Incentives for Personal Votes and Women's Representation in Legislatures

Abstract

To explain the gender gap in legislatures, scholars have identified several socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors that undermine women's representation. One explanation focuses on electoral institutions. Proportional-representation systems with higher district magnitudes have been shown to increase the percentage of women in legislatures. We contend that solely concentrating on district magnitude ignores other critical electoral rules that will affect women's representation. To better understand electoral system effects, we must understand how electoral rules besides district magnitude create incentives for candidates to obtain personal votes. We argue that those systems with weak incentives for personal votes (party-centered systems) increase women's representation in comparison with systems that feature strong incentives for personal votes (candidate-centered systems). Using a dataset of 57 countries between 1980 and 2005, we show that party-centered systems are more conducive to women's representation.

Keywords: Women's Representation, Legislature, Electoral System, Gender