The transformation of gendered political recruitment

Political parties have traditionally been pivotal for political recruitment due to their de facto monopoly on getting candidates elected. Party members have provided a substantial recruitment pool and served as gatekeepers as stipulated in parties’ rules and practices on candidate nomination. Currently, political recruitment is challenged due to decreasing party membership, new forms of party affiliation and increasing electoral volatility. Based on three rounds of party member surveys conducted across all Danish parties represented in parliament in 2000, 2012, and 2019, as well as data on parties’ candidate nomination processes from the PPDB project, the candidate order on ballots, and parliamentary representation, this paper analyses gendered political recruitment within and by parties in three steps. Focus is first on individual level explanations of political ambitions among party members with particular attention to gender and age (generation), and their self-perceived political agreement with the party, political experience, political efficacy and interest. In the second step, the party side is included with both the degree to which parties encourage party members to stand (measured at both the individual and gender level), parties’ ideological place, candidate nomination procedures, and gender representativity in parliament. In the third step, we show how the dynamics between individual level and party level explanations vary across gender and age groups, and how it changes over time in the 20 year period. Based on the results, we discuss how gender representative political recruitment is ensured in the future in light of decreasing party membership, new forms of party affiliation and increasing volatility across voters.