Drude Dahlerup is Professor of Political Science, Stockholm University, Sweden and was educated at University of Aarhus in Denmark. Her published works on gender and politics include The New Women's Movement. Feminism and Political Power in Europe and the U.S.A (ed., 1986); Rødstrømperne. Den danske Rødstrømpebevægelses udviking, nytænkning og gennemslag 1970-1985, Vol I-II, 1998 (The Danish Redstocking Movement 1970-85); Women, Quotas and Politics (ed., 2006), as well as many articles and essays in edited collections on electoral gender quotas, gender equality policies, and the women's movement. She was a partner of the integrated EU-project, FEMCIT, 2007-2011, and together with International IDEA and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, she operates the global web site on quotas: www.quotaproject.org. Lately, Drude Dahlerup has worked as a consultant on women's political empowerment in Sierra Leone, Cambodia and Kosovo, and most recently, March 2011, in Tunisia.
Monique Leyenaar is Professor of Comparative Politics at Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands. She has written several books, articles and chapters in edited books on women and politics. Examples are 'Challenges to Women's Political Representation in Europe' in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 34, 1, 2008, 1-7 and Political Empowerment of Women. The Netherlands and Other Countries, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2004. Leyenaar has worked as a consultant for the Dutch Government and European Union on a variety of issues among which the representation of women in politics. She was a member of the European Network on Women in Decision Making in the 1990s. Since 2005 she has been a member of the Dutch Electoral Council and since 2009, a member of the Council for Public Administration.