Double standards? Women, youths and immigrants do not need to signal more loyalty to run for office

Are the imbalances in descriptive representation more a matter of supply or demand? Early research suggests that candidates and officeholders from politically marginalized demographics are often more competent, highlighting the validity of demand-related explanations. Recent studies, however, find no evidence of explicit bias by political recruiters against aspirants from political outgroups. To determine how party-led candidate selection practices contribute to imbalances in descriptive representation, our study examines whether aspirants from various political outgroups must signal greater loyalty to be deemed suitable for political office. We achieve this through an original, pre-registered conjoint experiment involving Swedish party selectors, supplemented by verified roll call and reelection data on Swedish MPs. Our findings reveal no evidence that Swedish party selectors expect greater loyalty from candidates and officeholders belonging to politically underrepresented demographics. These results are pivotal in our continuous efforts to dissect the complexities that hinder more equitable political representation.