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DO NORWEGIAN VOTERS DISCRIMINATE AGAINST WOMEN CANDIDATES FOR PARLIAMENT? A REJOINDER *
Author(s) -
HELLEVIK OTTAR
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1979.tb00563.x
Subject(s) - parliament , norwegian , nomination , position (finance) , census , political science , general election , law , public administration , sociology , politics , economics , demography , linguistics , population , philosophy , finance
In his article Foverskov claims that the sex of a candidate influences his/her chances of being elected to the Norwegian Parliament, independent of position held on the party list. This conclusion is due, however, to the lack of validity of his measure for list position. The lower election rate for female candidates can be shown to result from less favourable positions on the lists. Sex in other words affects election success only indirectly through the list position variable. It is therefore the nomination phase, and not the election phase, that must be analysed if we want to establish the causes of underrepresentation of women in the Norwegian Parliament. It is argued that Foverskov takes too negative a view of the possibilities of using the data archive on candidates for this purpose; it only needs to be supplemented with relevant census or survey data.