This paper lays out a theoretical framework for understanding how gate-keeping parties actively discriminate against women in the selection process. The causes of women’s underrepresentation have been well-studied, with scholars attributing women’s low election rate to problems of supply, suggesting that women lack the necessary ambitions or qualifications, or problems of demand, proposing that voters may prefer male candidates. An alternative explanation portrays parties as risk-minimizers: women are newcomers, “unknown quantities” whose legislative behaviour is less predictable than that of men.
In surveying literature across the subfields of political behaviour, party politics, and gender and politics, we conclude that the current empirical evidence supports none of these traditional explanations for women’s underrepresentation. Studies disprove the notion of an electorate bias against women, particularly as polling becomes more sophisticated across the globe and as some gender roles and beliefs actually advantage female candidates over male candidates. Studies also demonstrate that women in the candidate pools share the qualifications and ambitions of their male peers, which also suggests that their legislative behaviour should respond to the same incentives as their male counterparts.
We draw on evidence from political parties’ resistance to gender quotas and feminist institutionalist accounts of party organizations to propose an alternative explanation: parties ignore voter preferences and distort selection criteria in order to preserve candidate positions for men. This strategy is rational insofar as party elites (who are usually men) minimize electoral competition, maximize their own electoral chances, and thus preserve their own power. However, this strategy may prove self-defeating in the long run, as parties that misread the electorate and fail to elect the best candidates may well lose popularity. We argue that the “parties as power-maximizers” theory identifies gender bias as the best explanation for women’s underrepresentation, with important implications for the practice of representative democracy.
