Practices and Strategies of Gender Representation in Danish Political Parties: Dilemmas of ‘Everyday Democracy'

Authors: Lise Rolandsen Agustin, Aalborg University, lisera@dps.aau.dk Christina Fiig, Aarhus University cfiig@cas.au.dk and Birte Siim, Aalborg University siim@dps.aau.dk: Denmark is characterised as a non-quota country and a Nordic enfant terrible when it comes to women’s political representation. Women’s representation at national, parliamentary level has stagnated at 37-39 percent, which has remained the average since 1998. This development covers large inter-party differences: The low percentages of women’s representation in the two largest parties (25 per cent of the Social Democrats, and 35 per cent of the Liberals) contrasts with the high percentages in the parties supporting the current Social Democratic government (45 per cent of the Red-Green Alliance, 56 per cent of the Social-Liberal Party, and 79 per cent of the Socialist People’s Party). At the same time, the average percentage of women candidates is lower than the percentage of women elected. The chapter seeks to explain this research gap by addressing internal differences in practices and strategies of recruitment and nomination in the parties, without formal quota systems. It focuses on internal, informal measures to promote gender equality in representation (or the lack hereof) and asks why some parties are laggards while others have achieved high levels of women’s representation. The framing and focus of the chapter is on the dilemmas of ‘everyday democracy’ of political parties (the meso-level), exploring the diversity of practices and strategies for training, visibility and empowerment of women candidates as measures of gender equality/parity. The paper is part of a book project on political representation (eds. Sabine Lang, Petra Meier and Birgit Sauer).