Abstract
The chapter presents the main theoretical lines on which the study of women’s leadership in politics has developed, paying particular attention to the concept of gender stereotypes and arriving at a declination of the characteristics of empathic leadership. In particular, in previous generations of women leaders, the traditional spectrum of “feminine competence” has been limited to a concept of care, albeit broadened to include the policy areas of the welfare State such as health, family, and education. The authors argue that women leaders have proven to be more effective as compared to men in the management of pandemic crises by adopting a communication style that successfully combines scientific competence, rigour, and empathy. In the light of this, the political biographies of the two leaders analysed, Angela Merkel and Erna Solberg, are introduced and their ways of attaining power are illustrated. Subsequently, the chapter offers a synthetic overview of the pandemic’s progress in the two countries by comparing data on the contagion and the containment policies adopted.
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Notes
- 1.
The Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) assesses a government’s preparedness and efficacy against Covid-19. It considers 20 indicators (quantitative and qualitative) converted in a scale from 0 to 100: C: Containment and closure policies (i.e. school closing, workplace closing, cancellation of public events, restrictions on gatherings, closure of public transport, stay at home requirements, restrictions on internal movement, international travel controls); E: Economic policies (i.e. income support for households, debt/contract relief for households, fiscal measures, international support); H: Health system policies (i.e. public information campaigns, testing policy, contact tracing, emergency investment in health care, investment in vaccines, facial coverings, vaccination policy, protection of elderly people); M: Miscellaneous policies (i.e. policies that do not fit anywhere else). The Index is constantly under review; more information can be found at https://covidtracker.bsg.ox.ac.uk/.
- 2.
See for instance the data cited in Ursin et al. (2020, pp. 663–665): ‘Norway is a prosperous country with a population of 5.3 million and a GDP per capita of €43,900. […] The over-65-year old’s make up 17% of the population with a median age of 39.5 and an elderly dependency rate of 26.9. Most of the population is concentrated in the south of the country and 83% live in urban areas but there are significant dispersed populations as the overall population density in 2016 was 14.3 people per square kilometre of land area. […] Like other Nordic countries and the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and New Zealand, Norway has a public financed national healthcare system (a Bevridgean system) providing universal coverage for all residents financed through general taxation (74%), the national insurance scheme (11%) and private expenditure (15%) while private health insurance is marginal covering less than 5% of elective services. Co-payment is capped but relates primarily to dental care and outpatient pharmaceuticals. In 2017, Norway spent 10.4% of GDP on health or €4,545 per capita. […] Prior to the Pandemic there were 2.9 physicians (2018 WB), 3.9 hospital beds (2013 WB) and 18.2 nurses and midwives (2018 WB) per 1,000 population. In 2010, Norway had approximately 300 ICU beds’.
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Saccà, F., Selva, D. (2023). Introducing Women Leaders: Merkel and Solberg. In: European Political Leaders and the Social Representation of the Covid-19 Crisis . Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38380-9_2
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