“Female charismatic leadership and gender: comparing the experiences of The Danish People’s Party, the Progress Party and the Front National”

Research about populist right wing parties’ leadership and electorates emphasizes that most of these parties are charismatic and male-dominated, both as regards their leadership and voters. However, while studies about the gender gap mainly focused on aspects related to the demand side in terms of electoral support, socio-economic characteristics and attitudes towards issues such as immigration, still very sporadic is the research on the parties’ programmatic positions on gender. Similarly and even more overlooked is the analysis of the rhetoric, style and discourse of the populist female leaders, as in the case of the two now well-established Scandinavian populist right wing parties: the Danish People’s Party and Progress Party. Both parties have long been led by women, but while Pia Kjærsgaard of the Danish party recently stepped down to leave the party leadership to a man of the younger generation, Kristian Thulesen Dahl, Siv Jensen in Norway followed unproblematic in 2006 the charismatic and long-term leadership of Carl I. Hagen. Two Scandinavian experiences, offer interesting elements from where to look at the female leadership of two well established parties. The paper will also refer to the case of Marine Le Pen and the Front National, to consider whether the Nordic cases represent a specific framework of female leadership highly influences by context and opportunity structures. The paper will in particular focus on the role of female leaders of the three parties (Pia Kjærsgaard, Siv Jensen and Marine Le Pen) discussing whether their gender, style, rhetoric and discoursive strategies have influenced party leadership, party ideology and their general approach to questions of gender.