Why Are Some Women Selected? Gender and the Selection of Legislative Candidates at the Subnational Level.Chubut (Argentina) 1983–2019

This paper examines how and under what conditions women are selected as legislative candidates at the subnational level. Although gender quotas and parity have increased women's presence in legislative bodies, the concrete criteria through which parties determine who gains access to candidacies have been less thoroughly explored. Drawing on feminist institutionalism and on the case of the province of Chubut (Argentina) between 1983 and 2019, this paper sets out to explain how systemic, party, and individual criteria interact in the selection of women as legislative candidates across distinct institutional moments (before quotas, under quotas, and under parity). The argument holds that the informal rules and criteria organizing the selection of legislative candidates at the subnational level reproduce gender biases that restrict women's access, and that these biases persist even under quota and parity regimes. The adoption of quotas and parity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for transforming patterns of access: these formal rules expanded women's presence in electoral competition, but their effectiveness depends on their interaction with informal rules that structure party decisions. The research draws on a qualitative study that combines documentary analysis, a database of the provincial electoral supply (1983–2019), and semi-structured interviews with twenty-one women and men legislators and ten party selectors from the province's three main parties. Preliminary findings indicate that the gender quota operated as a ceiling rather than a floor; parity expanded women's presence without decisively altering male control over the composition and heading of party lists; and party male “small tables” or inner circles (mesas chicas) continued to function as a key mechanism for decision-making, exclusion, and the ranking of candidacies. The paper contributes to the research agenda on gender and candidate selection by shedding light on the informal practices that structure parties' decision-making power and shape women's access to candidacies.