In the mid 2000s both Portugal (2006) and Spain (2007) enacted legislative electoral gender quotas. In regards to national parliaments, in Portugal a significant increase was observed whereas in Spain women’s representation stagnated at pre-quota levels. This notwithstanding, in the last elections the number of women deputies was substantially higher in Spain (36 per cent) than in Portugal (29 per cent). This paper surveys to what extent these outcomes are the result of dissimilar party practices, norms and routines in candidate selection processes. Following a feminist-institutionalist approach, we specifically examine the party institutional context in which candidates were selected before and after the adoption of statutory quotas in order to assess the degree of change experienced by political parties. The paper will focus exclusively on the two largest parties in each country, one social-democratic (PSOE, Spain; PS, Portugal) and one conservative (PP, Spain; PSD, Portugal). Altogether, these parties have traditionally held about 80 per cent of seats in their respective national parliaments, thus having a large impact on the overall levels of women’s numerical representation. Furthermore, the PSOE and the PS have used party quotas since 1988 while the PP and the PSD have been vocal opponents to gender quotas. This case selection will allow us, then, to disentangle the dissimilar effects that legislative quotas might have on political parties with opposing strategies on equal gender representation as well as to explore whether party gendered institutions affecting candidate selection have evolved differently over time.
