‘Then a lady came along. And then that was how things became’: symbolic representation and queens in European politics, 1960–2023

What is the effect of queens regnant on women in European politics? While women leaders are increasingly common globally, their emergence is still relatively recent. However, European women have had the example of queens regnant as women in political leadership for much longer. Building on theories of symbolic representation and role model effects, I argue that queens have been overlooked as role models for women in politics. Using original data on European queens from 1960 to 2023, I find that queens have a positive and statistically significant impact on the percentage of seats filled by women in European democracies, as well as on broader societal attitudes toward women in politics. The results suggest that political science scholarship on gender and democracy should more closely analyze the effects of constitutional monarchy in European democracies.