Controlling the Share? Gender Quotas and the Context Dependent Gap Between Representative - Ambition and Distributional Outcomes

When studying the representation of women in parliament and the role of gender quotas, researchers typically focus on election outcomes. Election outcomes however, are the result of both the election and selection of candidates. In this paper we disentangle these two. We identify a serious gap between representative ambitions (e.g. gender quotas) and distributional outcomes (the percentage of women in parliament) and show how key contextual effects influence the relation between selection and election. The relation between a partys representative ambition as expressed in candidate selection and election outcomes, we argue, is determined by the electoral system. Using new highly detailed individual level data from all (N= ~40.000) candidates and elected MPs in the Netherlands and Germany (1965 - 2017) we illustrate conditions that close the gap between ambition and outcomes.