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This study has looked at how the diversity of representatives’ backgrounds changed after the introduction of the Binominal parity vote in the French local elections. The aim was to contribute to our understanding of the impact of gender quotas in other dimensions than gender. Another aim was to explore the workings of the Binominal parity vote, which has a unique design and obligates candidates to run as pairs, constituting of one man and one woman. The diversity of each local council in 2011 and 2015 was measured with the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). By looking at the changes in HHI, the study has shown that the diversity of representatives and candidates has increased in terms of age and profession, but decreased in terms of party representation. The exact workings of the mechanisms behind the changes have not been established, but some preliminary conclusions have been made. The relationship between the gender quota’s effectiveness and the change in diversity is strong, but statistically insignificant. Societal gender differences cannot be the sole driver of the changes, as the diversity increased among both women and men. If the increased district magnitude from one to two contributed to the increase in diversity, it was not through the strategic matching of representatives, as they are shown to be almost randomly matched.

Following conflict, peace agreements bring an opportunity to profoundly change societal structures and add to women’s empowerment. Using affirmative action tools like electoral gender quotas, women’s numerical presence, or descriptive representation, has more than doubled since the 1995 Beijing Declaration. However, women’s descriptive representation does not always result in women’s representation beyond numbers, or substantive representation. This thesis aims to solve why quotas do not always lead to a rise in women’s substantive representation by exploring one possible explanation: the effect of women’s rights provisions in peace agreements on the outcomes of electoral gender quota-implementation. It argues that women’s rights provisions in peace agreements can affect policymaking outcomes in the postwar context in terms of increased substantive representation of women. The thesis employs the method of structured, focused comparison to compare the two post-war countries, Nepal and Angola. It finds support for the hypothesis that electoral gender quotas implemented following a peace agreement with women’s rights provisions leads to a larger increase in women’s substantive representation than those implemented following a peace agreement without such provisions. However, further qualitative cross-case analysis and large-n quantitative research are needed to draw more certain conclusions.

On the surface, Sweden and Denmark are two similar countries, but behind the closed boardroom doors, things look different. These two countries have chosen different approaches to achieving their goals and the diversification within the boards differs markedly. As a result, the study tries to emphasize the differences, and see if it is possible to distinguish different gender effects. The purpose of the study is to investigate the possible effects of gender quotas in corporate governance and the impact women does have on reducing risk in a corporate governance context as well as their connection to R&D investments based on a performance measure of earnings per share. The study has chosen a deductive approach with regards to a cross-sectional design to make it possible to make various comparisons between the collected variables. The hypotheses of the study have been formulated with help of the theories: tokenism, institutional theory, social role theory, resource mobilization theory, resource-based theory, economic growth theory and the theory of the firm. The study finds gender effects for Denmark however cannot conclude if this is an effect of women on the board of directors or a tokenism problem arising due to males’ dominance causing women to be pushed away or men having a different risk appetite. For Sweden no gender effects can be concluded neither for the 3-year or the year-to-year results. This suggests that Swedish companies board of directors have achieved great synergy effects due to institutional and social pressures, however a tokenism problem cannot be ruled out. / Sverige och Danmark är till ytan två lika länder men bakom de stängda styrelsedörrarna så ser det annorlunda ut. Dessa två länder har valt olika tillvägagångssätt för att uppnå sina mål och diversifieringen inom styrelserna skiljer sig markant. Till följd detta försöker studien betona skillnaderna, samt se om det går att urskilja olika könseffekter. Syftet med studien är att undersöka de möjliga effekterna av könskvotering i bolagsstyrning och vilken inverkan kvinnor har på att minska risken i ett bolagsstyrningssammanhang, samt deras koppling till forskning och utvecklings investeringar baserat på prestationsmått på vinst per aktie. Studien har valt ett deduktivt tillvägagångssätt med avseende på en tvärsnittsdesign för att göra det möjligt att göra olika jämförelser mellan de insamlade variablerna. Studiens hypoteser har formulerats med hjälp av teorierna: tokenism, institutionell teori, social rollteori, resursmobiliseringsteori, resursbaserad teori, ekonomisk tillväxtteori och företagets teori. Studien finner könseffekter för Danmark men kan inte dra slutsatsen om detta är en effekt av kvinnor i styrelsen eller ett tokenismproblem som uppstår på grund av mäns dominans som gör att kvinnor trängs undan eller att män möjligen har en annan riskaptit. För Sverige kan inga könseffekter konstateras varken för 3-års- eller årsresultatet. Detta tyder på att den svenska styrelsen har uppnått stora synergieffekter på grund av institutionella och sociala påtryckningar, men ett tokenismproblem kan inte uteslutas.