The incumbency advantage: another male-dominated phenomenon?

Incumbent MPs very frequently seek and get re-election by relying on the personal vote and consensus they have built and strengthened during the years of their mandate. Parties have no incentive not to re-nominate them (assuming they have the power to do so) to balance their nominations based on gender because it would jeopardize, at least in part, their stable block of consensus. For these reasons, MPs turnover is usually low, and this creates obstacles to entry for those who, like women, present themselves to the electorate for the first time. The article proposed an innovative research design based on the differential probabilities of election of male and female incumbents and novices. Using an original dataset of the universe of candidates to the Italian national elections from 1948 to 2018, the article advances our knowledge on the incumbency effect: is it a “gendered” phenomenon? Results show that being an outgoing MP significantly increases the chances of being elected, but there are differences between the two genders: male incumbents have an additional advantage over female incumbents.