When Norwegian television broadcasts a parliamentary debate or reports on a crisis cabinet meeting, a traditional line of crew-cuts in grey suits is not expected to appear on the screen. For over a decade, women have participated in close to equal numbers with men in formulating cabinet decisions. In parliament, the proportion of women parliamentarians increased from less than 10 per cent in the early 1970s to almost 40 per cent by the mid-1990s. In the organizational leadership of most Norwegian political parties there are only small differences in women's and men's participation, and most major parties have elected women party leaders over the course of the last decade. The world has rejoiced in the success that Scandinavian women have achieved in gaining access to top political leadership positions. Today, various adaptations of Nordic quota policies appear internationally, and the policy of quotas has become one of the most fervently debated means to secure women's presence in political life.

Norway's policy on women's political participation rests on a widely shared political credo. The core of this credo can be summarized as follows: gender constitutes an important political category that needs to be fully represented; and women's political interests and orientations cannot, and should not, be viewed as merely equivalent to men's political interests and orientations.

The path to near equal representation in Norway has not been a straight one. Indeed, over the past 25 years, periods of increase in women's representation have been followed by moments of stagnation or even decrease. Two highly visible examples can illustrate this point. In 1993, international headlines were captured during Norway's parliamentary election as three women party leaders fronted the three competing government alternatives. Four years later however, all prime ministerial candidates were men. The Labour Party's major political figure and Prime Minister for almost 10 years, Gro Harlem Brundtland, had by then resigned, and two other women party leaders chose not to run. In that year's parliamentary election women's overall representation dropped from 39 per cent to 36 per cent. This was principally due to the electoral success of the right-wing Progress Party; the only Norwegian party with no stated policy on the internal distribution of leadership positions among women and men.

The Collective Good

Norway's policy on women's political participation rests on a widely shared political credo. The core of this credo can be summarized as follows: gender constitutes an important political category that needs to be fully represented; and women's political interests and orientations cannot, and should not, be viewed as merely equivalent to men's political interests and orientations. This reasoning is mirrored in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action:

Women's equal participation in
decision-making is not only a demand for simple justice or democracy but can also be seen as a necessary condition for women's interests to be taken into account. Achieving the goal of equal participation of women and men in decision-making will provide a balance that more accurately reflects the composition of society and is needed in order to strengthen democracy and promote its proper functioning.

In Norway, this logic worked its way into circles of party leadership from the early 1970s. Elaborated through the growth of a new feminist movement, arguments on the interest of the group based on the collective good, rather than on individual fairness, have become important in legitimizing new representation.

Contrary to dominant trends in many other countries, the Norwegian feminist movement did advocate integration into the existing political structure as a viable strategy for empowering women. In fact, the women's movement worked actively with women in different political parties to promote women's access to established institutions of decision-making. Through careful argumentation, co-ordinated campaigns and the clever use of party competition, feminist ideas on gender-structured interests thus came to influence the attitudes of political elite.

The Gender Gap ­ A Survey

Since the mid-1980s, several studies have indicated a remarkable consensus among the Norwegian political leadership with regard to this particular credo on difference. When asked whether they believe that gender makes a difference in politics ­ in other words, whether men and women party members have different interests or viewpoints, or whether women's political inclusion has led to changes in party viewpoints ­ surveys among local politicians, organizational elite, members of parliament and cabinet ministers alike, have produced a high rate of confirmation.

When asked whether they believe that gender makes a difference in politics ­ in other words, whether men and women party members have different interests or viewpoints, or whether women's political inclusion has led to changes in party viewpoints ­ surveys among local politicians, organizational elite, members of parliament and cabinet ministers alike, have produced a high rate of confirmation.

We examine one such study in greater detail: a comprehensive interview series with Norwegian parliamentarians conducted as part of a research project on women's inclusion into elite politics over the period 1988 to 1992. One hundred and forty-six of a total of 155 members of parliament participated in the interviews. Given the interviews' stated purpose of evaluating "women's impact on party politics", there was a distinct possibility of a large amount of "yes"-saying. The question of change in party viewpoint was, however, also asked in a survey with a differently stated purpose. In this interview series, a combined 86 per cent (83 per cent men and 93 per cent women) affirmed that changes did take place in party viewpoints as a result of women's participation. In the earlier survey among delegates to the political parties' national conventions and the top-party organization leadership, 74 per cent of the men and 86 per cent of the women indicated such changes.

First, MPs were asked whether they believed that men and women party members held different political interests or viewpoints. The question was open-ended, and specifications depended solely on the respondents' own perceptions. Answers were provided by reference to broad policy areas, encompassing nine different categories. According to the parliamentarians interviewed, women's interests mainly included social and welfare policies, environmental protection, equality policies, disarmament policies and educational policies. Men's interests included economic and industrial policies, energy issues, transportation, national security and foreign affairs. These categories are hardly surprising: they largely parallel empirical descriptions of the gender gap in political attitudes revealed through a number of surveys over the past decades and reflect much of what has been said in this handbook.

Distinct Interests

According to the survey, there was categorically no overlap reported in men's and women's interests. In this sense the interviews express clear gender stereotyping ­ a stereotyping which reveals how a majority of the Norwegian political elite, men and women alike, have internalized conceptualizations of male and female areas of political concern.

However, there is one significant difference between the responses in these interviews and those of previous surveys. The gender gap surveys described minimal degrees of difference in attitudes. The structure of gender interests portrayed in the parliamentary interview series, on the other hand, were categorical: there was no overlap reported in men's and women's interests. In this sense the interviews express clear gender stereotyping ­ a stereotyping which reveals how a majority of the Norwegian political elite, men and women alike, have internalized conceptualizations of male and female areas of political concern.

The areas of concern mentioned clearly remain too broad to allow for interpretation of the different political means that men and women MPs use in these areas or their various goals. Women's particular interests in social and welfare policies could cover a whole range of different interpretations in terms of policy choices. Similarly, the economic policies reported as particularly interesting to male politicians have different goals and the means to achieve these goals can differ based on the political party. But the interviews also asked whether the MPs perceived that women's political inclusion had contributed to any change in party viewpoints, and in turn, on the parties' agendas. The responses still contained general references to disarmament, environmental protection and social and welfare policies. But in addition, a series of political issues were now specified, which primarily concerned representational politics, labour market politics, body politics and care politics.

Care Politics

As far as the latter is concerned, the most important area has been the gradual development of a politics of care which particularly addresses the state's responsibilities to provide opportunities for women to combine the obligations of motherhood with the right to economic independence. Such politics include increases in publicly sponsored childcare services, extensions of the paid parental leave period, options for more flexible work hours through work/time budgeting, improved pension rights for unpaid carework and increased child benefits for families that do not use public childcare services. The most original new arrangements perhaps have been those to secure the right of fathers to share the parental leave period. Since the mid 1980s, a series of recommendations, plans and implementation grants on such issues were passed by parliament, although not necessarily with full and happy consensus.

The policy area in which women's influence has been most apparent is in the gradual development of a politics of care ­ which addresses the state's responsibilities to provide opportunities for women to combine the obligations of motherhood with the right to economic independence.

The interviews with Norwegian parliamentarians also showed that women at the left of the political spectrum were likely to prefer measures which focus the source of women's economic independence in labour-market participation ­ such as improved childcare services or time budgeting options. Women in the centrist and conservative parties were more inclined to promote policies aimed at raising the value and prestige of care work that women do in the home. And when challenged to choose, different measures tended to turn into divergent priorities.

Asked to clarify preferences as to whether increased state transfers should be channelled as subsidies to childcare centres, or as cash transfers to families, the priorities of women MPs differed only marginally from those of their male party colleagues; the basic differences reflected left or right party priorities. Thus, in the hypothetical interview questions, final choices were shown largely to follow basic party ideologies, which is later reflected in the actual party-specific processes of prioritizing. Yet there is no doubt that care politics has now reached the top priority list of most political parties. In the autumn of 1997, they were the decisive questions in determining parliamentary majorities for the adoption of the 1998 state budget as Labour refused to negotiate with the new centrist cabinet's major reform proposal: the introduction of a comprehensive system of selective cash transfers to families.

Strategic Alliances and the Primacy
of Party Politics

In principle, however, the situations where a choice has to be made can be sought, avoided or reshaped. In any effort to influence the definition of choices and the shaping of prevalent preferences, co-ordination among the women MPs is paramount. In the interviews with the Norwegian parliamentarians, the survey asked whether women MPs had co-operated with other women specifically to influence decisions on particular issues ­ the question distinguished between inter-party and cross-party co-ordination. Among a total of 54 women about two-thirds answered that they had participated in such co-ordinated activities in the course of their parliamentary career. About the same number of women had participated in both cross-party and inter-party alliances. Co-ordination efforts had covered most major areas of women's political agendas except on issues of care politics, which had hardly witnessed cross-party alliances. On such issues, alliances were mainly reported on a party-specific basis.

In an attempt to identify recent alliances specifically on the parliamentary level, the survey also examined to what degree the same issues were mentioned by clusters of women MPs. Results indicated that there were only three issues where the answers included at least one woman in each of at least three parties across the parliamentary blocks. Within each of the two major parliamentary parties ­ both of which had comparatively large delegations of women ­ only one issue was identified by more than 25 per cent of the women as the basis for party-specific alliances.

Although a certain amount of inter-party lobbying takes place, party loyalty remains a determining factor in influencing women MPs strategic moves.

It is interesting to note that such alliances have seldom resulted in situations where women had to vote in opposition to their party blocks. While about two-thirds of the women MPs reported that they had participated in cross-party alliances, only 10 reported that they had made one or more oppositional votes in parliament. In other words, although a certain amount of inter-party lobbying takes place, party loyalty remains a determining factor in influencing women MPs' strategic moves. In an interview one MP explained that:

I have to consider an oppositional vote very carefully. I cannot do it often, only once in a while. Before I take such a step, I check the party programme. If my views are in line with the programme, I argue my right to dissent in parliament. I then dissent with the parliamentary group but not with the party.

From this information, it is clear that parliament did not seem to be an important institutional setting for issue-specific alliances. Nevertheless, there is more willingness to engage in cross-party co-ordination among women MPs today than amongst those who were members of parliament a decade earlier. When asked about such co-operation, those comparatively few representatives of earlier times indicated that it had never taken place, nor was it sought.

Today, co-operation might well be sought, but the issues of competing party loyalties ­ where "party" is maintained as the primary political identification ­ remains a problem. A successful alliance is one that at the early stages of decision-making succeeds in shaping the position taken within each of the political parties. If this does not happen, the effort tends to be abandoned rather than followed to a final solution of oppositional voting in parliament. It thus follows that alliances primarily seek to build party consensus.

Conclusion

In Norwegian politics there is unquestionably a mandate of difference attached to women politicians. This mandate has been used by women themselves to get inside the power institutions, and is recognized by party leadership, both men and women, as a relevant political mandate. This mandate has not, however, clarified exactly which values or priorities would form the basis for a transformation of public policies. Neither has it outlined how such a transformation could proceed. It has been a powerful tool of inclusion, but has also blurred distinctions among women in government. Arguments on difference do not sufficiently highlight the impact of primary political identifications.

Women enter politics through existing party structures, and political parties survive to the extent they are capable of presenting the content of their policies in terms of competing alternatives. In routine politics, old bargaining habits also embrace new agendas. In these processes, there are no categorical gender differences.

Making a Difference ¹

1. Close co-ordination and networking with women's organizations;

2. Forming inter- and cross-party alliances both within their political parties and across their parties around women-specific themes;

3. Learning the rules of the game both within the parties as well as within parliament, and thereby gaining legitimacy and credibility for themselves through their actions;

4. Making use of the rules of party competition ­ a basic feature of democracy ­ and using this to their advantage by lobbying to include issues important to the female electorate on the agenda and thus providing alternative policy platforms for the parties and the voters; and

5. Participating in different commissions, and thus facilitating the process of cross-party networking.

The process of trying to make an impact is neither smooth nor easy. Further, politics incorporates its own code of ethics which may sometimes result in shifting preferences and unstable alliances. However, it remains important to search for the common thread, i.e. the best practices for achieving impact, running through the experiences of women parliamentarians from different parts of the world. Tracing these practices enables not only an awareness of how impact is made, but also how techniques can be improved in order to enhance women's political performance now and in the future.