Gender Balanced Political Leadership: The Emergence and Sustainability of Norms on Gender Balanced Leadership in Swedish Politics

Swedish politics is one of the most gender equal political systems in the world. For three decades, women have not only held more than 40 percent of the seats in the Parliament, cabinets have included an equal number of men and women, and appointments to parliamentary leadership positions appear to be guided by a strong norm on gender balance. The latter has thus far gained little attention in existing research. In this paper, we first explore the emergence of these norms around gender balanced leadership across the eight political parties represented in the Swedish Parliament. How was a gender equal political leadership achieved without the help of formal gender quotas? When and how did norms around gender equal leadership emerge in different political parties? Second, we explore the resilience of this norm when challenged. In the 2022 parliamentary elections, the radical-right wing political party, the Sweden Democrats became the second biggest political party in the Swedish Parliament and gained an important influence over government politics. The party has since it first entered the Parliament in 2010 had a much lower female representation, particularly in leading positions, compared to the other political parties. The increasing size and influence of this party do affect the numerical gender equality in leading positions. Today, the Swedish Parliament have fewer women in leading positions than in many mandate periods— only four out of 16 parliamentary committees are headed by a woman. Drawing on interviews with nomination committee representatives (both current and former) from different political parties and from data on leadership in the Swedish politics, we discuss how gender institutional change can come about in the absence of formal rule change, but also the extent to which such changes can be perceived of as sustainable when challenged by radical right-wing forces.