Party Gatekeepers’ Support for
Viable Female Candidacy in
PR-List Systems
Maarja Luhiste
University of Leicester
It is difficult to overestimate the role candidate selection plays in
determining the number of women in elected office. While an
increasing amount of research has been dedicated to the impact political
parties have on women’s electoral representation (Caul 1999; DavidsonSchmich
2010; Kittilson 2006; Krook 2009, 2010; Matland and Studlar
1996; Murray, Krook, and Opello, 2012), the relationship between gender
and candidate selection remains a relatively understudied area. Ashe and
Stewart (2012) and Nieven (1998), however, provide empirical evidence
that the majority of the variance in women’s underrepresentation can be
explained with demand-side factors.
This research aims to take forward our knowledge of how the demand
side influences women’s underrepresentation by investigating at the
individual level how party gatekeepers rank female candidates in
electoral lists in different types of party list proportional representation
systems (PR-list systems). The list placement of candidates is an
important stage in the overall electoral competition. In first-past-the-post
This research was funded by the Marie Curie Initial Training Network in Electoral Democracies
(ITN-ELECDEM) and was part of work package 17 (Gender, Campaign Messages and
Mobilization Effects). I am extremely grateful to Susan Banducci for all her comments and support.
This article was presented at the Gender, Political Behaviour and Representation in “Preferential”
Electoral Systems workshop of the 2013 ECPR Joint Sessions at the University of Mainz; I would
like to thank the participants for their suggestions. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the
anonymous reviewers and to the editors for their helpful comments.
Published by Cambridge University Press 1743-923X/15 $30.00 for The Women and Politics Research Section of the
American Political Science Association.
# The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association, 2015
doi:10.1017/S1743923X14000580
89
Politics & Gender, 11 (2015), 89–116.
(FPTP) systems, a candidate’s likelihood to be elected depends on the
constituency in which she runs (Ryan, Haslam, and Kulich 2010).
Similarly, in PR-list systems, a candidate’s likelihood to be elected
depends largely on her electoral list placement. Past research
concentrating on FPTP systems provide evidence that women are often
overrepresented among hopeless candidates (i.e., candidates competing
for marginal seats) (see for example, Deber 1982; Gertzog and Simard
1981; Ryan, Haslam, and Kulich 2010). However, little comparative
attention has been paid to women’s likelihood of viable candidacy in
different types of PR-list systems.
This paper sets out to investigate what determines how political parties —
the gateway to political office — place women in the electoral lists in PR-list
systems with and without preference voting option (ordered vs. closed-list PRlist
systems). Most importantly, I concentrate on how varying combinations of
parties’ internal candidate selection procedures and certain electoral rules
affect party gatekeepers’ choices. Past research suggests that “with different
electoral systems we could, and probably would, see different kinds of
candidates’ (Hazan and Voerman 2006, 148). In other words, party
gatekeepers, presented with varying electoral rules, compose the party lists
differently.
I study this question in the context of the 2009 European Parliamentary
(EP) elections. The EP elections provide an excellent testing ground for
this research as 20 out of the 27 member states employ either a closed or
ordered-list PR-list voting system. Also, these are the only PR-list elections
for which there is a comprehensive cross-national candidate survey data
set available — the 2009 European Election Study (EES) Candidate
Survey. The results of the analysis suggest that viable candidate selection
differs across institutional and contextual settings: women are placed
lower in the electoral lists in ordered-list systems compared to closed-list
systems. The results also show that party gatekeepers respond to the
overall levels of gender equality in the society, with women enjoying
more viable list rankings in more gender-equal societies, but only if the
candidate selection within the party is centralized.
PARTY-DETERMINED VIABLE CANDIDACY IN PR-LIST
SYSTEMS
While candidate selection is referred to as “the secret garden of politics”
(Gallagher and Marsh 1988), it is one of the most important stages in
90 MAARJA LUHISTE
the electoral process. Candidate selection not only determines the choices
given to voters — which influences how the vote choice is perceived and
made — but it also determines the composition of the parties in the
legislature (Crotty 1968; Hazan and Voerman 2006).
Past research identifies four groups of variables affecting aspirants’
chances in the candidate selection process: (1) individual characteristics
summarizing the traits the selectors are looking for in a candidate;
(2) party rules concerning who and at what level can elect/appoint
candidates; (3) institutional settings conditioning the selectors’ choices;
and (4) wider contextual settings and selectors’ perception of voter
preferences (Gallagher and Marsh 1988; Hazan and Voerman 2006;
Katz 1980; Norris 1997). This article proceeds by covering the main
expectations with regard to how these traditional predictors of candidate
selection affect women’s likelihood of viable candidacy. While the
classic works on candidate selection examine the likelihood of aspirants
to become a candidate, in this research I study what distinguishes a
viable candidate from all other candidates. Therefore, the initial pool of
cases from which viable candidates are “selected” is not all aspirants, but
all candidates.
Individual Characteristics that the Selectors are Looking for
While most political parties do not have a set of formal requirements
prospective candidates need to meet, party gatekeepers value candidates
with traits such as incumbency, political experience, and party loyalty
(Gallagher and Marsh 1988; Shugart, Valdini, and Suominen 2005).
Gallagher and Marsh (1988) also emphasise the demographic
characteristics of potential candidates but note that parties often use the
lower, electorally hopeless places on the list for producing a balanced
ticket. Therefore, while being a woman may increase an aspirant’s
chance of being selected as a candidate, it may decrease her chances of
being granted a viable candidacy. Past research concentrating on the
U.S. House elections and British general elections provides evidence
that women are overrepresented among hopeless candidates (see for
example, Deber 1982; Gertzog and Simard 1981; Ryan, Haslam, and
Kulich 2010).
In terms of other individual characteristics, past research considers
incumbency and political experience as key traits that increase an
aspirant’s chances of being selected as a candidate (Gallagher and Marsh
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 91
1998; Norris 1997; Shugart, Valdini, and Suominen 2005; Valdini 2012).
The level of the individual candidate’s political aspirations could affect her
viability, too. It is likely that candidates who express high levels of political
ambition may fight for their electoral-list position more and in turn be
granted with a more viable list position than candidates who show little
or no apparent motivation to become an MEP.
Based on the elaborations above, I hypothesise the following:
H1: At the individual level, female candidates are likely to be
underrepresented among viable candidates in PR-list systems.
H2: At the individual level, candidates with no or limited political
experience are likely to be underrepresented among viable candidates in
PR-list systems.
H3: At the individual level, candidates who show little or no apparent
motivation to become an MEP are likely to be underrepresented among
viable candidates in PR-list systems.
Parties’ Candidate Selection Rules
Different parties apply varying candidate selection rules, which are likely to
affect the outcome of candidate selection, too. Rahat and Hazan (2001)
distinguish four dimensions of candidate selection: (1) candidacy (who
can run); (2) the inclusiveness of the selectorate (who can vote/choose);
(3) decentralization (whether candidates are selected at local, regional,
or national level); and (4) voting vs. appointment (whether all candidates
are selected by a voting procedure). Since there is little variation across
the EU countries in terms of the first and the fourth dimension, I will
concentrate on the inclusiveness and decentralization variables only.
Current research offers a somewhat unclear picture of the relationship
between centralization of candidate selection and women’s
representation. On one hand, the literature on political parties expects
decentralized parties to be more open to new ideas (Kitschelt 1994). As
women candidates remain relatively “novel” in most countries, one
could take Kitschelt’s (1994) argument further and claim that a more
decentralized party could thus select more women in the party lists.
Matland and Studlar (1996), however, offer a counterargument: party
gatekeepers in a more centralized party can be held more directly
92 MAARJA LUHISTE
accountable as local party leaders cannot point fingers at one another and
thus cannot escape the responsibility for their failure to promote women. In
the case of centralized candidate selection, different interest groups within
the party, such as women’s factions, are also likely to be more organized and
thus stronger in pursuing support for specific candidates. More recent
literature further supports this counterargument (Caul 1999; Kittilson
2006). Kittilson (2006, 34) suggests, for example, that “in a centralised
party, the leadership has the ability to make and enforce the new rules”
and thereby advance the position of women in the party list.
Hence, a number of politics and gender scholars (Caul 1999; Matland
and Studlar 1996; Kittilson 2006) agree that a more centrally organized
party is more likely to respond to women’s demands for a more equitable
representation. Derived from that, one could assume that more
centralized candidate selection procedures, too, would increase women’s
chances for viable candidacy because it is likely that there is a rather
strong correlation between overall party centralization and the
centralization of candidate selection. Past research, however, shows that
decentralized candidate nomination slightly increases the levels of
women’s political representation (Kittilson 2006). However, that finding
holds in an analysis, which also shows that centralized party organization
is a strong positive predictor of women’s representation. Kittilson (2006,
127) explains these rather counterintuitive findings with a claim that “in
a centralised party, national authorities have the power to persuade local
constituencies to implement standard policies to promote women.”
Kittilson (2006) thus argues that centralized party organization is an
important precondition for women to enjoy higher levels of
representation in parties where candidates are nominated locally. As the
level of candidate nomination is one of the weaker indicators and overall
party centralization is one of the stronger indicators in Kittilson’s (2006)
analysis, decentralized candidate selection on its own is unlikely to
increase women’s chances for viable candidacy.
Greater inclusiveness of the selectorate is likely to affect women’s
candidacy, too. The literature on preference voting argues that one of the
reasons why fewer women are elected in preference voting systems
compared to closed-list voting systems is due to the fact that party elites
may “understand” better than the wider masses the necessity of women’s
representation (Matland 2005). Hence, women should be placed in
more viable list positions in parties with less inclusive selectorates.
Moreover, Hazan and Rahat (2006) claim that more inclusive
selectorates are less successful in balancing the composition of candidate
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 93
lists because candidates from the dominant group can win most of the safe
positions on the list.
Another party level variable that is likely to affect women’s chances for
viable candidacy is party ideology. The main assumption is that left-wing
parties are more likely to support women’s candidacies because they
promote more egalitarian ideologies than right-wing parties (Duverger
1955). Most gender and politics scholars find empirical evidence of the
positive relationship between the strength of left-wing ideology and
women’s descriptive representation (Caul 1999; Norris and Franklin
1997; Reynolds 1999).
Based on the elaborations above, I hypothesise the following:
H4: Parties that select candidates centrally (on a national level) and are
thus organized more centrally, nominate more women as viable candidates
in their electoral lists
H5: Parties with a more exclusive selectorate nominate more women as
viable candidates in their electoral lists.
H6: Parties representing left-wing ideology nominate more women as
viable candidates in their electoral lists.
The Structure of Opportunities: Institutional Setting
As noted above, parties are not entirely independent in their decision of
“selecting” (viable) candidates. The electoral rules condition and
constrain the parties’ menu of choices concerning candidate selection
(Hazan and Voerman 2006). The central institutional variable of interest
in this research is the specific voting system used in PR-list electoral systems.
This paper examines the effect of PR-list electoral systems on women’s
viable candidacy based on ballot (the extent of party control over who is
elected) and district magnitude (the number of seats per electoral
district). Past literature distinguishes three types of ballot structure: (1)
parties present a ballot that cannot be altered by voters; (2) parties
present a ballot that can be altered by voters; and (3) parties have no
control over the ballot (Carey and Shugart 1995; Renwick and Pilet
2011). As this paper concentrates on how party gatekeepers influence
individual candidates’ viability, I examine only those PR-list systems
that fall in the former two categories — closed-list and ordered-list
94 MAARJA LUHISTE
systems — in which party gatekeepers have some actual power to influence
an individual candidate’s electoral chances.1 We could assume that
women’s likelihood for viable candidacy varies in different voting systems
because party gatekeepers are likely to balance their ticket differently in
these two different types of systems. It is likely that female candidates are
faced with different chances for viable candidacy in a situation in which
only parties determine an individual candidate’s viability (closed lists), or
where parties determine individual candidate’s viability but voters can
disturb it with preference votes (ordered lists).2
Closed party lists put the responsibility on the political party to balance
the representation of different demographics, interests, and groups among
candidates. In such a system, different factions in the party (e.g., women’s
faction) are likely to put pressure on party gatekeepers not only to include
enough women in electoral lists, but to ensure women have viable list
positions. As list position determines everything in closed-lists systems, it
also means that these different factions within parties can hold party
gatekeepers responsible for their dismal commitment to fielding female
candidates.
In ordered list systems, on the other hand, parties affect an individual
candidate’s electoral chances with the initial list placement, but they
cannot be held solely responsible for impeding women’s representation,
as voters have the opportunity to change the list order with preference
votes. This means that party gatekeepers may have less incentive to
include more women in viable list positions because the chain of
responsibility is weaker. Moreover, in systems where preference voting is
available, party gatekeepers may suggest that women could “make up”
their potentially weaker list ranking with preference votes. Past research
suggests that any personal characteristic that marks a candidate as distinct
from the others in her party and that allows constituents to identify with
a candidate can be seen as a potential advantage in gaining preference
votes (Carey and Shugart 1995; Katz 1980; Shugart, Valdini, and
1. I thus exclude countries that employ single transferable vote (STV) (the Ireland, Malta, and
Northern Ireland constituency of the UK) or open-list (Finland, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, and
Poland) proportional electoral systems for electing their representatives to the European Parliament
because in those systems, party gatekeepers cannot directly affect the viability of individual
candidates in the lists.
2. It is important to keep in mind the limitations of this overly simplified dichotomous measure. While
closed-list systems are rather homogenous, ordered-list systems can vary with regard to the degree to
which preference votes determine the electoral fate of candidates. Yet, limited information is
available on more specific electoral rules certain countries apply for the European Parliament
elections, and it would be disingenuous to create a possibly flawed measure.
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 95
Suominen 2005). In other words, the potential advantage of being a
woman in gaining preference votes could be used by party gatekeepers as
an excuse to rank women lower in the list than men.
Besides electoral rules, parties’ menu of choices in terms of candidate
selection is also conditioned by whether the party has adopted or the
state has imposed candidate gender quotas. While candidate gender
quotas operate primarily at the moment of candidate selection, Krook
and Norris (2014) argue that elites may still believe that women are not
viable candidates. Hence, in some cases, the quota rules increase the
share of women among candidates but not among viable candidates.
Previous literature also suggests that quota effectiveness depends on how
the candidates interact with other elements of the political environment
(Jones 2009; Krook 2009; Krook and Norris 2014). Jones (2009) and
Tripp and Kang (2008) find, for example, that quotas with placement
mandates are the most effective, while general legislative quotas appear
to be the least efficient measure to increase women’s descriptive
representation. While both Jones’ (2009) and Tripp and Kang’s (2008)
studies use women’s descriptive representation as a dependent variable, I
expect candidate quotas to influence viable female candidacy the same
way. I therefore hypothesise the following:
H7: At the political system level, women have less likelihood of being
placed on a viable list position in an ordered-list preferential than in a
closed-list nonpreferential voting system.
H8: Candidate gender quotas have a positive effect on women
candidates’ chances to be granted with viable candidacy only if the quota
rule includes a placement mandate measure.
The Structure of Opportunities: Contextual Setting
Besides institutional rules, the overall gender norms and equality in the
society are likely to affect party gatekeepers’ decisions when ranking
candidates in the electoral lists. In a country where overall levels of
gender equality are high, there are not only more potentially viable
female candidates, but also the expectations within the party and in the
society that women’s positions in the party list are likely to differ from a
member state where gender inequality is prevalent and more accepted.
Overall gender equality is reported to be both a strong positive predictor
of women’s candidacy (Valdini 2012) and descriptive representation
(Jones 2009; Matland 2005; Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler 2005; Tripp
96 MAARJA LUHISTE
and Kang 2008). Besides direct effect, I expect overall gender equality to
condition the effect of other institutional and party-level variables, too.
Valdini (2012) argues, for example, that the selectorate has a strong
incentive to be attentive to the prevalence of traditional or liberal gender
norms in the society and thus balance the ticket accordingly. Therefore,
I expect the following to be true:
H9: Women have a higher likelihood of being positioned in the electoral
lists as viable candidates in more gender-equal societies.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS
This research investigates the hypothesis stated above in the context of the
2009 European Parliament (EP) elections. The literature on EP elections
frequently classifies them as second-order elections that are less important
than national elections, as there is no government formation (Hix and
Marsh 2011; Reif and Schmitt 1980). Yet, often the same candidates and
parties compete in both first- and second-order elections (Franklin 2006;
Reif and Schmitt 1980). However, past research shows that women have
better access to second-order elected offices than to national legislative
seats (Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1994; Ford and Dolan 1999; Kantola
2009; Matland and Studlar 1998).
The fact that the EP elections are second-order elections could pose a
potential problem for the research. The results from the EP elections
could prove “too positive” in the sense that we may overestimate
women’s chances for viable candidacy. Due to this reason, I
acknowledge the fact that the results of the following analysis have some
limitations. While second-order elections matter less than first-order
elections, it would also be unreasonable not to exploit the neat data the
European Election Study offers to learn more about women’s electoral
representation. Also, like other second-order offices, the European
Parliament may serve as a point of departure to many women on their
pursuit for national elected office. Past literature shows that more than
half of the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have held no
previous elected positions, not even local government offices, and nearly
one-fifth of the MEPs continue to national parliaments (Scarrow1997).
Therefore, studying women’s chances at the EP elections should give us
some information about these same women’s chances in future national
elections, too.
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 97
Indeed, the European Parliamentary elections are “a fascinating
research site” because it “presents the opportunity to craft powerful
research designs incorporating an unusual, indeed probably unique
degree of controlled comparison: between members [candidates] of the
same political institution chosen under a range of different electoral
arrangements” (Farrell and Scully 2010, 36). I consider the European
elections the most suitable testing ground for the main hypotheses of the
paper primarily because all member states have to employ proportional
electoral systems while they are free to choose the level of openness of
the ballot structure. Besides controlling for proportional electoral system,
I also control for the type of institution representatives are elected to and
the time of the election.
DATA, METHOD, AND MEASUREMENT
This article relies on the 2009 European Election Study (EES) Candidate
Survey and general institutional and contextual data. The 2009 EES
Candidate Study offers a unique data set to examine candidates at the
European elections. In total, more than 6500 candidates were contacted,
ranging from 29 candidates in Cyprus to 881 in the United Kingdom
(Giebler et al. 2010). The mean response rate for all countries combined
is 22% (Giebler and Wessels 2010).3 There is a significant variation in
response rate by party and country (Giebler and Wessels 2010). In order
to address the dissimilarities in response rates, survey weights are used in
the analysis. This paper utilizes a combined weight for party affiliation
and the number of MEPs per country. Fortunately, there seems to be no
systematic patterns of nonresponse in terms of gender, chance to get
elected, or in regard to actual electoral success (Giebler, Haus, and
Wessels 2010). Hence, there is no significant response bias regarding the
central variables of interest.
Since this paper focuses on women candidates’ viability in ordered- and
closed-list voting systems only, I utilize responses to the EES Candidate
Survey from the 20 EU member states that employ the aforementioned
3. The principal investigators of the 2009 EES Candidate Survey data also note that the response rates
of the 2009 study are comparable to respective numbers of the study in 1994 (de Winter et al. 1999).
(The overall response rates are identical.) Hence, they state, “In sum, the representativeness of the
2009 European Election Candidate Study seems acceptable in comparison to the 1994 study which
produced highly enlightened insights into European political elites competing for seats in the
European Parliament.”
98 MAARJA LUHISTE
ballot structure.4 The final sample consists of 1020 respondents, 34% of
whom are women.
Dependent Variable and Method
The dependent variable is candidate’s party-determined viability. I use a
measure developed by Giebler and Wessels (2010). The categorization
of the overall viability variable is based on the candidate’s list position in
relation to the potential number of seats won by her party (Hix, Marsh,
and Vivyan. 2009). I use this variable instead of original list ranking
because it takes into account a party’s overall viability. Since different
parties expect to win varying numbers of elected seats, list ranking alone
does not fully explain individual candidate’s viability. In order to
incorporate uncertainty in the measure, the standard deviation of
discrepancy between the predictions and the seats that were actually won
was calculated for each country. As a result, candidates with a list
position below the predicted seats minus one standard deviation were
classified as “safe” candidates. Candidates with a list position above the
predicted seats plus one standard deviation were classified as
“unpromising” candidates, and all other candidates were classified as
“doubtful” (Giebler and Wessels 2010). Of the respondents, 5.7% are
coded as “safe,” 12.7% as “doubtful,” and 81.6% as “unpromising”
candidates.
The party-determined candidate viability measure is by its nature an
ordinal variable because a natural ordering exists for these categories
(“unpromising” is worse than “doubtful”; “doubtful” is worse than
“safe”). As the data used for the analysis do not meet parallel regression
assumption, I employ multinominal logistic regression models (MNLM).
MNLM is considered as a reasonable alternative to ordered logistic
regression models when the parallel regression assumption is not met
(Long 1997; Long and Freese 2006).
Operationalization of Independent Variables
This paper utilizes the 2009 EES Candidate Survey responses for
measuring all individual-level variables. Survey respondents were asked
whether they are or have ever been a member of the following bodies:
4. As a result, observations from the Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Luxembourg, Poland,
and the Northern Ireland constituency of the United Kingdom are dropped from the sample.
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 99
local representative body, regional representative body, national
representative body, member of the EP, member of local government,
member of regional government, and/or member of national
government. The political experience index used in this study is
measured as the proportion of memberships in relation to the total
number of items (for more information, see Giebler, Haus, and Wessels
2010). The respondents were also asked which of the aforementioned
bodies they “would like to be ten years from now.” Each candidate was
asked to choose as many options as appropriate. Political ambition is
measured based on this survey question. Ambitions for positions in the
EP are coded as 1; all others are coded as 0.
I use the 2009 EES Candidate Survey question “On which level were
you nominated as an official candidate for the EP election?” as an
indicator of the centralization of candidate selection procedures. The
values of the variable used increase from decentralized to centralized
candidate selection: local level (1), regional level (2), and national level
(3). More than half of the respondents (57%) are nominated at the
national level. I also rely on candidates’ survey responses to measure the
inclusiveness of the selectorate. I use the original categories of the 2009
EES Candidate Survey, ranging from exclusive to inclusive candidate
selectorate: the executive board of your party (1), appointed party
members (2), elected party members (delegates) (3), all party members
(4), and voters (5). Most often candidates are officially nominated by the
executive board of their party (43%) or by elected party members
(delegates) (22%). The final party level variable, whether the candidate’s
party represents left-wing/liberal/ecological ideology or not, is measured
as a dichotomous variable. If the candidate’s national party has affiliation
with the Social Democrats; Liberals and Liberal Democrats; Greens and
Regionalists; or Communists, Democratic Socialists, and the far-left
European Parliamentary party groups, the variable is coded as 1,
otherwise as 0.
For the analysis, I use a dichotomous variable to distinguish between
ordered-list and closed-list voting systems, where closed-list voting system is
the baseline category. Member states are classified similarly to Farrell
and Scully (2005) with the exception of Poland, which according to its
electoral law is an open-list, not a closed-list, system.5 Austria, Belgium,
Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands,
5. Personal communication (e-mail) with Heiko Giebler, March 28, 2012, and Michal Kotnarowski,
April 2, 2012.
100 MAARJA LUHISTE
Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden are coded as ordered-list voting systems.
Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Spain,
and the United Kingdom (excluding the Northern Ireland constituency)
are coded as closed-list voting systems. District magnitude is coded as the
number of MEP seats the constituency in which the candidate runs has.
For measuring overall gender equality in society, I calculated a gender
equality index (GEI) based on a modified EU Gender Equality Index
(Platenga et al. 2009). The Gender Equality Index used in this research
includes four major areas of life where equality between men and
women varies across Europe: equal share of employment; equal share of
money; equal share of (decision-making) power; and equal share of time.
The exact measurement of the gender equality index is explained in
Appendix A.
Regarding candidate gender quotas, I distinguish between cases in which
(1) no quota rule is applied, (2) simple quotas without placement mandate
rule are applied; and (3) quotas with placement mandate rule are applied.
The Quota Project’s database is used for the categorization. The quota
measures are dichotomous variables, where value 0 indicates no such
quota rule and value 1 indicates this specific quota rule.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 1 summarizes the results of the overall model, which includes all
candidates. The results show that women are not less (or more) likely
than men to be viable candidates; the results also hold if a binary model
with candidate sex as the only explanatory variable is estimated.
However, in order to understand whether and how electoral rules affect
women candidates’ chances for party-determined viable candidacy, I run
separate models for male and female candidates and compare the
differences of the coefficients with Wald tests.6 This approach is applied
instead of running a model with gender interaction terms because I
expect different variances for the two groups.
Table 2 explains both female and male candidates’ likelihood of being
placed by party gatekeepers as viable candidates. To recall, candidate
viability is measured with a three-category variable, where “safe”
6. I use the “suest” (seemingly unrelated estimation) command in Stata, which combines the
estimation results — parameter estimates and associated (co)variance matrices — stored under
namelist into one parameter vector and simultaneous (co)variance matrix of the sandwich/robust
type. Typical applications of suest are tests for intramodel or cross-model hypotheses.
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 101
indicates a highly viable list position, “doubtful” indicates a semiviable list
position, and “unpromising” indicates a list position from which it is highly
unlikely to get elected. The left-hand section of Table 2 summarizes how
the independent variables influence the likelihood of being positioned in
the party lists as a doubtful candidate as opposed to an unpromising
candidate. A negative coefficient indicates that the independent variable
decreases the candidate’s chances of being a doubtful candidate as
opposed to unpromising and vice versa. The right-hand section of
Table 2 shows how the independent variables affect the likelihood of
being positioned in the party lists as a safe candidate, as opposed to a
doubtful one.
Most importantly, the results in Table 2 demonstrate that female
candidates’ likelihood of being placed in the party lists as viable
candidates is considerably more dependent on the institutional and
contextual setting in which they run than male candidates’ likelihood of
viability. For men, the single most important (and consistently
Table 1. Explaining candidates’ likelihood of party determined viable
candidacy, multinominal logistic regression estimates
Doubtful/
Unpromising
Safe/
Unpromising
Safe/
Doubtful
Female 20.00 (0.32) 0.63 (0.47) 0.63 (0.58)
Political experience 1.39 (0.46)** 1.40 (1.17) 0.01 (0.98)
Political ambition: MEP 20.29 (0.31) 21.32 (0.67)+ 21.02 (0.69)
Preference voting: ordered
list
20.13 (0.46) 20.22 (0.70) 20.09 (0.90)
Gender equality 20.43 (1.95) 1.72 (4.35) 2.15 (4.32)
Simple quotas 0.83 (0.56) 0.46 (1.10) 20.38 (0.96)
Quotas with placement
mandate
0.76 (0.54) 1.69 (0.70)** 0.93 (1.10)
Left/liberal/Green Party 0.03 (0.35) 0.76 (0.84) 0.73 (0.68)
District magnitude 0.00 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) 0.01 (0.02)
Centralized candidate
selection
0.36 (0.25) 1.28 (0.82) 0.92 (0.67)
Inclusive selectorate 0.28 (0.19) 20.10 (0.23) 20.38 (0.28)
Constant 23.79 (1.52)* 27.47 (4.01)+ 23.68 (3.19)
N 1020
Level 2 N 20
LR Chi2 (20) 253.54**
Log likelihood 2670.311
Pseudo R2 0.159
Source: 2009 EES candidate survey data
Note: **p , 0.01; *p , 0.05; þ p , 0.10 (two-tailed tests); robust standard errors (clustered by
country) in parentheses.
102 MAARJA LUHISTE
Table 2. Explaining female and male candidates’ likelihood of party-determined viable candidacy, multinominal logistic
regression estimates
Female candidates Male candidates Female candidates Male candidates
Doubtful/
Unpromising
Doubtful/
Unpromising
Difference
between
models:
Wald test
Safe/Doubtful Safe/Doubtful Difference
between
models:
Wald test
Political experience 1.84 (0.75)* 1.37 (0.73)+ 0.14 25.75 (3.03)+ 3.08 (1.45)* 4.92*
Political ambition: MEP 20.28 (0.43) 20.49 (0.47) 0.08 21.82 (0.99)+ 20.48 (0.61) 1.38
Preference voting: ordered list 0.91 (0.44)* 20.77 (0.52) 5.26* 25.46 (1.63)** 1.94 (1.34) 9.92**
Gender equality 20.33 (2.95) 20.29 (2.48) 0.00 15.99 (5.53)** 21.54 (4.80) 6.44*
Simple quotas 20.61 (0.55) 1.52 (0.72)* 6.02* 20.24 (1.23) 20.85 (1.07) 0.11
Quotas with placement mandate 0.39 (0.50) 0.77 (0.74) 0.22 2.55 (1.33)+ 0.64 (1.07) 1.22
Left/liberal/green party 20.62 (0.48) 0.26 (0.53) 1.24 2.77 (0.95)** 1.01 (0.94) 3.25*
District magnitude 0.02 (0.01)* 20.00 (0.01) 3.86* 20.08 (0.03)** 0.03 (0.02) 6.66**
Centralised candidate selection 0.80 (0.32)* 0.15 (0.28) 2.15 3.10 (1.68)+ 0.65 (0.51) 3.16+
Inclusive selectorate 20.02 (0.22) 0.45 (0.23)* 1.95 0.46 (0.33) 20.54 (0.33)+ 3.92*
Constant 24.68 (1.66)** 23.54 (1.91)+ 0.24 214.90 (6.29)* 22.99 (3.27) 5.69*
N 327 693 327 693
Level 2 N 19 20 19 20
LR Chi2 (20) 193.04** 211.76** 193.04** 211.76**
Log likelihood 2167.271 2423.877 2167.271 2423.877
Pseudo R2 0.366 0.200 0.366 0.200
Source: 2009 EES candidate survey data
Note: **p , 0.01; *p , 0.05; þp , 0.10 (two-tailed tests); robust standard errors (clustered by country) in parentheses.
PARTYGATEKEEPERS’SUPPORTFORVIABLEFEMALE103
statistically significant) variable explaining their chances for being ranked
high on parties’ electoral lists is their personal political experience. For
women, political experience fails to reach traditional levels of
significance.7 Berch (2004) shows similar results: female incumbents
face more challenges in being reelected than male incumbents do in
U.S. House elections.
Most notably, Table 2 shows the strong effect of overall gender equality
in society on women candidates’ chances to be granted with a highly viable
list position. The effect of preferential voting systems is somewhat less
straight forward. Preferential voting system appears to increase women’s
chances of not being an unpromising but a somewhat viable doubtful
candidate. However, the positive effect of the preferential voting system
ends with semiviable doubtful candidacy, as women have a much higher
likelihood of being granted a highly viable safe candidacy in
nonpreferential closed-list voting systems. I assume that it is the safe
candidacy that matters the most in the electoral competition. Therefore,
the fact that in closed-list systems women are ranked relatively higher in
the electoral lists than they are in ordered-list systems suggests that
women also have greater chances for election in closed-list systems.
Alternatively, one could argue that in an ordered-list system, a
moderately viable list position (doubtful candidacy) is enough, as in this
system candidates’ likelihood of getting elected does not depend only on
their list position, but also on how many preference votes they gain.
Hence, it is still possible to get elected, even if the party places the
candidate in the semiviable doubtful position rather than on a highly
viable safe position. However, this means that in order for women to
have the same likelihood as men for getting elected, female candidates
in doubtful list positions need to collect many more preference votes
than the male candidates in safe list positions. Research on preferential
voting does not show that women are consistently more (or less) likely to
gain preference votes than men (Matland 2005; Sanbonmatsu 2002;
Smith and Fox 2001). Therefore, less viable party-determined electoral
list placement is likely to negatively influence these women’s overall
electoral chances and thus explain why past literature finds that women
in preferential voting systems have lower levels of descriptive
representation than women in nonpreferential voting systems (Caul
7. I also estimated models in which I replaced the political experience variable with the incumbency
variable. While the incumbency variable reached statistical significance also for women, the coefficient
remained significantly larger for men. All other covariates showed no substantive differences whether I
ran the model with the political experience or with the incumbency variable.
104 MAARJA LUHISTE
1999; Hogan 2001; Norris 1996; Norris and Franklin 1997; Paxton and
Kunovich 2003; Reynolds 1999; Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler 2005).
Besides the electoral arrangements, women candidates’ chances for
viable candidacy are also influenced by the rules in the party office and
party ideology. Unlike male candidates, female candidates’ likelihood of
viable candidacy is affected by the level of candidate selection. In line
with the expectations, women candidates are more likely to be hopeless
candidates and less likely to be highly viable safe candidates if they are
selected at the local/regional level as opposed to the national level.
However, whether candidates are officially nominated by a small group
of party executive members or by a more inclusive selection body does
not statistically significantly affect women candidates’ chances for being
placed in winnable list positions. Caul (1999) and Norris (2006) argue
that the move to more inclusive selectorates in Western Europe occurred
at the same time as an increase in the use of various correction
mechanisms to assure the representation of women. Therefore, the
empirical findings of this article seem to suggest that parties may indeed
restrict the choices of their more inclusive selectorates with these
“correction mechanisms” in order to facilitate the election of women.
Finally, the results also show that left-wing parties continue to support
viable female candidacy more than right-wing parties.
In line with the expectation, only quotas with placement mandates
increase women’s likelihood of being granted with viable candidacy,
while quota rules without a placement mandate regulation remain
ineffective in increasing women candidates’ chances for viable
candidacy. However, it is important to note that quotas with placement
mandate rules affect women’s chances for highly viable candidacy only
and not for doubtful candidacy. This may be influenced by the specific
quota rules applied. For example, in Belgium only two top candidates of
the party list cannot be of the same gender, while there is no alternation
required throughout the list.
While the analysis suggests that both individual and contextual level
variables affect women candidates’ likelihood for viable candidacy
differently than men’s, it is difficult to explain why this is the case. The
fact that men are, in general, politically more experienced than women
could partly explain why political experience explains men’s chances for
viable candidacy but not women’s. Also, the same fact that women are in
general underrepresented in politics is likely to explain why context
matters more for women’s individual chances of being placed in a viable
list position than it does for men’s. Female candidates could be seen as
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 105
the “political underdogs” who need a more favorable context to guarantee a
viable list position. Male candidates, due to the fact that they are the more
common political actors, are less sensitive to the context in which they run.
The results discussed above illustrate how certain characteristics of the
electoral system and the overall context can have a positive or negative
impact on women’s likelihood of being positioned by party gatekeepers
as viable candidates. However, the central variables of interest, the voting
system, the centralization of candidate selection, and the overall gender
equality in the society do not always go hand in hand. To estimate the
full impact of the voting system, overall gender equality, and candidate
nomination procedures within parties, I report predicted probabilities of
party-determined viable candidacy for women across a range of situations.8
Figure 1 depicts the difference of the effect of overall gender equality and
candidate selection procedures within parties across ordered-list and
closed-list voting systems. The top section of Figure 1 shows the strong
positive effect overall gender equality has on women candidates’ chances
to be granted with a highly viable (safe) candidacy in closed-list systems.
However, the overall levels of gender equality barely affect women’s
probability of viable candidacy in preferential ordered-list systems. These
results indicate that closed-list voting rules may not increase women’s
chances for party-determined viable candidacy in countries where
women are relatively unequal to men. However, in a society with aboveaverage
levels of gender equality, women appear to be considerably more
likely to be viable candidates when a nonpreferential voting system is
employed.
Continuing with the electoral system effects, the bottom section of
Figure 1 depicts that women have close to zero probability of being
positioned by party gatekeepers as a doubtful or safe candidate in both
ordered- and closed-list systems if the candidate selection is carried out at
the local level. However, there are differences in women’s probabilities
for party-determined viable candidacy across voting systems once the
decision of candidate selection is made either at the regional or national
level. Most notably, more centralized candidate selection procedures
increase women’s probability of viable candidacy in both ordered- and
closed-list systems. However, while in preferential ordered-list systems
more centralized candidate selection increases women’s chances of
8. I utilize the “prgen” command in Stata (Long and Freese 2006) to compute predicted outcomes, as
one independent variable changes over a specified range, holding other variables constant. I have
plotted the new variables containing the predicted values in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
106 MAARJA LUHISTE
doubtful candidacy, in closed-list preferential voting systems it increases
women’s chances of safe candidacy. Therefore, the combination of
centralized candidate selection with closed-list ballot structure appears
the most likely context in which women can expect to be granted a
highly viable candidacy.
Figure 2 depicts party gatekeepers’ response to overall gender equality
dependent on candidate selection procedures and party ideology. The
top section of Figure 2 illustrates that different candidate selection
procedures within political parties also condition the effect of overall
gender equality on women candidates’ party-determined viability. While
overall gender equality does not influence women candidates’ likelihood
of being granted with a highly viable (safe) candidacy in cases where
candidates are nominated in local party offices, gender equality has a
strong effect on women’s party-determined viability in cases where
candidates are nominated at the national level. The effect of gender
FIGURE 1. Predicted probabilities of party-determined candidate viability for
women by voting system, gender equality, and candidate selection level. Predicted
probabilities obtained from female candidate model estimates in Table 2. All other
covariates are set at estimation sample mean.
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 107
equality on viable candidacy also varies by party ideology. The bottom
section of Figure 2 shows that women in both right- and left-wing parties
enjoy a higher probability of highly viable safe candidacy only in
relatively gender-equal societies. These findings are interesting because
they indicate a mechanism of how overall levels of gender equality
influence women’s likelihood of being placed in winnable seats.
One of the arguments of how overall levels of gender equality affect
women’s electoral chances is that in more gender-equal societies there is
a greater supply of prospective female candidates. The fact that both leftand
right-wing parties place women in highly viable safe-list positions
in highly gender-equal societies only could indicate that in more
FIGURE 2. Predicted probabilities of party-determined candidate viability for
women by gender equality, candidate selection level, and party ideology. Predicted
probabilities obtained from female candidate model estimates in Table 2. All other
covariates are set at estimation sample mean.
108 MAARJA LUHISTE
gender-equal societies there is a greater supply of potentially highly viable
candidates. However, the supply-side argument does not explain the results
depicted in the top section of Figure 2, which point to party gatekeepers.
There are stark differences in the likelihood of women from moderately
or highly gender-equal societies to be placed at highly viable (safe) seats
dependent on the centralization of candidate nomination. I consider it
unlikely that in relatively gender-equal societies, the supply of suitable
female candidates for viable list positions varies substantively dependent
on whether or not the party selects its candidates at the local or at the
national level. Rather it appears that party gatekeepers seem to respond
more to the overall context of gender equality, thus to the perceived
demand, if candidate selection is more centralized.
Valdini (2012) argues that the selectorate has a strong incentive to be
attentive to the prevalence of gender equality in the society and thus
balance the ticket accordingly. These results show a more nuanced
finding: whether or not party gatekeepers are attentive to the overall
gender ideology in the society depends on the level at which party
gatekeepers select candidates.
FINAL COMMENTS
The data from the 2009 European Parliament elections show that while
women have no less likelihood of party-determined viable candidacy
than men, the institutional setting and overall context in which they run
affects female candidates’ chances for viability more than male
candidates’ chances. Context matters for female candidates. This is both
bad news and good news. Certain contextual predictors, such as overall
gender equality in the society, are not easily changed. However,
institutional rules, such as the type of voting systems used and the level at
which candidate selection takes place in political parties, are not only
theoretically changeable, but history shows that these features of electoral
systems and party rules are indeed occasionally changed. Therefore, a
change in electoral rules toward closed-list voting (as opposed to orderedlist
voting) and toward more centralized party selection procedures are
likely to increase women’s chances of party-determined viable candidacy,
which is likely in turn to increase their chances of being elected.
The findings of this study thus show the general trend toward more
“open” electoral systems (Renwick and Pilet 2011) and more
decentralized and inclusive candidate selection procedures (Hazan and
PARTY GATEKEEPERS’ SUPPORT FOR VIABLE FEMALE 109
Rahat 2006) in a different light. While this change in electoral and internal
party rules is usually presented as a move toward a more democratic
institutional setting, this study shows that these current changes may have
a negative effect on women’s descriptive representation.
The results of the analysis also suggest that party gatekeepers respond to
the overall levels of gender equality and place women in more viable list
positions in more gender-equal societies. Moreover, the effect is the
strongest in closed-list voting systems and within parties where candidate
selection is centralized. I assume that this is the case because in a more
centralized party organization it is likely to be easier for the women’s
factions in the party (or other interest groups) to hold the party
gatekeepers responsible for their illicit decisions when fielding women
candidates.
The study offers interesting findings with regard to candidate gender
quotas. While I expected candidate gender quotas without a placement
mandate rule to remain ineffective, quotas with placement mandate also
have a limited effect. In countries and parties where placement mandate
rule is used, women have a higher likelihood of highly viable candidacy
but not of moderately viable candidacy. I assume that this is due to the
fact that some parties, such as the Moderate Party in Sweden, and
countries, such as Belgium and Slovenia, apply the placement mandate
rule in the top part of the list only.
In conclusion, this research provides important information with regard
to party-determined viable candidacy. These findings are likely to help us
explain certain mechanisms of the election of women in general, too. For
example, the fact that party gatekeepers place women on moderately viable,
rather than highly viable, list positions in preferential ordered-list systems
and on highly viable list positions in closed-list systems may explain why
we witness fewer women in the legislatures in preferential than in
nonpreferential PR-list electoral systems. Future studies could put this
claim to test and examine if and how the differences in women
candidates’ party-determined viability across varying institutional and
contextual contexts affect women’s chances of being elected.
Maarja Luhiste is a Research Associate in the department of Politics and
International Relations at the University of Leicester, Leicester, United
Kingdom: ml325@leicester.ac.uk
110 MAARJA LUHISTE
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APPENDIX A
Measurement of Overall Gender Equality
I use the following eight indicators to measure the different dimensions of
gender equality:
† Equal share of employment: (1) gender gap in employment; (2) gender gap
in unemployment.
† Equal share of money: (3) gender pay gap; (4) gender gap in risk of poverty
after social transfer.
† Equal share of power: (5) gender gap in national parliament (lower
chamber); (6) gender gap in ISCO 1 level occupations.
† Equalshareoftime: (7)gendergap in hours spenteducatingchildren andcaring
for them among people in full-time employment; (8) gender gap in hours spent
cooking and doing house chores among people in full-time employment.
Since the indicators are measured on different scales, the actual values of
the indicators are standardized using the min-max methodology in order to
calculate the composite index.
The formula:
Standardized value ¼
jactual value x1 À min value x1j
max value x1 À min value x1
where the actual value is a national score on the indicator (i.e., gender gap of
5% in unemployment); where a situation of absolute equality (no gender gap)
refers to the maximum value and has assigned the value 0; and where the
minimum value is set at a level that is a little below the actual minimum
value within the sample of EU countries. Since gender equality is
understood as the absence of gender gaps, both positive and negative gaps
are treated the same way, which means that the absolute value of the gender
gap is used. As a result, the standardized values of each indicator vary
between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds to a situation of the worst inequality
in the EU, and 1 corresponds to a situation of absolute equality. Appendix B
summarizes the scores of overall gender equality across EU member states.
114 MAARJA LUHISTE
APPENDIX B
Overall ranking of 27 EU member states on gender equality index (2007–2009)
Country Employment Unemployment Pay Risk of
Poverty
Political
Power
Socio-
economic
Power
are
Activities
Household
Activities
Composite
Index Score
Sweden 0.88 0.91 0.42 0.98 0.93 0.49 0.74 0.58 0.74
Finland 0.95 0.81 0.35 0.69 0.8 0.41 0.93 0.67 0.7
Denmark 0.85 0.84 0.43 0.87 0.72 0.25 0.85 0.67 0.68
Belgium 0.67 0.96 0.71 0.72 0.65 0.51 0.7 0.33 0.66
France 0.75 0.91 0.45 0.89 0.25 0.67 0.56 0.5 0.62
Poland 0.61 0.87 0.76 0.91 0.3 0.61 0.48 0.42 0.62
Bulgaria 0.75 0.94 0.6 0.62 0.33 0.49 0.74 0.42 0.61
Hungary 0.67 0.91 0.47 1 0.08 0.61 0.78 0.33 0.61
Romania 0.61 0.73 0.59 0.82 0.09 0.41 0.78 0.83 0.61
Slovenia 0.79 0.99 0.73 0.47 0.14 0.58 0.74 0.42 0.61
Portugal 0.72 0.81 0.73 0.67 0.49 0.46 0.74 0.17 0.6
Luxembourg 0.52 0.8 0.6 0.78 0.37 n.d. 0.56 0.42 0.58
Spain 0.59 0.9 0.45 0.56 0.68 0.49 0.56 0.25 0.56
Latvia 0.99 0.08 0.5 0.38 0.29 0.75 0.78 0.58 0.55
Germany 0.72 0.84 0.26 0.6 0.58 0.65 0.41 0.25 0.54
Netherlands 0.68 0.99 0.24 0.8 0.8 0.36 0.04 0.42 0.54
Italy 0.35 0.64 0.84 0.47 0.32 0.52 0.81 0.17 0.52
Slovakia 0.56 0.8 0.24 0.75 0.28 0.42 0.59 0.33 0.5
UK 0.71 0.69 0.32 0.58 0.28 0.56 0.41 0.42 0.5
Austria 0.69 0.94 0.18 0.51 0.47 0.38 0.33 0.17 0.46
Lithuania 0.96 0.04 0.35 0.18 0.24 0.72 0.59 0.5 0.45
Continued
PARTYGATEKEEPERS’SUPPORTFORVIABLEFEMALE115
APPENDIX B
Continued
Country Employment Unemployment Pay Risk of
Poverty
Political
Power
Socio-
economic
Power
are
Activities
Household
Activities
Composite
Index Score
Czech Rep. 0.5 0.74 0.24 0.67 0.19 0.37 0.33 0.42 0.43
Ireland 0.74 0.01 0.45 0.55 0.14 0.48 0.56 0.42 0.42
Malta 0.01 0.86 0.75 0.8 0.03 0.07 0.59 0.17 0.41
Estonia 0.97 0.1 0 0.09 0.31 0.61 0.22 0.67 0.37
Cyprus 0.56 0.96 0.25 0.29 0.16 0.03 0.63 0.08 0.37
Greece 0.28 0.1 0.31 0.76 0.17 0.38 0.59 0.08 0.33
Sources: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 2009; Eurostat 2009, 2007a, 2007b; International Labor Organisation 2008;
Inter-Parliamentary Union 2008.
116MAARJALUHISTE