Towards a Dual Approach: Comparing the Effects of Parliamentary Committees on Gender Equality in Denmark and Finland

Abstract

Drawing on insights from state feminism and legislative studies on parliamentary committees, this article develops a dual approach for the comparative analysis of committees on gender equality. Empirically, it compares the standing committees on gender equality in Denmark and Finland, two Nordic countries acknowledged as forerunners in gender equality, which also have 'fairly strong' parliamentary standing committees. The results show that both committees on gender equality can be regarded as 'feminist' in character and both interact with relevant civil society organisations. Their impact as measured by legislative outputs and oversight differs, however, in line with differing committee system characteristics: the Finnish committee has more impact on legislative outputs while the Danish committee has more impact on overseeing government.

Assessing the Impact of Parliamentary Design: The Case of the Danish Committee on Gender Equality

“…Accordingly, the rise in parliamentary specialization was not very impressive. Moreover, as shown elsewhere, the effect of LIU on parliament's ability to add the perspective of gender to legislation also did not arise (Holli & Harder 2016). The pre-LIU period runs from October 2004 to October 2011.The post-LIU period runs from October 2011 to July 2015.…”

“…40 -No. 4, 2017 onwards (on average, PØU received 5.6 of such approaches per year; LIU received per 19; P < 0.05)(see also Holli & Harder 2016).…”

“…So far, such studies have generally been based on interviews with parliamentarians. They indicate that these bodies may add the perspective of gender equality to legislative bills (Sawer et al ; Ahrens ; Green ; Sawer & Turner ) and monitor government actions on gender equality (Holli & Harder ; Sawer & Turner ). Additionally, they describe how such bodies facilitate interaction between parliaments and women's movements (Grace ; Green ; Johnson & Josefsson ) and encourage specialization in gender equality (Costa ).…”

“…These early descriptions encourage feminist scholarship to devote more attention to these institutions. However, as noted by Holli and Harder (), the theoretical framework for such studies cannot rest exclusively on findings of the literature on WPAs, as WPAs and the surroundings in which they operate are different from parliamentary committees. Hence, such studies need to include legislative literature on the particularities of the parliamentary setting in question.…”

“…In general, we may therefore define the committee as feminist in the way in which this term is applied in this article as being concerned with issues of gender equality (i.e., situations in which one gender is systematically to be found in an inferior or disadvantageous position). Since the very beginning, LIU has had more female than male members, as well as a larger share of female members than PØU (see Holli & Harder , 799).…”