Rhetoric and Leadership: A Comparison of Female Vice-Presidents of the European Commission (1999-2019)

The acute lack of women’s leadership throughout the history of the European Commission is best illustrated by contrasting the list of female vice-presidents with the overall number of presidents and vice-presidents that have run the institution to date: of 89 presidents and vice-presidents between 1958 and 2019, only seven have been women, including the two female High Representatives who served ex officio also as vice-presidents. Analyzing women’s and men’s rhetoric, this chapter focuses on the five female politicians who have served as vice-presidents of the European Commission as of 2019—Loyola de Palacio (1999–2004), Margot Wall- ström (2004–2009), Viviane Reding (2009–2014), Neelie Kroes (2009–2014), and Kristalina Georgieva (2014–2016)—and one High Representative, Catherine Ash- ton (2004–2009). It examines the characteristics of EU women leaders’ rhetoric and evaluates to what extent EU women leaders make use of charismatic rhetoric in their speeches. In addition, it investigates what trends may be identified over time as well as how and in what ways women leaders’ rhetoric differs from that of their male counterparts. Empirically, the analysis is based on software-assisted content analysis (Diction 7) of the entire corpus of speeches of the members of the European Commission between 1999 and 2019.