Josefina Erikson
Biographic Data
| ID | 4386142 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Josefina Erikson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Josefina |
| FAMILY NAME | Erikson |
| SIGNATURE | ERIKSON J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6050-1574 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 255 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
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…
Sweden’s Updated Prostitution Policy: Populist Radical Right Influences and the Shift Away from Gender Equality
On May 20, 2025, the Swedish parliament passed a new law that criminalizes the purchase of sexual acts taking place “at a distance,” that is, via digital platforms and without physical contact. It prohibits the act of promoting or financially exploiting an individual to perform a sexual act remotely for compensation and specifically bans clients from impacting the content of online sexual acts (Government Bill 2025; SVT Nyheter 2025). By targetin…
Making Sense of the Gendered Playing Field in Politics: A Typology of Gendered Institutional Constraints
Scholars, as well as practitioners, are well aware that engaging in politics is far from a gender-equal business, and they are still grappling with the question of how to understand the web of gendered constraints that continue to privilege men. This article seeks to provide conceptual and analytical tools that facilitate the analysis of the gendered playing field in politics. Based on empirical examples and feminist institutionalist theory, we p…
Racism and Gender in the Parliamentary Workplace: Insight Into Immigrant Background MPs' Experiences of Discrimination in Sweden
Numerous studies have explored MPs' opportunities to participate in politics from a gendered perspective. Still, a much smaller number of studies have focused on parliamentarians' immigrant backgrounds, particularly in relation to gender. Taking a broader perspective, this study examines if and how men and women MPs in the Swedish parliament with immigrant backgrounds experience discrimination in their parliamentary work. Drawing on documents and…
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: Progressive ambition and norms around gender balance in the Swedish parliament
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…
Exploring Sustainability in Parliamentary Gender Equality Work. Insights from the Swedish Riksdag
Recent research has pointed to the need for addressing gender equality in parliaments in a broader perspective, focusing on “gender sensitivity” in parliaments in relation to structures, operations, methods and work. Up to now, however, the question of what it takes for this work to be long-lasting and sustainable has received limited attention. This article seeks to address this gap through a case study assessing the sustainability of the intern…
Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices: Exploring Gendered Leadership Conditions in the Swedish Parliament
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: Analyzing Swedish MPs’ Experiences of Social Media
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…
Class and Gender in Conflict? Exploring Intersectionality in Practice in Swedish Gender Equality Bargaining
Beyond client criminalization: Analyzing collaborative governance arrangements for combatting prostitution and trafficking in Sweden
Sweden is well known as the first country in the world to adopt client criminalization in an effort to control and eventually eliminate prostitution. Less attention has been paid to the emergence of extensive collaborative governance arrangements that serve as complements to the legal framework. The aim of this article is to provide new knowledge as it investigates the multifaceted ways in which governance arrangements have developed in Sweden, e…
The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace: How to Research Legislators’ (UN)Equal Opportunities to Represent
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…
Gender, Power and Privilege in the Parliamentary Workplace
This introduction to the Special Section ‘Parliaments as workplaces: gendered approaches to the study of legislatures’ makes the case for revisiting the conditions under which male and female Members of Parliament (MPs) and staff carry out their parliamentary duties, thereby furthering the understanding of parliaments’ inner workings. It shows that adopting a workplace perspective grounded on feminist institutionalist analyses and gender organisa…
A special fund for gender equality? Institutional constraints and gendered consequences in Swedish collective bargaining
Sweden is often described as one of the world's most gender‐equal societies, but the gender pay gap nevertheless remains large. In 2007, a special gender‐equality fund that targeted women workers was successfully implemented in the collective bargaining agreement. Although it decreased the gender pay gap, it was controversial and has never been employed since. The aim of this article is to increase knowledge concerning the conditions for such “ge…
A legislative gender-equality norm as a catalyst for change? Discursive convergence in the case of the Swedish Parliament
This article addresses the establishment of gender-equality norms in a case often presented as one of the most gender-equal legislatures in the world, namely, the Swedish Parliament ( Riksdagen ). Based on a series of in-depth interviews between 2005 and 2016 with 90 legislators in the Swedish Parliament, we ask whether there is agreement over gender-equality problems in Parliament that cut across gender and party affiliation, and whether there i…
The speaker’s gender equality group in the Swedish parliament – a toothless tiger
A recent wave of research has engaged with gender-focused bodies within parliament studying their status, organization, and function. One type of body scarcely studied is issue-based parliamentary groups such as the Speaker’s Gender Equality Group in the Swedish Parliament. This article focuses on the form and function of this body, as well as its potentials and pitfalls. On the basis of secondary sources, two waves of interviews with men parliam…
How platforms facilitate collaboration across organizational boundaries: Fighting human trafficking in Sweden
The use of collaborations and partnerships that engage a variety of actors from both the public and private spheres has drawn attention during the last decade as a promising strategy for combatting trafficking and improving assistance to victims of trafficking. This article investigates the Swedish Civil Society Platform against Human Trafficking as an example of successful collaboration between civil society actors. The aim is to explore how 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…
An Ideational Approach to Gendered Institutional Change: Revisiting the Institutionalization of a New Prostitution Regime in Sweden
Recent work in the field of feminist institutionalism has made important progress in furthering our understanding of gendered institutional change. I argue that gradual ideational changes play an essential role in processes of gendered institutional change, and that examining the interaction between ideas and gendered institutions is of great importance for gaining a better understanding of processes of this type. This article revisits an empiric…
Institutions, Gendered Perceptions, and Frames of Meaning: Explaining Strategic Choices of Women MPs in Swedish Prostitution Policy
Previous research has shown that politics is a highly gendered field and that male and female decision-makers hold different values and engage with different issues as well. Feminist institutionalism has provided important insights concerning how a given context creates the conditions for political behavior and outcomes in respect to gender. While both formal and informal institutions have been of interest in this field of research, less attentio…
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: Exploring members of parliament’s experiences of working in the Swedish parliament
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…
Making the most of the frame: Developing the analytical potential of frame analysis
Frame analysis has been developed and applied across contexts in several disciplines such as policy analysis, where the perspective has proven fruitful to carve out essential differences in the construction of meaning and to understand the responsiveness of the strategic use of ideas. However, this article argues in line with other scholars that the analytical potential of frame analysis is not fully utilized in most empirical studies. The articl…
Criminalising the Client: Institutional Change, Gendered Ideas and Feminist Strategies
In 1998, Sweden was the first country in the world to criminalise the purchase of sexual services, but not the sale of sex. The law represented a new prostitution regime that problematised power re
Ideas and actors in policy processes: Where is the interaction
Several influential frameworks in the field of policy analysis explicitly acknowledge that the role of ideas is as important as the role of actors in analyzing and understanding policy and policy change. An issue of principal interest in this body of literature concerns the interaction between ideas and actors. This article argues that, regardless of important contributions from previous research, the literature can be enriched by new analytical …
The legislature as a gendered workplace: Exploring members of parliament’s experiences of working in the Swedish parliament
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…
Gender, Power and Privilege in the Parliamentary Workplace
This introduction to the Special Section ‘Parliaments as workplaces: gendered approaches to the study of legislatures’ makes the case for revisiting the conditions under which male and female Members of Parliament (MPs) and staff carry out their parliamentary duties, thereby furthering the understanding of parliaments’ inner workings. It shows that adopting a workplace perspective grounded on feminist institutionalist analyses and gender organisa…
The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace: How to Research Legislators’ (UN)Equal Opportunities to Represent
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: Analyzing Swedish MPs’ Experiences of Social Media
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…
Beyond client criminalization: Analyzing collaborative governance arrangements for combatting prostitution and trafficking in Sweden
Sweden is well known as the first country in the world to adopt client criminalization in an effort to control and eventually eliminate prostitution. Less attention has been paid to the emergence of extensive collaborative governance arrangements that serve as complements to the legal framework. The aim of this article is to provide new knowledge as it investigates the multifaceted ways in which governance arrangements have developed in Sweden, e…
Making the most of the frame: Developing the analytical potential of frame analysis
Frame analysis has been developed and applied across contexts in several disciplines such as policy analysis, where the perspective has proven fruitful to carve out essential differences in the construction of meaning and to understand the responsiveness of the strategic use of ideas. However, this article argues in line with other scholars that the analytical potential of frame analysis is not fully utilized in most empirical studies. The articl…
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…
Ideas and actors in policy processes: Where is the interaction
Several influential frameworks in the field of policy analysis explicitly acknowledge that the role of ideas is as important as the role of actors in analyzing and understanding policy and policy change. An issue of principal interest in this body of literature concerns the interaction between ideas and actors. This article argues that, regardless of important contributions from previous research, the literature can be enriched by new analytical …
Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices: Exploring Gendered Leadership Conditions in the Swedish Parliament
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 …
How platforms facilitate collaboration across organizational boundaries: Fighting human trafficking in Sweden
The use of collaborations and partnerships that engage a variety of actors from both the public and private spheres has drawn attention during the last decade as a promising strategy for combatting trafficking and improving assistance to victims of trafficking. This article investigates the Swedish Civil Society Platform against Human Trafficking as an example of successful collaboration between civil society actors. The aim is to explore how the…
Institutions, Gendered Perceptions, and Frames of Meaning: Explaining Strategic Choices of Women MPs in Swedish Prostitution Policy
Previous research has shown that politics is a highly gendered field and that male and female decision-makers hold different values and engage with different issues as well. Feminist institutionalism has provided important insights concerning how a given context creates the conditions for political behavior and outcomes in respect to gender. While both formal and informal institutions have been of interest in this field of research, less attentio…
An Ideational Approach to Gendered Institutional Change: Revisiting the Institutionalization of a New Prostitution Regime in Sweden
Recent work in the field of feminist institutionalism has made important progress in furthering our understanding of gendered institutional change. I argue that gradual ideational changes play an essential role in processes of gendered institutional change, and that examining the interaction between ideas and gendered institutions is of great importance for gaining a better understanding of processes of this type. This article revisits an empiric…
The speaker’s gender equality group in the Swedish parliament – a toothless tiger
A recent wave of research has engaged with gender-focused bodies within parliament studying their status, organization, and function. One type of body scarcely studied is issue-based parliamentary groups such as the Speaker’s Gender Equality Group in the Swedish Parliament. This article focuses on the form and function of this body, as well as its potentials and pitfalls. On the basis of secondary sources, two waves of interviews with men parliam…
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…
Exploring Sustainability in Parliamentary Gender Equality Work. Insights from the Swedish Riksdag
Recent research has pointed to the need for addressing gender equality in parliaments in a broader perspective, focusing on “gender sensitivity” in parliaments in relation to structures, operations, methods and work. Up to now, however, the question of what it takes for this work to be long-lasting and sustainable has received limited attention. This article seeks to address this gap through a case study assessing the sustainability of the intern…
A special fund for gender equality? Institutional constraints and gendered consequences in Swedish collective bargaining
Sweden is often described as one of the world's most gender‐equal societies, but the gender pay gap nevertheless remains large. In 2007, a special gender‐equality fund that targeted women workers was successfully implemented in the collective bargaining agreement. Although it decreased the gender pay gap, it was controversial and has never been employed since. The aim of this article is to increase knowledge concerning the conditions for such “ge…
A legislative gender-equality norm as a catalyst for change? Discursive convergence in the case of the Swedish Parliament
This article addresses the establishment of gender-equality norms in a case often presented as one of the most gender-equal legislatures in the world, namely, the Swedish Parliament ( Riksdagen ). Based on a series of in-depth interviews between 2005 and 2016 with 90 legislators in the Swedish Parliament, we ask whether there is agreement over gender-equality problems in Parliament that cut across gender and party affiliation, and whether there i…
Leaders’ desires to lead: Progressive ambition and norms around gender balance in the Swedish parliament
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…
Ideas and actors in policy processes: Where is the interaction
Several influential frameworks in the field of policy analysis explicitly acknowledge that the role of ideas is as important as the role of actors in analyzing and understanding policy and policy change. An issue of principal interest in this body of literature concerns the interaction between ideas and actors. This article argues that, regardless of important contributions from previous research, the literature can be enriched by new analytical …
Criminalising the Client: Institutional Change, Gendered Ideas and Feminist Strategies
In 1998, Sweden was the first country in the world to criminalise the purchase of sexual services, but not the sale of sex. The law represented a new prostitution regime that problematised power re
Making the most of the frame: Developing the analytical potential of frame analysis
Frame analysis has been developed and applied across contexts in several disciplines such as policy analysis, where the perspective has proven fruitful to carve out essential differences in the construction of meaning and to understand the responsiveness of the strategic use of ideas. However, this article argues in line with other scholars that the analytical potential of frame analysis is not fully utilized in most empirical studies. The articl…
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…
An Ideational Approach to Gendered Institutional Change: Revisiting the Institutionalization of a New Prostitution Regime in Sweden
Recent work in the field of feminist institutionalism has made important progress in furthering our understanding of gendered institutional change. I argue that gradual ideational changes play an essential role in processes of gendered institutional change, and that examining the interaction between ideas and gendered institutions is of great importance for gaining a better understanding of processes of this type. This article revisits an empiric…
Institutions, Gendered Perceptions, and Frames of Meaning: Explaining Strategic Choices of Women MPs in Swedish Prostitution Policy
Previous research has shown that politics is a highly gendered field and that male and female decision-makers hold different values and engage with different issues as well. Feminist institutionalism has provided important insights concerning how a given context creates the conditions for political behavior and outcomes in respect to gender. While both formal and informal institutions have been of interest in this field of research, less attentio…
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: Exploring members of parliament’s experiences of working in the Swedish parliament
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…
A legislative gender-equality norm as a catalyst for change? Discursive convergence in the case of the Swedish Parliament
This article addresses the establishment of gender-equality norms in a case often presented as one of the most gender-equal legislatures in the world, namely, the Swedish Parliament ( Riksdagen ). Based on a series of in-depth interviews between 2005 and 2016 with 90 legislators in the Swedish Parliament, we ask whether there is agreement over gender-equality problems in Parliament that cut across gender and party affiliation, and whether there i…
The speaker’s gender equality group in the Swedish parliament – a toothless tiger
A recent wave of research has engaged with gender-focused bodies within parliament studying their status, organization, and function. One type of body scarcely studied is issue-based parliamentary groups such as the Speaker’s Gender Equality Group in the Swedish Parliament. This article focuses on the form and function of this body, as well as its potentials and pitfalls. On the basis of secondary sources, two waves of interviews with men parliam…
How platforms facilitate collaboration across organizational boundaries: Fighting human trafficking in Sweden
The use of collaborations and partnerships that engage a variety of actors from both the public and private spheres has drawn attention during the last decade as a promising strategy for combatting trafficking and improving assistance to victims of trafficking. This article investigates the Swedish Civil Society Platform against Human Trafficking as an example of successful collaboration between civil society actors. The aim is to explore how the…
A special fund for gender equality? Institutional constraints and gendered consequences in Swedish collective bargaining
Sweden is often described as one of the world's most gender‐equal societies, but the gender pay gap nevertheless remains large. In 2007, a special gender‐equality fund that targeted women workers was successfully implemented in the collective bargaining agreement. Although it decreased the gender pay gap, it was controversial and has never been employed since. The aim of this article is to increase knowledge concerning the conditions for such “ge…
Class and Gender in Conflict? Exploring Intersectionality in Practice in Swedish Gender Equality Bargaining
Beyond client criminalization: Analyzing collaborative governance arrangements for combatting prostitution and trafficking in Sweden
Sweden is well known as the first country in the world to adopt client criminalization in an effort to control and eventually eliminate prostitution. Less attention has been paid to the emergence of extensive collaborative governance arrangements that serve as complements to the legal framework. The aim of this article is to provide new knowledge as it investigates the multifaceted ways in which governance arrangements have developed in Sweden, e…
The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace: How to Research Legislators’ (UN)Equal Opportunities to Represent
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…
Gender, Power and Privilege in the Parliamentary Workplace
This introduction to the Special Section ‘Parliaments as workplaces: gendered approaches to the study of legislatures’ makes the case for revisiting the conditions under which male and female Members of Parliament (MPs) and staff carry out their parliamentary duties, thereby furthering the understanding of parliaments’ inner workings. It shows that adopting a workplace perspective grounded on feminist institutionalist analyses and gender organisa…
Exploring Sustainability in Parliamentary Gender Equality Work. Insights from the Swedish Riksdag
Recent research has pointed to the need for addressing gender equality in parliaments in a broader perspective, focusing on “gender sensitivity” in parliaments in relation to structures, operations, methods and work. Up to now, however, the question of what it takes for this work to be long-lasting and sustainable has received limited attention. This article seeks to address this gap through a case study assessing the sustainability of the intern…
Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices: Exploring Gendered Leadership Conditions in the Swedish Parliament
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: Analyzing Swedish MPs’ Experiences of Social Media
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: Progressive ambition and norms around gender balance in the Swedish parliament
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…
Making Sense of the Gendered Playing Field in Politics: A Typology of Gendered Institutional Constraints
Scholars, as well as practitioners, are well aware that engaging in politics is far from a gender-equal business, and they are still grappling with the question of how to understand the web of gendered constraints that continue to privilege men. This article seeks to provide conceptual and analytical tools that facilitate the analysis of the gendered playing field in politics. Based on empirical examples and feminist institutionalist theory, we p…
Racism and Gender in the Parliamentary Workplace: Insight Into Immigrant Background MPs' Experiences of Discrimination in Sweden
Numerous studies have explored MPs' opportunities to participate in politics from a gendered perspective. Still, a much smaller number of studies have focused on parliamentarians' immigrant backgrounds, particularly in relation to gender. Taking a broader perspective, this study examines if and how men and women MPs in the Swedish parliament with immigrant backgrounds experience discrimination in their parliamentary work. Drawing on documents and…
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…
Sweden’s Updated Prostitution Policy: Populist Radical Right Influences and the Shift Away from Gender Equality
On May 20, 2025, the Swedish parliament passed a new law that criminalizes the purchase of sexual acts taking place “at a distance,” that is, via digital platforms and without physical contact. It prohibits the act of promoting or financially exploiting an individual to perform a sexual act remotely for compensation and specifically bans clients from impacting the content of online sexual acts (Government Bill 2025; SVT Nyheter 2025). By targetin…
Political science (21 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (18 works) · Law (18 works) · Law (18 works) · Gender Studies (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Gender Studies (15 works) · Economics (10 works) · Gender Diversity and Inequality (10 works)