Cecilia Josefsson
Biographic Data
| ID | 4375230 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cecilia Josefsson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cecilia |
| FAMILY NAME | Josefsson |
| SIGNATURE | JOSEFSSON C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3240-7019 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 382 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Do women ministers face greater scrutiny? Parliamentary questions as a lens to study gender and leadership in practice
The democratic legitimacy of political institutions depends on women and men leaders operating under equal conditions. Yet, even when women attain top positions, they may encounter distinct forms of scrutiny, support or marginalization. We argue that parliamentary questions and debates, that is, when legislators interrogate ministers, provide a valuable lens for assessing the gendered conditions of executive leadership. Such interactions can cast…
Silenced Voices
Free and open public debate is a cornerstone of democratic representation, yet many politicians refrain from participating in policy debates. This study examines how political violence contributes to such silencing and whether it disproportionately affects historically marginalized groups. Using a unique Swedish politician survey (five waves, N = 43,000), we analyze whether violence reduces marginalized politicians’ participation in debates and w…
Adverse Contagion? Populist Radical Right Parties and Norms on Gender Balance in Political Institutions
How do male-dominated populist radical right (PRR) parties relate to and influence norms around women’s political inclusion and leadership in mainstream political parties? While research has focused on describing the male dominance of PRR parties or its influence on mainstream political parties’ policies, particularly immigration, we know less about how PRR parties relate to norms on women’s inclusion or gender-balanced representation in mainstre…
Leaders’ desires to lead
While women citizens have less political ambition than similarly situated men across a wide range of contexts, we know less about gender differences in progressive ambition – elected politicians' desire to achieve political leadership positions. This study analyzes leadership ambition among Swedish legislators. To understand the relationship between progressive ambition and the proportion of men and women in leadership positions, the political-in…
Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices
Women’s access to political leadership positions has increased greatly in recent decades, which calls for research concerning the conditions of women’s political leadership in more gender-balanced contexts. This article responds to this need by exploring the leadership ideals, evaluations, and treatment of men and women leaders in the numerically gender-equal Swedish parliament (the Riksdag). Drawing on interviews with almost all the current top …
Three Dimensions of Gendered Online Abuse
Women’s political representation has increased rapidly in the past few decades, but significant barriers continue to circumscribe women’s political participation in a myriad of ways. Previous research has indicated that online abuse constitutes one such obstacle. Yet, only a small number of studies have systematically examined and compared the experiences of online abuse of men and women politicians. We argue that it is not enough to merely state…
The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace
In this article, we introduce a Gendered Workplace Approach for studying the gendered nature of parliaments. This approach, which is informed by a feminist institutionalist perspective, addresses the potentially gendered character of both formal and informal institutions that regulate the inner workings of parliament, taking into consideration the obstacles and opportunities facing MPs of different genders. From a gender perspective, our framewor…
How candidate selection structures and genders political ambition
Men’s over-representation persists in almost all legislatures. This article engages with this problem by bringing together literature on the gendered nature of political parties and literature on the gender gap in political ambition to argue that candidate selection procedures structure the meaning and importance of political ambition. Exploiting the large variation in formal and informal institutions guiding candidate selection in Uruguay, I the…
Equal playing field? On the intersection between gender and being young in the Swedish Parliament
Women and young constitute two underrepresented groups in most legislatures worldwide. The aim of this paper is to theorize and empirically analyze how the hitherto overlooked intersection between gender and young age condition legislators’ opportunities to carry out their representative tasks on equal grounds. Using original survey data from the Swedish Parliament (response rate 82%, n = 287) in combination with 40 in-depth interviews with young…
Does Higher Education Matter for MPs in their Parliamentary Work? Evidence from the Swedish Parliament
Individuals who have a higher education are highly overrepresented in national legislative bodiesworldwide. In spite of an extensive body of literature interested in educational background and itsrelation to political activity, significantly fewer studies have engaged with the qualitative advantagesand drawbacks of legislators’educational background in their legislative work. The aim of this paper isto explore whether higher education functions a…
The legislature as a gendered workplace
Do men and women legislators have equal opportunities to carry out their parliamentary duties? An important first step to uncover the parliament’s inner life is to evaluate members of parliament’s (MPs) experiences of their work environment. In this article, we explore the Swedish parliament where women have held over 40% of the seats for two decades to test the persistence of gendered norms and practices. Using a new survey dataset of 279 Swedis…
In Whose Interest? Gender and Mass–Elite Priority Congruence in Sub-Saharan Africa
Do men and women representatives hold different legislative priorities? Do these priorities align with citizens who share their gender? Whereas substantive representation theorists suggest legislators’ priorities should align with their cogender constituents, Downsian-based theories suggest no role for gender. We test these differing expectations through a new originally collected survey data set of more than 800 parliamentarians and data from mo…
Quotas and Women's Substantive Representation
Despite the popularity of electoral gender quotas, the substantive impact of quotas on the plenary behavior of members of parliament (MPs) has yet to be thoroughly empirically explored, and in particular, there is a dearth of evidence from non-Western cases. Here we create a unique content analysis dataset from 14 years (1998–2011) of plenary debates, including the contents of more than 150,000 unique MP speeches recorded in some 40,000 pages of …
A New Way of Doing Politics? Cross-Party Women's Caucuses as Critical Actors in Uganda and Uruguay
Many parliaments now include specialised bodies to further women's interests in the legislative process. In this article, we compare cross-party women's caucuses in two non-Western countries—Uganda and Uruguay—which, despite very different levels of women's descriptive representation, spurred public debate on women's issues and made significant legislative gains. We explore how female legislators in these two cases collectively were able to carve…
Learning From Success
Do local governments learn from their successful peers when designing public policies? In spite of extensive research on policy diffusion and learning, there is still a lack of studies on how success relates to learning patterns. We address this deficiency by examining which other governments local administrative units draw lessons from. More precisely, we investigate whether public managers learn from the experiences of local governments whose c…
Present Without Presence? Gender, Quotas and Debate Recognition in the Ugandan Parliament
This article charts a new direction in gender quota research by examining whether female legislators in general, and quota recipients in particular, are accorded respect and authority in plenary debates. We measure this recognition in relation to the number of times an individual member of parliament (MP) is referred to by name in plenary debates. We use a unique dataset from the Ugandan parliament to assess the determinants of MP name recognitio…
Who benefits from gender quotas? Assessing the impact of election procedure reform on Members of Parliament’s attributes in Uganda
Employing a before-and-after comparison, this article exploits a reform of the Ugandan quota law to test if a change in election procedures affects the types of women elected through quotas. In Uganda, a change from indirect to direct elections was anticipated to bring in women who were more representative of female citizens at large and less loyal to the sitting regime. Using original data from 1296 biographies of Ugandan legislators spanning fo…
Quotas and Women's Substantive Representation
Despite the popularity of electoral gender quotas, the substantive impact of quotas on the plenary behavior of members of parliament (MPs) has yet to be thoroughly empirically explored, and in particular, there is a dearth of evidence from non-Western cases. Here we create a unique content analysis dataset from 14 years (1998–2011) of plenary debates, including the contents of more than 150,000 unique MP speeches recorded in some 40,000 pages of …
The legislature as a gendered workplace
Do men and women legislators have equal opportunities to carry out their parliamentary duties? An important first step to uncover the parliament’s inner life is to evaluate members of parliament’s (MPs) experiences of their work environment. In this article, we explore the Swedish parliament where women have held over 40% of the seats for two decades to test the persistence of gendered norms and practices. Using a new survey dataset of 279 Swedis…
In Whose Interest? Gender and Mass–Elite Priority Congruence in Sub-Saharan Africa
Do men and women representatives hold different legislative priorities? Do these priorities align with citizens who share their gender? Whereas substantive representation theorists suggest legislators’ priorities should align with their cogender constituents, Downsian-based theories suggest no role for gender. We test these differing expectations through a new originally collected survey data set of more than 800 parliamentarians and data from mo…
Present Without Presence? Gender, Quotas and Debate Recognition in the Ugandan Parliament
This article charts a new direction in gender quota research by examining whether female legislators in general, and quota recipients in particular, are accorded respect and authority in plenary debates. We measure this recognition in relation to the number of times an individual member of parliament (MP) is referred to by name in plenary debates. We use a unique dataset from the Ugandan parliament to assess the determinants of MP name recognitio…
The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace
In this article, we introduce a Gendered Workplace Approach for studying the gendered nature of parliaments. This approach, which is informed by a feminist institutionalist perspective, addresses the potentially gendered character of both formal and informal institutions that regulate the inner workings of parliament, taking into consideration the obstacles and opportunities facing MPs of different genders. From a gender perspective, our framewor…
Three Dimensions of Gendered Online Abuse
Women’s political representation has increased rapidly in the past few decades, but significant barriers continue to circumscribe women’s political participation in a myriad of ways. Previous research has indicated that online abuse constitutes one such obstacle. Yet, only a small number of studies have systematically examined and compared the experiences of online abuse of men and women politicians. We argue that it is not enough to merely state…
A New Way of Doing Politics? Cross-Party Women's Caucuses as Critical Actors in Uganda and Uruguay
Many parliaments now include specialised bodies to further women's interests in the legislative process. In this article, we compare cross-party women's caucuses in two non-Western countries—Uganda and Uruguay—which, despite very different levels of women's descriptive representation, spurred public debate on women's issues and made significant legislative gains. We explore how female legislators in these two cases collectively were able to carve…
Who benefits from gender quotas? Assessing the impact of election procedure reform on Members of Parliament’s attributes in Uganda
Employing a before-and-after comparison, this article exploits a reform of the Ugandan quota law to test if a change in election procedures affects the types of women elected through quotas. In Uganda, a change from indirect to direct elections was anticipated to bring in women who were more representative of female citizens at large and less loyal to the sitting regime. Using original data from 1296 biographies of Ugandan legislators spanning fo…
How candidate selection structures and genders political ambition
Men’s over-representation persists in almost all legislatures. This article engages with this problem by bringing together literature on the gendered nature of political parties and literature on the gender gap in political ambition to argue that candidate selection procedures structure the meaning and importance of political ambition. Exploiting the large variation in formal and informal institutions guiding candidate selection in Uruguay, I the…
Learning From Success
Do local governments learn from their successful peers when designing public policies? In spite of extensive research on policy diffusion and learning, there is still a lack of studies on how success relates to learning patterns. We address this deficiency by examining which other governments local administrative units draw lessons from. More precisely, we investigate whether public managers learn from the experiences of local governments whose c…
Does Higher Education Matter for MPs in their Parliamentary Work? Evidence from the Swedish Parliament
Individuals who have a higher education are highly overrepresented in national legislative bodiesworldwide. In spite of an extensive body of literature interested in educational background and itsrelation to political activity, significantly fewer studies have engaged with the qualitative advantagesand drawbacks of legislators’educational background in their legislative work. The aim of this paper isto explore whether higher education functions a…
Equal playing field? On the intersection between gender and being young in the Swedish Parliament
Women and young constitute two underrepresented groups in most legislatures worldwide. The aim of this paper is to theorize and empirically analyze how the hitherto overlooked intersection between gender and young age condition legislators’ opportunities to carry out their representative tasks on equal grounds. Using original survey data from the Swedish Parliament (response rate 82%, n = 287) in combination with 40 in-depth interviews with young…
Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices
Women’s access to political leadership positions has increased greatly in recent decades, which calls for research concerning the conditions of women’s political leadership in more gender-balanced contexts. This article responds to this need by exploring the leadership ideals, evaluations, and treatment of men and women leaders in the numerically gender-equal Swedish parliament (the Riksdag). Drawing on interviews with almost all the current top …
Adverse Contagion? Populist Radical Right Parties and Norms on Gender Balance in Political Institutions
How do male-dominated populist radical right (PRR) parties relate to and influence norms around women’s political inclusion and leadership in mainstream political parties? While research has focused on describing the male dominance of PRR parties or its influence on mainstream political parties’ policies, particularly immigration, we know less about how PRR parties relate to norms on women’s inclusion or gender-balanced representation in mainstre…
Leaders’ desires to lead
While women citizens have less political ambition than similarly situated men across a wide range of contexts, we know less about gender differences in progressive ambition – elected politicians' desire to achieve political leadership positions. This study analyzes leadership ambition among Swedish legislators. To understand the relationship between progressive ambition and the proportion of men and women in leadership positions, the political-in…
Present Without Presence? Gender, Quotas and Debate Recognition in the Ugandan Parliament
This article charts a new direction in gender quota research by examining whether female legislators in general, and quota recipients in particular, are accorded respect and authority in plenary debates. We measure this recognition in relation to the number of times an individual member of parliament (MP) is referred to by name in plenary debates. We use a unique dataset from the Ugandan parliament to assess the determinants of MP name recognitio…
Who benefits from gender quotas? Assessing the impact of election procedure reform on Members of Parliament’s attributes in Uganda
Employing a before-and-after comparison, this article exploits a reform of the Ugandan quota law to test if a change in election procedures affects the types of women elected through quotas. In Uganda, a change from indirect to direct elections was anticipated to bring in women who were more representative of female citizens at large and less loyal to the sitting regime. Using original data from 1296 biographies of Ugandan legislators spanning fo…
Learning From Success
Do local governments learn from their successful peers when designing public policies? In spite of extensive research on policy diffusion and learning, there is still a lack of studies on how success relates to learning patterns. We address this deficiency by examining which other governments local administrative units draw lessons from. More precisely, we investigate whether public managers learn from the experiences of local governments whose c…
A New Way of Doing Politics? Cross-Party Women's Caucuses as Critical Actors in Uganda and Uruguay
Many parliaments now include specialised bodies to further women's interests in the legislative process. In this article, we compare cross-party women's caucuses in two non-Western countries—Uganda and Uruguay—which, despite very different levels of women's descriptive representation, spurred public debate on women's issues and made significant legislative gains. We explore how female legislators in these two cases collectively were able to carve…
Quotas and Women's Substantive Representation
Despite the popularity of electoral gender quotas, the substantive impact of quotas on the plenary behavior of members of parliament (MPs) has yet to be thoroughly empirically explored, and in particular, there is a dearth of evidence from non-Western cases. Here we create a unique content analysis dataset from 14 years (1998–2011) of plenary debates, including the contents of more than 150,000 unique MP speeches recorded in some 40,000 pages of …
How candidate selection structures and genders political ambition
Men’s over-representation persists in almost all legislatures. This article engages with this problem by bringing together literature on the gendered nature of political parties and literature on the gender gap in political ambition to argue that candidate selection procedures structure the meaning and importance of political ambition. Exploiting the large variation in formal and informal institutions guiding candidate selection in Uruguay, I the…
Equal playing field? On the intersection between gender and being young in the Swedish Parliament
Women and young constitute two underrepresented groups in most legislatures worldwide. The aim of this paper is to theorize and empirically analyze how the hitherto overlooked intersection between gender and young age condition legislators’ opportunities to carry out their representative tasks on equal grounds. Using original survey data from the Swedish Parliament (response rate 82%, n = 287) in combination with 40 in-depth interviews with young…
Does Higher Education Matter for MPs in their Parliamentary Work? Evidence from the Swedish Parliament
Individuals who have a higher education are highly overrepresented in national legislative bodiesworldwide. In spite of an extensive body of literature interested in educational background and itsrelation to political activity, significantly fewer studies have engaged with the qualitative advantagesand drawbacks of legislators’educational background in their legislative work. The aim of this paper isto explore whether higher education functions a…
The legislature as a gendered workplace
Do men and women legislators have equal opportunities to carry out their parliamentary duties? An important first step to uncover the parliament’s inner life is to evaluate members of parliament’s (MPs) experiences of their work environment. In this article, we explore the Swedish parliament where women have held over 40% of the seats for two decades to test the persistence of gendered norms and practices. Using a new survey dataset of 279 Swedis…
In Whose Interest? Gender and Mass–Elite Priority Congruence in Sub-Saharan Africa
Do men and women representatives hold different legislative priorities? Do these priorities align with citizens who share their gender? Whereas substantive representation theorists suggest legislators’ priorities should align with their cogender constituents, Downsian-based theories suggest no role for gender. We test these differing expectations through a new originally collected survey data set of more than 800 parliamentarians and data from mo…
The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace
In this article, we introduce a Gendered Workplace Approach for studying the gendered nature of parliaments. This approach, which is informed by a feminist institutionalist perspective, addresses the potentially gendered character of both formal and informal institutions that regulate the inner workings of parliament, taking into consideration the obstacles and opportunities facing MPs of different genders. From a gender perspective, our framewor…
Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices
Women’s access to political leadership positions has increased greatly in recent decades, which calls for research concerning the conditions of women’s political leadership in more gender-balanced contexts. This article responds to this need by exploring the leadership ideals, evaluations, and treatment of men and women leaders in the numerically gender-equal Swedish parliament (the Riksdag). Drawing on interviews with almost all the current top …
Three Dimensions of Gendered Online Abuse
Women’s political representation has increased rapidly in the past few decades, but significant barriers continue to circumscribe women’s political participation in a myriad of ways. Previous research has indicated that online abuse constitutes one such obstacle. Yet, only a small number of studies have systematically examined and compared the experiences of online abuse of men and women politicians. We argue that it is not enough to merely state…
Adverse Contagion? Populist Radical Right Parties and Norms on Gender Balance in Political Institutions
How do male-dominated populist radical right (PRR) parties relate to and influence norms around women’s political inclusion and leadership in mainstream political parties? While research has focused on describing the male dominance of PRR parties or its influence on mainstream political parties’ policies, particularly immigration, we know less about how PRR parties relate to norms on women’s inclusion or gender-balanced representation in mainstre…
Leaders’ desires to lead
While women citizens have less political ambition than similarly situated men across a wide range of contexts, we know less about gender differences in progressive ambition – elected politicians' desire to achieve political leadership positions. This study analyzes leadership ambition among Swedish legislators. To understand the relationship between progressive ambition and the proportion of men and women in leadership positions, the political-in…
Do women ministers face greater scrutiny? Parliamentary questions as a lens to study gender and leadership in practice
The democratic legitimacy of political institutions depends on women and men leaders operating under equal conditions. Yet, even when women attain top positions, they may encounter distinct forms of scrutiny, support or marginalization. We argue that parliamentary questions and debates, that is, when legislators interrogate ministers, provide a valuable lens for assessing the gendered conditions of executive leadership. Such interactions can cast…
Silenced Voices
Free and open public debate is a cornerstone of democratic representation, yet many politicians refrain from participating in policy debates. This study examines how political violence contributes to such silencing and whether it disproportionately affects historically marginalized groups. Using a unique Swedish politician survey (five waves, N = 43,000), we analyze whether violence reduces marginalized politicians’ participation in debates and w…
Gender Politics and Representation (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Political science (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Parliament (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Gender Diversity and Inequality (7 works)