Strategic Candidate Selection and Women Representation: Evidence from Italy

• In Event: Gender and Candidate Selection

Abstract

How do political parties manage strategies that trade off experience for diversity? On the one hand, parties are strategic in nominating candidates, placing more experienced ones in higher positions on party lists. On the other hand, evidence from minority representation in national governments emphasizes parties’ efforts to optimize diversity to attract votes. But we do not yet understand how parties evaluate tradeoffs between experience and diversity. In this paper, I argue that institutions may make such tradeoffs more salient. Certain institutions, designed to enhance diversity, actually provide incentives for parties to minimize their diversity effort. Specifically, institutions that are aimed at increasing minority representation are not always successful because parties will use their candidate selection strategies to follow the rules on paper while still prioritizing majority candidates’ chances to be elected in the legislature. I test my hypotheses using an original dataset of legislative party lists in Italy from 1993 to 2022, during which the country went through a variety of electoral rule changes, including the introduction of a gender quota in 2018. Using matching and synthetic control techniques, I test whether and how parties modify their candidate selection strategies based on the type of electoral rule, and when there is a quota in place. My results have important implications in understanding parties’ strategic incentives when selecting candidates, and the roles that such strategies have on the levels of women representation in legislatures.

Author

• Giulia Venturini, University of Strathclyde