Abstract
This chapter extends the comparison between Germany and Austria to the subnational level by comparing four states in the two federations that exhibit cross-national similarities as well as domestic differences. We assess two gender-progressive city-states, Berlin and Vienna, and two historically more gender-traditional and conservative territorial states, Baden-Württemberg and Upper Austria. Austrian Länder parties comply more consistently with their voluntary party quotas than the German Land-level parties. Land-level electoral systems and how they intersect with party quota policies result in different outcomes, with a smoother fit between electoral law and quotas in the Austrian context.
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Notes
- 1.
For details on case selection, see the introduction.
- 2.
See for details of the subnational election law, the so-called Landeswahlordnungen https://www.bpb.de/politik/wahlen/wahlen-in-deutschland/249561/wahlsysteme. Accessed May 27, 2019.
- 3.
With smaller variations in terms of at which level (district or Land) parties compile their electoral lists.
- 4.
Bavaria has seven Wahlkreise (election districts) and 91 Stimmkreise (voting districts). Beyond the directly elected candidates for the Stimmkreise, voters can choose additional candidates from their respective Wahlkreis list.
- 5.
On the national and state level, the Greens have also historically instituted ‘dual leadership,’ a quota for party head positions and therefore, one would assume, also for leading candidate roles. However, in Baden-Württemberg the attempt to institute dual leadership in 2010 and not just having a man, Winfried Kretschmann, as the main party candidate failed (INT G2). Instead, the party decided to have a ‘core leadership team’ of four, two of them women, with the result that only Kretschmann gained visibility and the other three are mostly ignored by media (ibid.).
- 6.
Baden-Württemberg is currently the only Bundesland where the proportion of women in the Land parliament never got above 25%.
- 7.
Lack of commitment to gender equality also translates to the municipal level in Baden-Württemberg. Here, in 2013 a paragraph was introduced into communal electoral law that stipulates that men and women should be equally considered during candidate selection. This can take the form of zippered lists, but the law distinctly says that the two stipulations are not a necessary prerequisite for electoral lists being lawful (Municipal electoral law Baden-Württemberg, § 9.6, op. cit Landesfrauenrat Baden-Württemberg (2014), p. 6).
- 8.
- 9.
This represents a decrease for the second consecutive electoral cycle, from 39.6% in 2006 to 34.9% in 2011 (Gender Datenreport Berlin 2017, p. VI_2, VI_4), due in large part to the re-entry of the Liberals into Parliament in 2016 as well as to the rise of the AfD. Majorities in both these parties are not only strongly opposed to voluntary party quotas, but also feature the lowest numbers of women parliamentarians.
- 10.
The number of seats might increase due to so-called Überhangmandate (overhang mandates) or Ausgleichsmandate (compensatory mandates) (see also Chap. 5). The current Berlin Parliament has 160 seats.
- 11.
The data does not allow judgment on whether the outcome was by chance. This might occur when SPD male direct candidates were also put on top of the electoral list and—by winning their direct mandate—made room for the candidate placed in the second position, which, due to the zipper, had to be women.
- 12.
Länder electoral laws only differ in provisions that are not directly relevant to our investigation, such as 4 or 5% clauses.
- 13.
As Vienna is a Land as well as a municipality, the members of the Vienna Municipal Council are at the same time the members of the Vienna parliament.
- 14.
In Upper Austria, the number of votes cast in each electoral district is divided by the number of overall mandates in that district. This quotient is called the electoral number (Wahlzahl). In Vienna, the electoral number is determined by the number of party votes in a district as divided by the number of overall mandates plus one. In both Länder, each party wins as many mandates as their votes divided by the electoral number (Landtagswahlordnung Oberösterreich 2016, §66; Wiener Gemeindewahlordnung 2016; §83). The remaining mandates (Restmandate) are distributed in a Land-wide distributive process. The Länder established specific thresholds for parties to participate in both proceedings. In Vienna, parties must at least win one initial mandate or 5% of votes to be considered for Land-level vote distribution (Wiener Gemeindewahlordnung 2016, §87.4). In Upper Austria, this threshold is 4% (Landtagswahlordnung 2016, §65).
- 15.
https://derstandard.at/2000023646413/Vorzugsstimmen-Bei-Wiener-SPOe-punkteten-Migranten. Accessed June 30, 2019.
- 16.
https://derstandard.at/2000023646413/Vorzugsstimmen-Bei-Wiener-SPOe-punkteten-Migranten. Accessed June 30, 2019.
- 17.
- 18.
www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20181201_OTS0035/80-landesversammlung-der-gruenen-wien-neue-wahlordnung-fuer-listenwahl-beschlossen. Accessed April 27, 2019. This regulation was first used for the Land list composition for the Nationalrat elections in 2019. The STV does not upend the statute’s provisions that after each electoral step in the list composition (except the first position of the list) at least half of the positions have to be held by women (Die Grünen 2018, §9.5). With STV, voters can rank candidates according to their preferences, and at the same time, votes do not get lost. Elected is who reaches a certain vote threshold: if one person is elected, their second listed vote preference is ‘transferred’ to the remaining candidates and/or the second listed vote preference of the candidate with the least votes is transferred; the procedure continues until all seats are filled (Gallagher 2017, p. 177, 179).
- 19.
https://www.oesterreich.gv.at/themen/leben_in_oesterreich/wahlen/4/11/Seite.320435.html. Accessed June 5, 2019.
- 20.
The calculation of the allocation of mandates is based on data provided by the city of Vienna. The data shows the share of mandates for the current representatives and not for the whole legislative period: https://www.wien.gv.at/advuew/internet/AdvPrSrv.asp?Layout=histpolsuche&Type=S&Hlayout=histpolsuche&HP=Y&RF=02&ICD=2011021810192827. Accessed June 16, 2019.
- 21.
We were not able to acquire information below list position seven.
- 22.
Data provided to authors by Austrian parties 2019. Calculation by authors.
- 23.
Calculation by authors, data provided by parties.
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Ahrens, P., Chmilewski, K., Lang, S., Sauer, B. (2020). Institutional Quota Roadblocks on the Land Level. In: Gender Equality in Politics. SpringerBriefs in Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34895-3_6
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