Institutions or Ideology? Cross-Party and Cross-Country Analysis of Factors Contributing to the Election of Women to the European Parliament

This article examines the key factors influencing women's electoral success, in particular the impact of ideological party characteristics and institutional arrangements. It draws on an original dataset of more than 3,000 MEPs, 649 national parties and 110 electoral systems across all EU member states, spanning four European elections from 2004 to 2019. Conceptually, the study contrasts national political party characteristics with country-level institutional variables, evaluating their relative importance in determining gender balance in the European Parliament. Theoretically, the article is grounded in feminist institutionalism. Our findings indicate that the most predictive variables include changes in parties' positioning on the GAL-TAN scale and their attitudes toward European integration. This article provides novel insights into the idiosyncratic features of Central and Eastern Europe, elucidating divergent patterns of women's electoral prospects across conservative and progressive parties in 'old' Western democracies and 'new,' post-communist Member States.