The patterns of descriptive representation of historically marginalized groups in European parliaments

This paper presents empirical findings from the InclusiveParl project, which aims at empirically apprehending the presence of historically under-represented social categories in parliamentary assemblies. We provide a comprehensive and intersectional approach to the comparative and longitudinal empirical analysis of 'visible presence' for a wide range of marginalised groups (women, youth, working class, ethnic and migrant minorities, religious minorities, LGBTI+ minorities and people with disabilities) in four countries with various immigration histories, electoral systems and approaches to gender quotas. This comprehensive and holistic approach to descriptive parliamentary representation allows us to better understand whether systematic and common patterns of inclusivity (or bias) emerge. We analyse novel biographical datasets of national MPs (late 2000s to late 2010s) in France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom to address the following questions: How biased is 'visible presence' in national parliaments when confronted with official statistics of the respective social categories? Are descriptive representation biases consistent across groups within countries? What can the analysis of certain intersections tell us about possible common or divergent drivers of inclusion and exclusion (e.g., in terms of party strategies, of gendered visibility biases and stigma, differential racialization and interpretation of visible markers, and candidate recruitment pathways biases)?