Prejudice, Information, and the Vote for Women in Personalized PR Systems: Evidence from Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACT Personalized proportional representation systems elect fewer women than other systems. This paper uses individual-level survey data and leverages state-level variation in campaign expenditures and number of candidates to assess three main explanations for the phenomenon. The first proposes that voters become less likely to elect women because men are more visible, since they have more access to campaign resources. The second proposes that voters rely on prejudice against women in complex electoral environments. The third explanation argues that the presence of co-partisan competition allows voters to substitute men for women. The evidence at the individual-level in Brazil supports the three perspectives, while the analyses at the district-level provide support for the co-partisan substitution hypothesis. The findings present new evidence that features of electoral systems interact with voters’ perceptions in ways that affect the electoral chances of women candidates.