Leaders’ desires to lead: progressive ambition and norms around gender balance in the Swedish parliament

Abstract

ABSTRACT 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-institutional context is paramount. The gender-equal context of the Swedish Parliament allows us to investigate the relationship between progressive political ambition and informal rules, norms, and practices that promote the presence of women in political leadership. Drawing on interviews with nearly all top parliamentary leaders and party gatekeepers as well as a survey with MPs, we find that women leaders and MPs are less interested in political leadership in comparison to men. We describe the rules, norms, and practices that stipulate gender balance in decision-making in this context and show how gender-equitable informal institutions have contributed to creating gender balance in leadership. While such institutions have not closed the gender ambition gap at the individual level, they mitigate its consequences by incentivizing less ambitious women to accept leadership positions and prompting gatekeepers to search for and persuade competent women.