The election of women in list PR systems: Testing the conventional wisdom

Abstract

Certain institutional variables – closed lists, high district or party magnitudes, gender quotas, and placement mandates – are widely thought to facilitate the election of women in list PR systems, but this “conventional wisdom” has not been subject to a comprehensive, cross-national test. After reviewing the pertinent literature and highlighting potential interactions among these institutional variables, this article evaluates the election of women in virtually all democracies that rely primarily on list PR to elect the lower house or unicameral chamber of the national legislature, using an original data set and OLS regressions. The results provide strong evidence that contextual differences – rather than institutional factors – explain most of the variation. Among the institutional variables, only placement mandates clearly matter. Other institutional variables have only marginal impacts, at best, and these appear to diverge by ballot structure. The conclusion briefly addresses the practical implications of these findings.