Gender quotas have emerged globally as a key solution for improving women's political representation. Yet in Britain-where they take the form of all-women shortlists (AWS)-they remain contentious, both within and outside political parties. We identify nine common criticisms of AWS in the British context, related to candidate recruitment and selection, party and voter support and the effectiveness of 'quota women' as politicians. Using qualitative and quantitative data, we find that these objections do not hold when subjected to rigorous empirical analysis, suggesting that quotas do not pose a threat to 'merit' at any stage of the political process.

The political representation of women and ethnic minorities has received growing attention among political parties around the world. Focusing on the British case, we map data and debates concerning the selection of female and minority candidates, highlighting the simultaneous and interactive role of gender and race in shaping citizens' opportunities to stand for and win election. Utilizing data from the Labour Party, our analysis illustrates the implications of distinct strategies to include members of politically marginalized groups-as well as provides evidence for the potential of ''tandem quotas'' to result in positive outcomes for minority women. Taken together, these findings suggest the need for stronger measures on the part of Labour to encourage the selection of minority candidates; a shift from ''single-axis'' to ''multiple-axis'' thinking when devising strategies to enhance group representation; and rejection of a ''zero-sum'' mentality regarding the nomination of female and minority candidates. KeywordsBritish politics, candidate selection, gender and politics, gender quotas, race and politicsIn recent elections, the political representation of women and black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) communities has received growing attention among the three major British political parties. Both groups won a record number of seats in the House of Commons in 2010, resulting in 22.8% female members of parliament (MPs) and 4.2% BAME MPs. These numbers grew again in 2015 to 29.4% women and 6.3% BAME parliamentarians. However, these figures remain far from proportional to these groups' share of the population, standing at 50.9% and 12.9%, respectively.

What are the political conditions affecting male MPs' willingness to represent women's interests in parliament? This paper explores the role of electoral vulnerability in this regard and analyzes whether male MPs' re-election prospects affect their likelihood of paying attention to women's concerns. Theoretically, we expect that male MPs are not blamed if they do not represent women's interests but can gain additional credit for doing so. Thus, male MPs should be more likely to speak on behalf of women if their electoral vulnerability is high and if they need to win additional votes to be re-elected. Empirically, the paper analyzes the representation of women's issues in the British House of Commons, by using Early Day Motions tabled preceding the General Elections in 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015. The results show that male MPs are more likely to represent women's interests when their re-election is at risk.

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Studies on political knowledge routinely find that women have lower levels of political knowledge than men. This gender gap in political knowledge is usually interpreted as troublesome for democracy, because a lack of political knowledge could imply that women's participation in politics is less effective and that their interests will be represented less well than those of men. In this short article, we present a direct test of the assumption that women are less effective voters because of this lack of political knowledge. We make use of CSES data to study gender differences in proximity voting and correct voting. Our results do not suggest that women vote less correctly than men-a conclusion that prompts important questions about the role of different forms of political knowledge, and the seemingly gendered nature of the vote choice.