This paper analyzes the role of competition between political parties for the promotion and turnover of social minorities in party organizations. We collect extensive and reliable panel data for the career trajectories of all Swedish politicians in 290 municipal councils over 20 years (N = 35,000). We argue that political competition pushes local parties to promote the best individual, which in turn improves gender equality at the top. This finds strong support in the empirical analysis. Heightened competition is associated with smaller gender gaps in re-election, retention on the electoral ballot, and promotions to top positions. An extended analysis shows that variation in the qualifications and family structures of male and female politicians cannot account for these results. As a more plausible mechanism, the analysis suggests that parties have nomination processes that are less centralized and more focused on competence as a selection criteria when competition is fierce.
Electoral Competition and Gender Differences in Political Careers Available to Purchase
*Due to its sensitive nature, the data used in this study can only be accessed through the secure servers of Statistics Sweden. Access requires approval from a research ethics board and the payment of an access fee. Instructions for ordering the data, as well as all of the code to replicate the analysis, is available at the QJPS replication archive. We thank Anna Ardin, Pamela Campa, Louise Chappell, Andrew Healy, Lena Hensvik, Jon Fiva, Âsa Ljungvall, Helene Lundqvist, Per-Anders Edin, Mattias Lundbäck, Yotam Margalit, Astri Muren, Rainbow Murray, Eva Ranelid, Erik Snowberg, and seminar participants at the Public Choice Society Annual Meeting 2012; London School of Economics, VATT, the Annual Conference for Swedish Economists, 2011; RATIO Research Institute, Research Institute for Industrial Economics, The 13th Annual SNEE European Integration Conference, Mölle, Sweden; the Workshop on Electoral Gender Quotas, Washington University, Stockholm School of Economics SITE, Erasmus University, Midwest Political Science Association 2012, Gothenburg University and the European Association for Labor Economists 2012 for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank Christina Lönnblad and Dina Nieman for editorial support. Financial support from the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, and the Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, is gratefully acknowledged.
Folke O, Rickne J (2016), "Electoral Competition and Gender Differences in Political Careers". Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Vol. 11 No. 1 pp. 59–102, doi: https://doi.org/10.1561/100.00014161
Download citation file:
Sign in
ICE Member Sign In
Log inPurchased this content as a guest? Enter your email address to restore access.
