Merit, Quotas or Political recruitment? How gender balance affects perceptions of legitimacy

Does descriptive representation make recruitment procedures more legitimate in the eyes of the general public? Democratic theorists suggest that the systematic exclusion of certain social groups will undermine the legitimacy of legislative processes and outcomes. This study investigates how citizens’ confidence in decision making bodies are affected by the principles guiding the selection of decision makers (merit, quotas or political recruitment) and if and how such confidence is contingent on the outcome in terms of the gender balance of the panels. Using newly collected data from a conjoint experiment fielded in 25 European countries as part of the European Quality of Government Index (EQI) survey, we investigate how selection procedures affect both citizens’ confidence in and the perceived fairness of a decision-making body tasked with reforming health care. We also show how citizens’ preferences for selection procedures are contingent on the gender balance of the recruited panel.