3. Symbolic Policy Making for Gender Equality: Comparing the Use of Quotas for Civil Service and Corporate Boards in France and Germany

The introduction of gender quota regulations for corporate boards in France and Germany between 2011 and 2015 led to heated debates. These centred on the re-emergence of a policy instrument thought of as highly constraining to employers’ human resource management strategies. The European Commission also proposed to act on the issue in case of national inaction, which led to international momentum towards change. In this chapter, we question the historical re-emergence of this instrument in two quite heterogeneous national policy regimes for gender equality in employment and analyse the legislative design of successive waves of gender quotas especially in civil services. We also explore the argumentation patterns developed by the proponents of the most recent regulations. We show that the new acceptability of gender quotas, especially among conservative parties and governments, lies in an acute malleability that fiercely contradicts the image of a highly constraining instrument for gender equality in employment. This comparative analysis evidences durable ‘symbolic policy making’ through gender quotas. Nevertheless, renewed pro-quota discourse among conservative parties proves that a symbolic instrument does have the power to provoke genuine institutional change in gender equality policy making.