Research on women and politics points to the central importance of electoral systems in shaping patterns of women’s descriptive representation. While most work in this area has focused on the advantages of PR over majoritarian electoral systems in increasing women’s numerical presence (see for example Matland and Studlar, 1996; McAllister and Studlar, 2002; Rule, 1987), this paper focuses on the specific effects of a distinctive and largely Anglo-American form of PR – the single transferable vote (STV). The relationship between PR-STV and women’s representation has not been extensively researched; however, those studies that have addressed this relationship suggest that PR-STV presents a ‘mixed picture’ for women. Some scholars see PR-STV as gender neutral (White, 2006), while others suggest that it can hinder the election of women to political office (Engstrom, 1987; Galligan, 2008). Further research, then, is needed in order to analyze the gendered effects of PR-STV in different contexts. This paper assesses the use of preferential voting at the local level in Scotland, thus adding an important new case study to this under-researched area. Drawing on UK and international research, it asks whether candidate gender has had a direct effect on voter choice and election outcomes in Scotland and explores the individual-level, party-level and district-level characteristics that affect the electoral success of women in Scottish local government elections. It suggests that in Scotland, PR-STV interacts with a number of factors – including low district magnitudes, standard candidate ordering and increases in Independent candidacies and inter-party competition – to produce a potential bias against women candidates. In doing so, it provides new data on the mechanisms and effects of PR-STV and offers potential insights into the role that candidate gender plays in elections by exploring the specific conditions under which women are advantaged or disadvantaged in preferential voting systems.
