Polishing their image or throwing dirt on their name? The effect of primaries on the perception of female candidates as honest

The increase of inclusive candidate selection methods in Western European parties, modeled after U.S. primaries, has attracted large scholarly focus in the last two decades. Given the relative newness of primaries in Europe, research on European primaries is still inconclusive on whether changes in candidate selection to more inclusive methods results in more female candidates being selected. Thus, it is unclear whether primaries are a chance for female representation or a hinder outside the U.S. context and even less is known how primaries affect voters’ perception of female candidates. Specifically, it is unclear whether voters evaluate female candidates selected via primaries as more or less honest than if they are selected via more traditional selection methods. Understanding the effect that primaries have on the evaluation of female candidates is crucial, given the continued underrepresentation of women in office. If female candidates are perceived as less honest by voters if they were selected via primaries, primaries could harm the electoral success of female candidates and their long-term political careers. While primaries could reinforce the stereotyping of women as political outsiders and as less corrupt, primaries themselves have been reported as being rigged by vote-buying and clientelism, to lower voters’ trust in institutions, and as resulting in higher corruption perceptions. Such perceptions of illicit means of competition could carry over to evaluations of candidates and could especially harm female candidates, who are punished more harshly for (perceived) misconduct by voters. However, if female candidates are able to utilize perceived outsider status and gendered stereotypes about their behavior, primaries could help the evaluations of female candidates. Thus, in this paper, I investigate voters’ perception of female candidates’ honesty as an effect of primaries in contrast to selection by traditional elites. To do so, I propose a conjoint experiment implemented in Spain, where primaries are an established mean of selecting candidates and corruption perceptions are generally high.