Equalizing Access to Highest Ranking Positions
Key issue
In powerful executive and political positions, certain groups are underrepresented, often based on gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disabilities, religion and social class. The people in power are a largely homogenous group, who do not adequately represent the diverse communities in their town, region, or country. To ensure that policy-making truly serves the people, it is necessary to reflect diversity in our public institution and especially in executive positions. In contemporary democracy, it is of particular importance that everyone’s voice is heard, and everyone feels represented in order to ensure a vivid and functioning democratic system. In addition, the underrepresentation of certain social groups generates a feeling of being left behind and hinders inclusion. Having powerful positions that are only held by a privileged few can lead to social alienation and increased biases. Alienation and biases can normalize xenophobia and hate speech which also endangers the safety of citizens and the functioning of our democracies.
Response
In order to gain a more equal representation and to increase access to political positions we already proposed a mentorship programme in 2.1 Training for Political Participation. With this proposal, we want to address the representation in non-elected positions of public institutions and especially the highest ranked positions. Therefore, we propose an equal-opportunity program for all executive positions in the public sector.
As we learned from past discussions, implementing quotas for the recruitment of members of underrepresented groups is doubtful, because the focus should lie on competences and not solely on social background. However, we need a mechanism of affirmative action embedded in recruitment structures in order to grant equality and a realistic representation. When there are two equally skilled applicants, one from an overrepresented group and another from an underrepresented group, the recruitment should be decided in favour of the member of the underrepresented group.
In this place, the crucial role of role models and their strong impact on society needs to be mentioned. In order to encourage more and more members of underrepresented groups, strong and dynamic role models in the highest-ranked positions are helpful so they need to be promoted to a higher rank.
In order to raise awareness of a broader audience, public sector agencies could be asked to actively portray individuals from under-represented social groups that have succeeded in reaching high-level positions. In addition, this addresses more members of underrepresented groups who in turn feel encouraged to pursue a career in higher office.
We hope that with those methods we will reach the positive effects described below.
Result
A realistic representation of the diverse society in public institutions would begin to address structural inequalities and counter social alienation. Having role models with whom they identify, more members of underrepresented groups could gain inspiration, guidance, and visibility to seize powerful positions. An institutionalized equal recruitment process could prevent biases, that is deeply rooted in societies around the world, from skewing hiring processes. In the long run, programs that seek to correct past discrimination could lead to public institutions that truly reflect the communities they serve.
Concerning this matter, the important role of role models and its big impact on the whole society needs to be underlined. Easing the access of members of underrepresented groups to leading positions of public institutions would motivate others to follow their example and lower restraints, which leads to a fairer recruitment process.
Starting in public institutions, we hope that this will impact the private sector as well, which is no less important to the bigger picture. Equal representation in every aspect of the society would also avoid negative stereotypes and hate speech.