Gendered political capital resources: The case of party office

Abstract

Party office is a crucial political capital resource for those seeking a political career. It provides advantageous access to the distribution of patronage parties are entitled to in party government democracies. This article aims at measuring this comparative advantage while simultaneously investigating whether the benefits carried by party office are distributed equally across sex in political recruitment processes. We concentrate on viable candidacy for parliamentary office, ministerial appointments, as well as post-ministerial offices in public and semi-public life that are also in the hands of political parties to distribute. Our cross-national analysis of advanced industrial democracies shows that men are much more likely than women to benefit from holding party office in their ascendant political careers, even when controlling for other political resources, sociodemographic factors, and country-level variables. This suggests that party office is a gendered political capital resource and that gender power dynamics are deeply entrenched in political parties.