This paper investigates the pattern of women’s success in becoming leaders of major parties in West Europe, as a conventional step to becoming prime ministers. Research on female prime ministers has focused on sitting prime ministers, their individual credentials, and the types of political systems in which they are most likely to emerge (Jalalzai 2013; Murray 2010), but there are few studies of party leadership contests involving women (Beckwith 2010) or of patterns of women’s access to party leader (O’Brien 2013). In a cross-national study of party leaders of 37 parties in 10 parliamentary democracies, O’Brien (2013) found that female party leaders are increasing in number but still relatively rare; moreover, women have been most likely to ascend to party leadership in parties where the position has relatively little power. This paper focuses on party leadership contests where women contest for leadership and where no women are contenders, and investigates the conditions under which women are likely to compete or defer standing for leadership. Three major factors are examined to identify propitious and hostile conditions for female leadership: 1) party ideology receptive to women, 2) rules of leader competition and selection, and 3) party leader eligibility pools by party by country, to identify the availability of leader-eligible men and women. The paper traces party leadership selection procedures for major parties in three countries: for Britain, the Conservative and Labour Parties; for Germany, the Christian Democratic Union and Social Democratic Party; and for Spain, the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and the Partido Popular. The paper examines the impact of (and changes in) party leader selection processes on women’s party leadership opportunities, within countries across parties and within parties of left and right across countries. The paper concludes with an analysis of women’s party leadership opportunities and contest outcomes.
