Parties, Candidates, and Gendered Political Recruitment in Closed-List Proportional Representation Systems: The Case of Spain

Abstract

Throughout the world, the number of women elected to legislatures has risen dramatically. Most of the quantitative research explaining party, district, or national differences has focused on the aggregate rather than the candidate level thereby overlooking women’s access to party ballots. In examining both the election and selection stages, we focus on Spain, a closed-list proportional representation system where parties have tight control over their ballots and the election of candidates is largely a function of rank orders on the ballot. In this South European democracy women’s representation in the national parliament has experienced an incremental track, reaching 39 percent in 2016. Party differences in gender outcomes and policies promoting equal gender representation did not vanish once a legislated quota was introduced in 2007. The empirical analysis builds on an original set of candidate longitudinal data covering nine elections held between 1986 and 2016. Specifically, we test how party and candidate factors differentially affect the selection of men and women to party ballots and their likelihood of getting elected. We show that strategic discrimination against female candidates affects all parties and it happens irrespective of candidates’ political experience, which explains why male overrepresentation has been significantly reduced but not overturned.

Bridging the Gap: How Gender Influences Spanish Politicians’ Activity on Twitter

“…Media 2021, 2 470 Verge 2012). Nevertheless, Verge and Wiesehomeier (2019) argue that discrimination did not suddenly disappear with the 2007 quota. Although quotas tend to balance gender representation, other barriers to women in the political sphere, such as having to conform to male norms (Verge and de la Fuente 2014, p. 71), cause many women to relinquish certain offices (Verge 2015).…”

“…Although women have populated parties, local governments and parliaments, various studies have revealed that sexism in the culture of political parties tends to favor male candidates on the ballot, to systematically disempower women (Verge and Troupel 2011;Verge and de la Fuente 2014) and to hamper women's access to powerful political offices (Lovenduski 2005;Verge 2010). According to Verge and Wiesehomeier (2019), such discrimination runs across all parties, and parity is still a long way off, even in the most representative democracies.…”

“…Although quotas tend to balance gender representation, other barriers to women in the political sphere, such as having to conform to male norms (Verge and de la Fuente 2014, p. 71), cause many women to relinquish certain offices (Verge 2015). Notwithstanding the ongoing inequality in Spanish politics, the number of elected women has increased in the last decade, and Spain now ranks sixteenth in the world in terms of women's representation in parliament (Verge and Wiesehomeier 2019). The aim of this research is to analyze gender differences in Twitter use among Spanish members of parliament.…”

‘Sacrifical lambs’ or candidate mimicking? Gender-based nomination strategies in elections

“…At least two factors explain why left-wing parties are more female-friendly than right-wing ones. The first is that female-friendly institutional structures, such as gender quotas, are more likely to be embraced by left-wing parties (Krook, 2009; Verge and Wiesehomeier, 2019). In Australia, for instance, the ALP introduced a 25 percent quota for female nominees in 1981 and aims to reach 50 percent by 2025 or earlier (McCann, 2013: 13).…”

Electoral Engineering in New Democracies: Strong Quotas and Weak Parties in Tunisia

“…Finding that parties are more likely to implement quotas when sanctioned via the rejection of lists than when facing financial sanctions for non-compliance, scholars have concluded that parties' willingness is a crucial mechanism for explaining (non)compliance (Hughes et al 2019;Murray 2007). Accordingly, several studies argue that younger and left-wing partieswhich have less 'sticky' institutions and are ideologically more favourable to equality policies than older and conservative partiesare more likely to comply (Verge and Espírito-Santo 2016;Verge and Wiesehomeier 2019).…”