Drude Dahlerup (born 3 February 1945 in Aarhus, Denmark) is a Danish-Swedish professor of Political Science at Stockholm University. Her main research area is gender and politics. She is an international consultant on the empowerment of women in politics and a specialist on the implementation of gender quota systems. Spokesperson for the EU-critical center-left June Movement during four Danish referendums in the 1990s.

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Dahlerup graduated Cand.scient.pol. (candidate of political science) from Aarhus University in 1974.

Drude Dahlerup was an associate professor of political science at Aarhus University, Denmark from 1989 and a full professor of political science with special focus on gender studies form 1998 at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University, Sweden. Other appointments she has held include Visiting Researcher at Radcliffe College, Harvard University 1981–82; Visiting professor, Birkbeck College, University of London, 2002–03; Visiting professor at Faculty of Social Science, Radboud University, Nijmegen, 2013–14. Today, she works as professor emerita at Stockholm University and, since 2017, also as an honorary professor at Roskilde University, Dept. of Social Science and Business.

Drude Dahlerup edited the first global overview over the widespread adoption of electoral gender quotas since the start of the 1990s: Women, Quotas and Politics, Routledge 2006. In cooperation with International IDEA and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Dahlerup and her research team developed the global web site on the use of electoral gender quotas around the world, www.quotaproject.org. Dahlerup edited with Lenita Freidenvall the report “Electoral Gender Quota Systems and their Implementation in Europe”, requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Gender Equality, 2009, up-dated 2011 and 2013 (PE 408.309 and 493.011). In the article, “Quotas as a Fast Track to Equal Political Representation for Women: Why Scandinavia is No Longer the Model”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2005, 7 (1): 26–48.), Drude Dahlerup and Lenita Freidenvall introduced the concepts of the’ Fast Track Model’ versus the ‘Incremental Track Model’ to women's political empowerment.^[1]

Drude Dahlerup took an active part in the first development of Women's Studies, later Gender Studies in Denmark, in the Nordic countries as well as internationally.^[2] She was member of the board of KVINFO, The Danish Centre for Information on Women, Gender and Diversity, Copenhagen, 1998–2003; head of Cekvina, Centre for Gender Studies at Aarhus University, 1991–92 and again 1997. Member of the board of KVINFO, The Danish Center for Information on Women and Gender, Copenhagen, 1998–2003.