Electoral competition and gender quotas: dearth of female applicants or structural resistance?

Abstract

Gender equality has been a major discussion item on the French Ministry of Sports' agenda in recent years. In terms of governance, in 2014, the law n°2014-873 'for true equality between women and men' introduced two types of gender quota on the executive boards of national sports federations (NSFs). Senators and deputies relaxed the conditions regarding the implementation of quotas, alluding to a lack of female candidates. The present study investigates the claim that there are not enough female sports leaders and analyses the electoral competition in the governing bodies of French NSFs following the enactment of these quotas. The study adopts a mixed method, consisting of a quantitative study conducted on 107 NSFs and a qualitative investigation conducted on one Olympic federation in particular. Chi-square goodness-of-fit tests were used to assess whether women were under-represented on executive boards. In addition, we conducted seventeen semi-structured interviews. Overall, electoral competition for most executive boards appears to be very limited as most of the candidates were elected. Quantitative figures suggest that there is no voting bias against women and that it is rare for there to be a lack of female candidates. However, both visible and invisible resistance does exist. Some federations limit the application of the law through ex-officio members and consider quotas as a maximum. Moreover, backstage power strategies influence both the number of applications and the results of the ballots. Despite these factors, female representation in sport governance is rising significantly. After the last elections, it rose faster than it had in the previous decade.

Women in sports leadership: A systematic narrative review

“…What’s more, the imposition of quotas can have unintended consequences. For example, recent research suggests that whilst the introduction of a quota in France can indeed ‘fast track’ women into positions of governance, this fast tracking is often conducted via uncontested elections and by the expansion of board size which also enables men to maintain their positions (Caprais and Delorme, 2019).…”

“…Yet, research which examines gendered processes within electoral procedures of sports organisations is sparse. Recent research by Caprais and Delorme (2019) has highlighted how elections to sports organisations in France can favour men because election procedures are often less openly ‘democratic’ than claimed, and can be shaped by personal networks and informal selection procedures. Elections might also include the employment of multiple ‘stages’ of vetting and shortlisting before an ‘actual’ election is conducted in order to shape candidate shortlists, which are in turn contoured by local laws (including quotas) and by the patronage (or absence of support) from existing members, particularly an organisation’s president.…”

The impact of gender quotas in sport management: the case of Spain

“…In Costa Rica in 2011, full parity was required in sport governing bodies (Piscopo 2015, 43). In 2014, France mandated parity for leadership positions in sport federations (Caprais, Sabatier, and Rubi 2020;Lépinard 2016, 231). Also in 2014, Spain established a quota for boards of National Sport Federations (NSFs) of at least three women or 33% of board members.…”

The evolution of gender representation in the decision-making positions of sport governing bodies in Switzerland

“…In 2019, the sample of heads of performance surveyed in the study by Hippolyt Kempf et al 11 consisted of only 21% women. In 2021, only 14.7% 12 of the heads of lower management units of the FOSPO and 30.7% 13 at Swiss Olympic were women. At the local level, of the 20,000 voluntary sport clubs that compose the non-profit sector, membership is largely male-dominated.…”