Denmark

Abstract

The Danish Parliament, the Folketing, is elected through a highly proportional electoral system, which places a substantial value on personal votes. Despite this, access to the floor is not controlled by the party leadership, but rather party spokespersons are privileged. The average size of parliamentary party groups is relatively small, which limits the need for hierarchy to coordinate and restricts the ability of party leaders to prevent some MPs from taking the floor. Analyzing speeches given from the start of the 2011–2015 parliamentary term to the end of March 2020, it is found that female MPs are consistently under-represented in terms of parliamentary speeches in the Danish Folketing, and MPs from smaller parliamentary party groups speak significantly more often. No significant effects on the number of words spoken are found. Despite the highly personalized electoral system, access to the floor is neither influenced by electoral vulnerability nor by electoral success.