Recruitment procedures of European Political Parties – Bottleneck to women’s representation?

Previous research has found that institutional and structural aspects account for variations in women’s representation in legislatures. However, these factors cannot fully explain cross-country and cross-party variations in women’s representation. This paper expands the focus to political parties and their crucial role as gatekeepers in candidate selection processes. From the literature, we know, that political parties dominate recruitment procedures of candidates as they decide upon success or failure of women’s attempt to stand for office. Yet, only few studies systematically analyze the ‘secret garden’ of political recruitment. This article attempts to close this research gap by analyzing recruitment procedures of political parties winning seats in national elections. It addresses two questions in this research area: 1) can procedural variations of recruitment procedures of political parties explain variations in women’s representation in national parliaments and 2) does the degree of centralization and inclusiveness of recruitment procedure influence the proportion of women on party lists and their placement as viable candidates? Drawing on party statutes from parties winning seats in national elections for selected OECD countries, this paper maps and systematically analyzes differences in party’s nomination procedures. I expect that differences in how political parties organize the recruitment of candidates in the domestic electoral arena affect the proportion of women selected on party lists. More precisely, I assume that the degree of centralization and the inclusiveness of the nomination and recruitment procedures determine the proportion of women placed as viable candidates on party lists and thus are crucial factors for the enduring underrepresentation of women.