find signs of adverse contagion in the short run: as of 2023, norms promoting gender balance appear to remain robust and enjoy widespread support among mainstream parties. Yet, neither do we find signs of positive contagion where the radical right adapts to mainstream norms around gender balance.
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| 3. |
- Erikson, Josefina, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Exploring Sustainability in Parliamentary Gender Equality Work. Insights from the Swedish Riksdag
- 2024
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Ingår i: NORA. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0803-8740 .- 1502-394X. ; 32:1, s. 17-34
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 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.
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| 4. |
- Erikson, Josefina, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Leaders' desires to lead : progressive ambition and norms around gender balance in the Swedish parliament
- 2024
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Ingår i: Politics, Groups, and Identities. - : Routledge. - 2156-5503 .- 2156-5511.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While women citizens have less political ambition than similarly situated men across a wide range of contexts, we know less about gender differences in progressive ambition – elected politicians’ desire to achieve political leadership positions. This study analyzes leadership ambition among Swedish legislators. To understand the relationship between progressive ambition and the proportion of men and women in leadership positions, the political-institutional context is paramount. The gender-equal context of the Swedish Parliament allows us to investigate the relationship between progressive political ambition and informal rules, norms, and practices that promote the presence of women in political leadership. Drawing on interviews with nearly all top parliamentary leaders and party gatekeepers as well as a survey with MPs, we find that women leaders and MPs are less interested in political leadership in comparison to men. We describe the rules, norms, and practices that stipulate gender balance in decision-making in this context and show how gender-equitable informal institutions have contributed to creating gender balance in leadership. While such institutions have not closed the gender ambition gap at the individual level, they mitigate its consequences by incentivizing less ambitious women to accept leadership positions and prompting gatekeepers to search for and persuade competent women.
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| 5. |
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Suffrage and Its Legacy in the Nordics and Beyond : Gender, Institutional Constraints and Feminist Strategies
- 2024
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- This book reflects on the centennial of women's suffrage in the Nordic region and beyond, by exploring its relevance to political gender equality today and the conditions for feminist institutional change. The book brings together historians and political scientists to provide a long-term historical perspective that lays the groundwork for theoretical development. In this regard, the book makes two key contributions: it furthers our understanding of different types of gendered institutional constraints on women's political inclusion and elaborates feminist institutional strategies to counter these constraints.
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| 6. |
- Ehrhart, Anna
(författare)
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Between Strategic Political Power and a Daunting Task : Exploring Dimensions of Women’s Political Participation in Hybrid Regimes
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Hybrid regimes combine elements of both democratic and authoritarian governance, with potentially flawed democratic processes, suppressed civil liberties and uneven political playing fields. Increasingly, scholarship signals the longevity and resilience of hybrid regimes, especially within broader discourses on rising authoritarianism and democratic decline around the world. The lack of gender perspectives in hybrid regimes research is notable. This oversight largely neglects women's roles and their impact in such regimes and fails to focus on the potential implications these regimes may have on women's opportunities for effective participation. However, recent research has increasingly highlighted the gendered aspects of policymaking in hybrid regimes, such as shrinking and changing civic space and democratic backsliding. Moreover, women also face challenges in hybrid regimes that are tied to contested norms and less access to important social networks.This dissertation explores women's political participation (WPP) in hybrid regimes. It proposes a framework that conceptualizes WPP as occurring in two interconnected dimensions, civil society and formal political institutions. Therefore, it draws on three previous and emerging research fields: feminist institutionalism (FI), women's organizing research, and gender and democratization research. Each of these perspectives solely and taken together provide entry points to conceptualize the mechanisms that illustrate how women participate in and across both dimensions – despite and because of the challenges to WPP experienced in hybrid regimes. The dissertation asks the following research questions: first, what is the association between women's political participation in formal institutions such as parliaments and civil society across different hybrid regimes and over time? Second, what opportunities for political participation in formal political institutions and civil society do women perceive in hybrid regimes? Finally, what obstacles to their political participation in formal political institutions and civil society do women experience in hybrid regimes? In this article-based dissertation, a mixed-methods approach is employed to study the dimensions of WPP, combining a quantitative study of hybrid regimes over time with three qualitative studies focused on the empirical case of contemporary Turkey. Turkey is a typical example of a hybrid regime with both democratic and authoritarian characteristics, and the incumbent government's strategic targeting of gender politics and its actors makes Turkey a significant case to better explore challenges and opportunities for women's political participation in hybrid regimes. The dissertation's findings suggest three main aspects of women's political participation and political influence in hybrid regimes. First, exploring women's political participation across civil society and formal political institutions illustrates the interlinked nature of both dimensions and the relevance of these linkages for women's opportunities to participate in hybrid regimes. Second, hybrid regimes pose complex contexts for women's political participation, where opportunities to exert influence may change but where incumbent government actors retreat to different strategies targeting women and (anti-) gender equality claims. Hence, women's political participation across both dimensions must be dynamic to adapt and resist such changing circumstances. Last, the dissertation illustrates the importance of exploring how informal structures, such as norms or gendered practices, interfere with women's political participation in hybrid regimes. In sum, the dissertation advances gender perspectives in hybrid regime research and illustrates insights from the Turkish case that are relevant for other regime settings.
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| 7. |
- Erikson, Josefina, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices : Exploring Gendered Leadership Conditions in the Swedish Parliament
- 2023
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Ingår i: Politics & Gender. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1743-923X .- 1743-9248. ; 19:4, s. 1061-1086
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Women’s access to political leadership positions has increased greatly in recent decades, which calls for research concerning the conditions of women’s political leadership in more gender-balanced contexts. This article responds to this need by exploring the leadership ideals, evaluations, and treatment of men and women leaders in the numerically gender-equal Swedish parliament (the Riksdag). Drawing on interviews with almost all the current top political leaders in the Swedish parliament, along with an original survey of Swedish members of parliament, we reveal a mainly feminine-coded parliamentary leadership ideal that should be more appropriate for women leaders. Masculine practices remain, however, and women leaders continue to be disadvantaged. To explain this anomaly between ideals and practices, we argue that a feminist institutionalist perspective, which emphasizes how gender shapes a given context in multiple ways, contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the conditions for women’s political leadership than that provided by the widely employed role congruity theory.
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| 8. |
- Erikson, Josefina, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Three Dimensions of Gendered Online Abuse : Analyzing Swedish MPs'€™ Experiences of Social Media
- 2023
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Ingår i: Perspectives on Politics. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1537-5927 .- 1541-0986. ; 21:3, s. 896-912
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Women’s political representation has increased rapidly in the past few decades, but significant barriers continue to circumscribe women’s political participation in a myriad of ways. Previous research has indicated that online abuse constitutes one such obstacle. Yet, only a small number of studies have systematically examined and compared the experiences of online abuse of men and women politicians. We argue that it is not enough to merely state that online abuse is gendered if we wish to understand and tackle such abuse: it is essential to know how it is gendered. In this article we conceptualize gendered online abuse in terms of three dimensions—frequency, character, and consequences—so that we can provide a more comprehensive empirical understanding of its prevalence. Using original survey data and interviews with a large number of Swedish MPs, we demonstrate the merit of unpacking the concept of such abuse in respect to different analytical dimensions. We find all three dimensions to be gendered in the Swedish context but in different and sometimes unexpected ways. Although women do not experience a higher frequency of online abuse than men, the character of the abuse is gendered insofar as women MPs are subjected to more sexualized and gendered harassment. We also find that men exposed to high levels of online abuse seem slightly more inclined to leave politics, whereas women report that they feel that their personal agency is circumscribed to a greater extent.
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| 9. |
- Håkansson, Sandra
(författare)
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Politicians Under Threat : Gender Aspects of Violence against Political Representatives
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates violence against politicians and its gender dimensions. Violence targeting elected representatives in the course of their work has received scant research attention, despite the central function of elected officials in representative democracy. Moreover, attacks on representatives of marginalized groups, such as women, carry symbolic meanings and can increase political alienation and distrust in the political system among women as a group. For these reasons, studying violence against politicians as specific actors, and how this violence may be gendered, is imperative.The thesis’ first essay fills a significant research gap by providing the first large-scale empirical analysis of gender differences in exposure to violence among politicians in general and across the political hierarchy. It demonstrates that Swedish female politicians experience slightly more violence than male, and significantly more violence than male counterparts at powerful and visible positions. The second essay shifts the perspective from the experiences of politicians themselves, to the perpetrator side, and investigates constituents’ attitudes to contacting and harassing women and men politicians in the US and Sweden. The essay suggests that gendered stereotypes of women politicians and norms on gendered leadership styles is an important driver of women’s higher exposure to political harassment from constituents. Citizens prefer to contact women representatives over men when they are angry about a political decision and want to change it, which increases the likelihood of hostility directed at women representatives. The third essay systematically theorizes representational costs of violence against politicians, and investigates how Swedish women and men politicians’ representation is disrupted by violence. This essay shows that violence has subtle but wide-ranging gendered representational costs. It enforces masculine coded candidate ideals of toughness, makes women representatives decrease their visibility, and silences debates and individuals that challenge hegemonic male substantive dominance.All in all, the thesis shows that violence against politicians amplifies women’s political marginalization, and disrupts representation at large and women’s representation in particular.
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| 10. |
- Erikson, Josefina, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Beyond client criminalization : Analyzing collaborative governance arrangements for combatting prostitution and trafficking in Sweden
- 2022
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Ingår i: Regulation and Governance. - : Wiley. - 1748-5983 .- 1748-5991. ; 16:3, s. 818-835
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sweden is well known as the first country in the world to adopt client criminalization in an effort to control and eventually eliminate prostitution. Less attention has been paid to the emergence of extensive collaborative governance arrangements that serve as complements to the legal framework. The aim of this article is to provide new knowledge as it investigates the multifaceted ways in which governance arrangements have developed in Sweden, employing collaborative governance theories and the Regulatory–Intermediaries–Target model for this purpose. The strategies of responsibilization directed toward target groups that have been utilized to implement policies to control prostitution and trafficking are also explored. The article analyzes not only the rationale behind the adoption of collaborative governance in Sweden, but also the complex governance practices that have emerged in this regard, in which a range of actors are involved in policymaking and application as well as regulation. We conclude that the previous understanding of the Swedish model needs to be revised, and that although collaborative governance has made a fruitful contribution to the field in question, it also introduces new types of problems, particularly a significant increase in informality and decisionmaking outside the legal framework, primarily by civil society actors.
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