2011-2016

Why are gender differences in the Swedish parliament diminishing? Intra-political and extra-political causes?

Gender differences in the Swedish parliament have diminished over time. This is true for descriptive representation, where women's share of the delegates has increased over time both generally in parliament and within standing committees, however, this project focused in particular on substantive gender differences, that is, the political content that the delegates represent and how this has changed over time.

The goal of the project was to discuss causes behind diminishing gender differences, descriptive, but above all substantive, and thereby pay attention to both inter-political and extra-political causes. Research on women's substantive representation currently undergoes a swift development, not the least theoretically. However, it is often divided into branches, focusing on either extra political forces, such as the women´s movement, or living patterns, or intra political forces, such as party strategies, the life of political issues, and the like. Hence, the overarching goal of the project was to perform an integrated analysis and discussion of these forces and to use Sweden as a critical case for this discussion.

The theoretical framework of the project lies within approaches that explain substantive representation of gender. Here, we notice a shift from a focus on women and particular issues towards approaches that include a broader set of actors and issues.

Among the extra political forces, the project has focused on living patterns and changes in these, especially how the increasing share-taking of men's´ parental leave might affect political representation. Originally, we intended to focus also on men´s increasing involvement in outsourced welfare services, but we had to leave this to future research because of time limits.

The three most important results within the project:

1. Does men´s increasing involvement in care-work affect the political representation? One basic idea within theories on women´s political representation is that women share a different set of experiences that translate into a different set of political priorities. One important cleavage in this respect is between reproduction and production, that is the asymmetrical dispersion of care-experience between women and men. Swedish men do, however, take an increasing share in the care taking of their children, measured as parental leave. Does this affect their political representation over time? We have examined empirically whether legislators' parental leave affects their interest in political issues related to reproduction (Stensöta, 2016; Stensöta under review). The findings show that men who have been on parental leave have an increased interest in social issues, controlling for their previous issues of concern. This can be interpreted either as a direct effect of their experience, which lead them to develop new political interests, or it can be interpreted as signs of a new arena for men to profile themselves as delegates, where caring politicians can attract votes from caring men and women.

2. With the project we have also developed a theoretical model for how substantive representation proceeds, that distinguishes between direct and indirect channels of influence. Direct channels refer to direct, often bodily experience, for example from care-responsibility or discrimination, whereas indirect channels refer to experiences transmitted over contexts on different levels.

We have explored this theoretical idea empirically in different ways. One study examined group membership among legislators, and compared women, immigrants, and workers. Here, we found, along Phillips theories, that group belonging is important for the representation of women and immigrants, but not socio economic class. Indirect effects are here captured as the "collective work of politics", which also becomes a model for how "feminist awareness" may translate to men.

Furthermore, we have explored whether norms attach to the parliament as an institution, and, for example, whether the shared experience of parental leave might affect actors without a direct experience of this leave. This was not the case.

Regarding care experience, we have examined indirect effects in two forms, first in the parliament, where we comprehend the parliament as an institution that incorporate specific norms. We have examined whether parental leave experience attach to the institution and affect the priorities of legislatures, which was not the case. Furthermore, on municipal level, we have examined indirect experiences of more or less gender equality on municipal politicians' preferences. We found that female municipal politicians were more interested in economy in more egalitarian municipalities, but we found no similar effect regarding male politicians´ interest for social issues, on this level of analysis.

3. We have also conducted more qualitatively oriented analyses and interviewed about thirty parliamentarians from various parties, gender, age, and ethnicity. Our goal was to explore variation in the understanding of the representative role, reasons to engage in politics, as well as from what sources they draw their political convictions. The material discloses clear generational differences. In addition, it seems as if gender and ethnicity as labels become de-coupled from the persons belonging to these groups, so that a specific content is expected in relation to these labels, whereas legislators falling outside of the definition cannot use their group identity as a vehicle in politics. In relation to interviews conducted by Lena Wängnerud about a decade ago, gender seemed less distinctive as category.

We contend that questions about political representation along groups such as gender and ethnicity will be interesting to explore for future research. Our research supports ideas that comprehend groups-representation as having more fluid borders between who and what is represented. These are interesting questions that we think future research should engage in.

The project has had a strategy of publication that involves peer reviewed journals as well as representation on international conferences such as APSA, (American Political Science Association), MPSA (Mid-West Political Science Association) and CES (Council of European Studies), but also within the European context ECPG European Conference on Politics and Gender (Standing Group on Gender and Politics). We have also had special exchange with the research group around Mona-Lena Krook at Rutgers University, MA, USA.

The most important publications from the project are: "The care experience mechanism: Rethinking the politics of presence, currently under review, which presents the first finding discussed above (Stensöta, under review) and, the monograph "The Principles of Gender-Sensitive Parliaments" (Wängnerud 2015), which integrates the results presented above with a suggestion for a new way to study the importance of gender for the parliamentary process. Sweden is used as a case but the approach is presented as generally valid. To evaluate how the system of representative democracy functions from a gender perspective, we need knowledge of (i) female politicians' ability to influence the internal workings of Parliament (ii) the extent to which there is scope for women's specific interests and concerns on the political agenda, and (iii) the extent to which political decisions promotes gender equality in everyday life of citizens. The book contains some comparisons between gender, class and ethnicity.

Publications

Förteckning över samtliga publikationer från projektet:
Publicerade:

Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena (2016). Spelar jämställda män någon roll? Riksdagsledamöter och föräldraledighet. SNS Förlag Rapport.

Wängnerud, Lena (2015) The Priciples of Gender-Sensitive Parliaments. New York: Routledge.

Under review

Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena (Under Review, Party Politics) ”The care experience mechanism. Rethinking the politics of presence”.

Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena and Anna Högmark (Under Review) ”From where do they politicize? Women legislators and parliamentary administratiors and levels of conflict”

Wängnerud, Lena (Under Review, Party Politics): ”Does convergence between political parties affect the substantive representation of women? A case study on the Swedish Riksdag 1985–2010.”

Wängnerud, Lena (Under Review, Politics, Groups and Identities). ”The Politics of Group Awareness: On the Substantive Representation of Women and Immigrants by Non-Descriptive Representatives.”

Under färdigställande

”Politiskt representantskap i Sverige på 2000-talet. Parti, kön, ålder och etnicitet.” Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena

”Direkta och indirekta effekter av jämställdhet på kommunal nivå” Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena

”The dynamics of political gender differences – extra political and intra political – an overview article.” Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena and Lena Wängnerud

Konferenspresentationer (internationella)

“The care experience mechanism. Rethinking the politics of presence”, MPSA, 2016.

“Disentangling sex, care responsibilities and political representation in the case of Sweden”, MPSA, 2015. Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena

”Feminist Institutionalism: Hub institutions for change and stability.” Invited talk, Rutgers University, Gender Politics Section, Massachusetts, US. Mona Lena Krook 6th of April. 2015. Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena

 “Disentangling sex, care responsibilities and political representation in the case of Sweden”, ECPG, 2015. Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena

 “Disentangling sex, care responsibilities and political representation in the case of Sweden”, CES, 2015. Stensöta Olofsdotter Helena