An institutionalist perspective on gendered legislative careers in Latin America

The proposed paper focuses on gendered legislative careers and seniority in Latin America, and how these are affected by institutional settings. An emphasis is put on what we call soft term limits, which are term limits that do not outright prohibit the consecutive reelection of legislators, but instead prohibit the reelection of legislators that have served a certain number of legislative terms. Latin America is the ideal testing ground for our research question, as the institutional landscape in the region includes many countries with soft term limits and gender quotas, allowing not only for the study of the effects of these institutional settings, but also for the study of their interaction effects. The aim of the paper is to analyse to what extent gendered differences in turnover rates exist in the studied countries, and how they are related to institutional settings, in particular gender quotas and soft term limits. Using a large individual-level dataset on elected legislators in 17 Latin American countries that allow for consecutive reelection of legislators, we study incumbent exit rates both on an aggregate level, and differentiated for male and female legislators. Besides term limits, we also apply other variables that help account for how an individual incumbent’s reelection and exit is affected by the presence of gender quotas, the electoral system, and district magnitude. Through this, we are able to determine if soft term limits work only mechanically by disallowing legislators who reach the threshold to not be able to run for office and be reelected, or if the threat of soft term limits scares off incumbent legislators. We also analyse if this effect is different for male and female legislators. Besides incumbent exit rates, the paper also addresses the question of chamber-switching behavior in bicameral legislatures, and under which settings MPs return to office after not having been elected in the preceding election.