scholarly journals Gender Quotas and the Crisis of the Mediocre Man: Theory and Evidence from Sweden

2017 ◽  
Vol 107 (8) ◽  
pp. 2204-2242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Besley ◽  
Olle Folke ◽  
Torsten Persson ◽  
Johanna Rickne
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Leaders And Followers ◽  
Key Driver

We develop a model where party leaders choose the competence of politicians on the ballot to trade off electoral success against their own survival. The predicted correlation between the competence of party leaders and followers is strongly supported in Swedish data. We use a novel approach, based on register data for the earnings of the whole population, to measure the competence of all politicians in 7 parties, 290 municipalities, and 10 elections (for the period 1982–2014). We ask how competence was affected by a zipper quota, requiring local parties to alternate men and women on the ballot, implemented by the Social Democratic Party in 1993. Far from being at odds with meritocracy, this quota raised the competence of male politicians where it raised female representation the most. We argue that resignation of mediocre male leaders was a key driver of this effect. (JEL D72, J16)

Option Grün: Alliance 90/The Greens at the Dawn of New Opportunities?

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingolfur Blühdorn
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Party System ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Green Party ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Consumer Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Government Coalition

Following the end of their government coalition with the Social Democratic Party, German Green Party leaders spoke of "a dawn of new opportunities" for Alliance 90/The Greens. They wanted to capitalize on the strategic opportunities afforded by Germany's new five-party system and on the unexpected rise of climate change in public debate. Shortly before the 2009 federal election, however, the party's "new opportunities" seem rather limited. Selectively focusing on one particular explanatory factor, this article contrasts the Green's neo-radical eco-political position as it has emerged since 2005 with the ways in which environmental issues are addressed by the currently popular LOHAS (Life of Health and Sustainability) consumer movement. It suggests that the German Greens may have paid too little attention to the ongoing reframing of the environmental issue in public discourse and that this has impaired their prospects for a swift return to government office.

Gender Quotas and Ethnic Minority Representation: Swedish Evidence from a Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 345-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olle Folke ◽  
Lenita Freidenvall ◽  
Johanna Rickne
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Mixed Methods Study ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intersectional Representation ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Practical Constraints

In this paper, we study the ways in which affirmative action for one political minority, gender quotas, impact on intersectional representation. In a quantitative analysis of detailed panel data from 285 Swedish municipal assemblies, the numerical impact of a zipper placement mandate in Sweden's largest political party, the Social Democratic Party, is analyzed. No evidence that this quota helped, or hindered, the intersectional representation of men or women is found in the short run, but it is found that a weak numerical impact may exist in the long run. A qualitative analysis of party records and interviews with key actors sheds further light on these results. Differences in the norms of representation for women and polyethnic minorities, coupled with weak organizational and practical constraints for formulating policies for the latter, appear to be likely explanations.

The Changing SPD in the Schröder Era

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Jun
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History

Public opinion data gathered from the latest surveys on Germany's upcoming parliamentary elections have turned out to be disheartening for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Without exception, the Social Democrats take second place and lag behind the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) by several percentage points (Fig. 1). Today, only a few months before the next parliamentary election, a repetition of the electoral victory to the extent of 1998 seems to be rather unlikely. We are therefore faced with the perplexing question of how the SPD could arrive at such a disadvantageous position given the historic electoral success of 1998, when the party achieved its second-best result at parliamentary elections since Word War II. Is the SPD powerless against a strong tendency of the German electorate to cast its ballot in favor of the CDU/CSU, which has pervaded almost the entire history of the Federal Republic of Germany and has been described as “a permanent discrimination of the SPD against the CDU/CSU in the competition of parties.” Or is this situation just a snapshot without deeper consequences for the party?

scholarly journals The Demobilization of Class Politics in Denmark: The Social Democratic Party’s Group-Based Appeals 1961–2004

2018 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads Thau
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
General Level ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Abstract In Denmark, as in other Western European countries, the working class does not vote for social democratic parties to the same extent as before. Yet, what role did the social democratic parties themselves play in the demobilization of class politics? Building on core ideas from public opinion literature, this article differs from the focus on party policy positions in previous work and, instead, focuses on the group-based appeals of the Social Democratic Party in Denmark. Based on a quantitative content analysis of party programs between 1961 and 2004, I find that, at the general level, class-related appeals have been replaced by appeals targeting non-economic groups. At the specific level, the class-related appeals that remain have increasingly been targeting businesses at the expense of traditional left-wing groups such as wage earners, tenants and pensioners. These findings support a widespread hypothesis that party strategy was crucial in the decline of class politics, but also suggests that future work on class mobilization should adopt a group-centered perspective.

Czech Social Democracy and its “cohabitation” with the Communist Party: The story of a neglected affair

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lubomír Kopeček ◽  
Pavel Pšeja
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

This article attempts to analyze developments within the Czech Left after 1989. Primarily, the authors focus on two questions: (1) How did the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) achieve its dominance of the Left? (2)What is the relationship between the Social Democrats and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM)? We conclude that the unsuccessful attempt to move the KSČM towards a moderate leftist identity opened up a space in which the Social Democrats could thrive, at the same time gradually assuming a pragmatic approach towards the Communists. Moreover, the ability of Miloš Zeman, the leader of the Social Democrats, to build a clear non-Communist Left alternative to the hegemony of the Right during the 1990s was also very important.

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