Staying in Power: Gendered Evaluations of Senior Political Leadership

Contemporary democracies are increasingly characterized by personalized and behavior-centered evaluations of political leaders. As leadership legitimacy becomes less anchored in stable political parties and more dependent on perceived personal qualities and behavioral style, access to senior political office may become more normatively conditional and unequally structured. This paper examines whether gender conditions citizens’ evaluations of suitability for the most prestigious political leadership positions. Using a pre-registered conjoint experiment in France, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom, we study how citizens evaluate hypothetical members of parliament who vary in gender, parliamentary seniority, relationship to party leadership, debate style, and political priorities. Respondents assess candidates’ suitability for highly prestigious leadership roles—parliamentary president and senior minister—as well as their overall fitness for senior office. The study investigates whether seniority yields similar evaluative returns for women and men, and whether behavioral style and independence from party leadership are evaluated differently depending on candidate gender. By focusing on the legitimacy criteria that structure access to senior political office, the paper contributes to research on political recruitment, leadership personalization, and the persistence of gender gaps at the top of contemporary democracies.