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.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport governance
• gender quotas
• women
• national sports federations
• elections

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Proportionality principle was the previous applicable law (see decree n°2004-22, 7 January 2004). E.g.: if an NSF had 23% of women among its sports participants, it needed 23% of women in its governing bodies.

2. If the organisation’s revenue is over 1 million euros, it can remunerate three of its board members (generally the chairperson, the secretary and the treasurer).

3. See www.sydneyscoreboard.com.

4. Schoch and Clausen (2019).

5. We do not mention the sport federation’s name to ensure participant anonymity.

6. As allowed by the transition period.

7. The ‘proportionality principle’ was in force. See Decree n° 2004-22, 7 January 2004.

8. Sample of 27 Olympic federations from 36.

9. 2.2.2.2.3 Annexe I-5 art R131-1 et R131-11 of the Sport Code.

10. According to Ethics & Boards, after the Copé-Zimmermann law, the share of women on SBF 120 company boards rose from 26% in 2013 to 43% in 2018. For more details, see http://www.ethicsandboards.com/publications/429-instances-dirigeantes-ou-sont-les-femmes?lang=en.