Informal institutions and gendered candidate selection in Brazilian parties

Abstract

Six electoral cycles since the implementation of Brazil’s gender quota, just 15% of the 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies are women. We ask how parties’ use of informal institutions mediates the effectiveness of the gender quota. Drawing on data from more than 4,000 state-level party organizations, we show that parties employ informal practices that intentionally and non-intentionally interact with gender equity rules to affect women’s political representation: the intentional nomination of phantom candidates (“ laranjas”) allows parties to comply with the letter of the quota law, without effectively supporting women’s candidacies—to the detriment of women’s election; meanwhile, the extended use of provisional commissions to minimize oversight on candidate selection poses an obstacle to the quota and women’s candidacies and election more generally. Quota resistance characterizes an instance of both the likely inadvertent effects of informal institutions employed for non-gendered motivations and party leaders acting to preserve their own power.

The informal rules of candidate selection and their impact on intra-party competition

“…One important strand of literature has studied the gendered effects of these informal rules and reveals how parties intentionally and unintentionally employ informal practices that affect the outcome of candidate selection and explain the underrepresentation of women in parliament (e.g. Kenny and Verge, 2016; Colley and Van Acker, 2020; Gatto and Wylie, 2022). Another strand of research examines the interaction between informal and formal rules showing that informal rules are not always congruent with the formal rules in place, but are sometimes supplementary and rather interact or even compete with them (Cross, 2018; Kelbel, 2020; Meserve et al, 2017; Vandeleene and Van Haute, 2021).…”

Gendering Coalitional Presidentialism in Brazil

“…The Brazilian case presents an opportunity to investigate the implications of coalitional presidentialism for women's cabinet appointments. First, unlike many countries in the world where the adoption of quotas has transformed the gendered composition of legislatures and party leadership (Hughes et al, 2019; Schwindt-Bayer, 2009), women's legislative representation has remained largely constant over time even after the national implementation of the quota law in 1998 and subsequent efforts to strengthen the quota (Gatto and Wylie, 2021; Santos, 2021; Wylie et al, 2019). This provides a stable context to isolate the effects of coalitional presidentialism – and not other changes in the wider dynamics of women's political representation – on women's ministerial presence.…”

Political parties and campaign resource allocation: Gender gaps in Brazilian elections

“…Yet evidence shows that political parties routinely nominate the minimal number of women required by law (Bjarnegård and Zetterberg, 2016; Htun and Jones, 2002; Piscopo, 2016; Wylie et al, 2019). Moreover, when quota laws “lack teeth,” parties routinely fail to even nominate the required number of women (Gatto, 2016; Gatto and Wylie, 2021; Hinojosa and Piscopo, 2013; Llanos and Sample, 2008; Wylie and dos Santos, 2016).…”