Women’s Underrepresentation in German Politics—Reforms and Reform Needs Based on the Local Level

Abstract

In Germany, the representation of women at all federal levels in parliament has been stagnating for decades. This is mainly due to the personalized proportional representation system and the inconsistent voluntary party quotas, some of which are not very binding. The objective of this research is to subject the German Politics to critical analysis from the perspective of women’s representation and participation at all levels of Government. The paper relied on secondary source of information viz. Journal articles etc. After Angela Merkel’s resignation, it became even clearer that the underrepresentation of women at the top of the government was even greater than in the parliaments. At municipal level, the proportion of women in mayoral offices in Germany stagnates at 10%. This is mainly because, firstly, the larger parties hardly have any women and, depending on the path, the mostly male incumbents are usually re-elected. If the major parties nominate female mayoral candidates, they are also in a difficult starting position. They either must compete against incumbents or in the diaspora of the parties, which significantly reduces the chances of an election victory. With institutional solutions such as term limits in mayoral elections and cumulation and splitting (open list election) combined with legal quotas for female candidates in parliamentary elections at all federal levels, the descriptive representation of women in German politics could be significantly increased.