American Political Science Review Vol. 110, No. 1 February 2016

doi:10.1017/S0003055415000611 c American Political Science Association 2016

Gender Quotas and Womens Political LeadershipDIANA Z. OBRIEN Indiana UniversityJOHANNA RICKNE Research Institute for Industrial Economics

Though more than 100 countries have adopted gender quotas, the effects of these reforms onwomens political leadership are largely unknown. We exploit a natural experimenta 5050quota imposed by the national board of the Swedish Social Democratic Party on 290 municipalbranchesto examine quotas influence on womens selection to, and survival in, top political posts. Wefind that those municipalities where the quota had a larger impact became more likely to select (butnot reappoint) female leaders. Extending this analysis, we show that the quota increased the number ofwomen perceived as qualified for these positions. Our findings support the notion that quotas can have anacceleration effect on womens representation in leadership positions, particularly when they augment thepool of female candidates for these posts. These results help dispel the myth that quotas trade short-termgains in womens descriptive representation for long-term exclusion from political power.

The widespread adoption of gender quotas isone of the most important political develop-ments of the modern era. As these reforms havespread around the world, there is increasing interest intheir broader consequences (Bauer 2012; Franceschet,Krook, and Piscopo 2012). A large body of work has ex-plored their effectiveness in increasing womens pres-ence in legislatures (Jones 2009; Krook 2009; Matland2006; Paxton, Hughes, and Painter 2010; Schwindt-Bayer 2009; Tripp and Kang 2008). Other researchdocuments their influence on the representation ofwomens interests (Beaman et al. 2009; Chattopadhyayand Duflo 2004; Devlin and Elgie 2008; Franceschetand Piscopo 2008; Kerevel and Atkeson 2013). Stillothers examine the symbolic effects of quotas, includ-ing their impact on womens career ambitions (Beamanet al. 2012) and political participation and engagement(Barnes and Burchard 2013; Clayton 2015; Kittilsonand Schwindt-Bayer 2012), as well as beliefs aboutwomens ability to govern (Alexander 2012).

Despite our growing understanding of quotasbroader effects, their influence on womens appoint-ment to higher political office remains unknown. Inparticular, no study has yet considered whether quotashelp or hinder womens selection to, and survival in,leadership posts within political organizations. This isa surprising oversight, not only because of the rela-tionship between womens access to higher office andwomens descriptive, substantive, and symbolic repre-sentation, but also in light of the conflicting expecta-tions generated by the literature. On the one hand,quotas may increase the supply of women eligible for

Diana Z. OBrien is Assistant Professor in the Department of Polit-ical Science at Indiana University (dzobrien@indiana.edu).

Johanna Rickne is Research Fellow at the Research Institute of In-dustrial Economics and Affiliated Researcher at the Uppsala Centerfor Labor Studies.

The authors thank Tiffany Barnes, Olle Folke, Jennifer Piscopo,Christina Xydias, and the participants at the 2014 Midwest Politi-cal Science Association annual meeting for their helpful comments.We are also grateful for the valuable guidance provided by fouranonymous reviewers, as well as Dr. Marijke Breuning and the othermembers of the APSR editorial team. We further acknowledge thefinancial support provided by the Swedish Science Foundation andthe Ragnar Soderberg Foundation.

intraparty leadership roles, resulting in a positive accel-eration effect on womens access to top political posts.On the other hand, both scholars and activists havelinked quotas to stigmatization and backlash effects.These policies may thus produce a trade-off effect inwhich short-term gains in womens numeric represen-tation result in longer-term exclusion from positions ofauthority.

We provide the first empirical analysis of quotasinfluence on womens access to leadership positionswithin political parties. We consider the possibility ofacceleration and trade-off effects with respect to (1)the initial selection of women as leaders, and (2) thereappointment of incumbent female leaders. To betterunderstand the mechanisms underlying our findingsand the generalizability of our resultsin an extendedanalysis we evaluate the impact of quota implemen-tation on the number of women deemed qualified forleadership posts. This additional work on qualificationsaddresses both a key intermediary factor determiningquotas effect on womens access to political leadershipand also a central theme in the debate surroundinggender quotas more broadly.1

Our analysis focuses on a case study that offers anovel estimation strategy and compelling data. Theempirical design addresses the concern that quotasmay be adopted by parties that are more positivelydisposed towards women in leadership, or among thosewith powerful female members who aspire to theseposts. We sidestep this endogeneity issue by examininga gender quota that was exogenously imposed on 290local Swedish Social Democratic parties by the nationalparty organization in 1994. This 5050 zipper quotarequired the alternation of male and female names on

1 This extended analysis contributes to a growing body of work thataddresses the effects of quotas on the makeup of elected assembliesand party groups. Earlier studies have compared male and femalepoliticians occupational and educational backgrounds (Baltrunaiteet al. 2014; Besley et al. 2013; Bird 2003; Chattopadhyay and Duflo2004; Franceschet and Piscopo 2012; Murray 2010, 2012; OBrien2012; Schwindt-Bayer 2011), prior political experience (Franceschetand Piscopo 2012, 2014; Murray 2010, 2012), and political ambition(Davidson-Schmich 2016; Schwindt-Bayer 2011), among other traits.

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American Political Science Review Vol. 110, No. 1

ordered party ballots. For all leadership appointmentsbetween 1988 and 2010, we identify the leader of eachlocal partythe top candidate on its electoral ballot,who acts as its main spokespersonas well as thesocioeconomic background characteristics (includingsex, age, education, income, and occupation) of everySocial Democratic politician in the municipality. Thebreadth and depth of the dataset allows us to conducta difference-in-difference analysis that compares thelikelihood of the selection and reappointment of fe-male leaders within each local party before and afterquota implementation.

Combining the exogenous assignment of the local-level quota policy with a difference-in-difference esti-mation strategy allows us to treat our data as a naturalexperiment. We then establish whether quotas lead toacceleration or trade-off effects and assess their medi-ating influence on the pool of prospective party leaders.We show that municipalities in which the quota had agreater impact on womens descriptive representationexperienced comparatively larger gains in the probabil-ity of selecting (but not reappointing) female leaders.Quotas are thus positively associated with womensappointment to leadership posts, but do not influencethe tenure of incumbent women. Having establishedthese baseline effects, we further demonstrate that mu-nicipalities in which the quota had a greater effect onthe proportion of female candidates also experiencedlarger gains in both the number and share of qualifiedprospective female leaders. This strengthening of thecandidate pool likely contributed to the accelerationeffect in the Swedish case. We posit that similar resultswill hold for other quotas that markedly increase thesupply of women perceived as qualified for executiveand intraparty leadership posts.

Our results help dispel the myth that electoral af-firmative action policies necessarily result in losses inwomens access to power. On the contrary, quotas canfacilitate the promotion of women, which in turn canhave tremendous practical and symbolic consequences.By bolstering womens appointment to leadership po-sitions, quotas likely have knock-on effects related tothe selection of female legislative candidates and min-isters (Cheng and Tavits 2011; Kittilson 2006; Niven1998), as well as on the content of the policy agenda(Kittilson 2011; McAllister 2007; Poguntke and Webb2005). Though our empirical analysis focuses on onequota policy in a single country, our conceptual frame-work and findings are broadly applicable and make animportant contribution to the growing set of work onelectoral reform, political representation, gender andpolitics, and quota impact.

QUOTAS AND FEMALE PARTY LEADERSHIP

Over 75 countries, and more than 130 political par-ties, have adopted quota policies aimed at augment-ing womens numerical, or descriptive, representation(Krook 2009; International IDEA 2015). In responseto the rapid diffusion of these transformative elec-toral reforms, a large body of research has examined

whetherand in which casesquotas successfully in-crease womens numbers in legislatures. Though wenow know a great deal about quotas influence onwomens initial access to elected office, their subse-quent effects on womens ascension to positions ofpower within the political hierarchy are unknown. Yet,control of the agenda by party leaders, combined withexecutive dominance, increasingly limits the role ofrank-and-file legislators. In