This paper examines determinants of gender balance in Austrian candidate lists in the period 2008-2024 using an original longitudinal dataset of all party lists in five parliamentary elections. Grounded in theories of party competition it investigates how intra-party democracy, inter-party competition and societal value change influenced the share, placement and success of female candidates. The analysis combines party-level indicators of intra-party democracy from the Political Party Database (PPDB) project, survey data, data on party bodies and reforms of the parties’ selection procedures, in particular the diffusion of zipper candidate lists across parties. Preliminary findings indicate that electoral competition has been a primary driver of an increasing convergence across left to right parties toward gender-balanced candidate lists. Overall, the paper provides a comprehensive account of how institutional design, party competition, and value change jointly shape women’s descriptive representation.
