“…In theorizing the politics of presence, parties are often conceptualized as gatekeepers to representation (Jensenius 2016;Mügge 2016;Tolley 2019;Van Trappen 2021;Van Trappen, Vandeleene, and Wauters 2021). To some extent, the data bear this out, but not for all groups.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Thus, there are three main points of selection: oneself (to emerge as an aspirant), one’s party (to be selected as a candidate), and one’s voters (to be elected as a legislator). Figure 1. Legislative recruitment process. Adapted from Matland (1999, 2005) and Van Trappen, Vandeleene, and Wauters (2021)…”
Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Legislative recruitment process. Adapted from Matland (1999, 2005) and Van Trappen, Vandeleene, and Wauters (2021)…”
Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…First, candidates must be eligible for office, which usually includes criteria related to age, residency, and citizenship. Second, they must aspire to office and put themselves forward, usually in a primary for Matland (1999Matland ( , 2005 and Van Trappen, Vandeleene, and Wauters (2021) the party's nomination. Third, they must win the primary to become the nominated candidate for their party.…”
Election to office is shaped by a series of decisions made by prospective candidates, parties, and voters. These choices determine who emerges and is ultimately selected to run, and each decision point either expands or limits the possibilities for more diverse representation. Studies of women candidates have established an important theoretical and empirical basis for understanding legislative recruitment. This study asks how these patterns differ when race and intersectionality are integrated into the analyses. Focusing on more than 800 political aspirants in Canada, I show that although white and racialized women aspire to political office at roughly the same rates, their experiences diverge at the point of party selection. White men remain the preferred candidates, and parties’ efforts to diversify politics have mostly benefited white women. I argue that a greater emphasis on the electoral trajectories of racialized women and men is needed.
“…In theorizing the politics of presence, parties are often conceptualized as gatekeepers to representation (Jensenius 2016;Mügge 2016;Tolley 2019;Van Trappen 2021;Van Trappen, Vandeleene, and Wauters 2021). To some extent, the data bear this out, but not for all groups.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Thus, there are three main points of selection: oneself (to emerge as an aspirant), one’s party (to be selected as a candidate), and one’s voters (to be elected as a legislator). Figure 1. Legislative recruitment process. Adapted from Matland (1999, 2005) and Van Trappen, Vandeleene, and Wauters (2021)…”
Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Legislative recruitment process. Adapted from Matland (1999, 2005) and Van Trappen, Vandeleene, and Wauters (2021)…”
Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…First, candidates must be eligible for office, which usually includes criteria related to age, residency, and citizenship. Second, they must aspire to office and put themselves forward, usually in a primary for Matland (1999Matland ( , 2005 and Van Trappen, Vandeleene, and Wauters (2021) the party's nomination. Third, they must win the primary to become the nominated candidate for their party.…”
Election to office is shaped by a series of decisions made by prospective candidates, parties, and voters. These choices determine who emerges and is ultimately selected to run, and each decision point either expands or limits the possibilities for more diverse representation. Studies of women candidates have established an important theoretical and empirical basis for understanding legislative recruitment. This study asks how these patterns differ when race and intersectionality are integrated into the analyses. Focusing on more than 800 political aspirants in Canada, I show that although white and racialized women aspire to political office at roughly the same rates, their experiences diverge at the point of party selection. White men remain the preferred candidates, and parties’ efforts to diversify politics have mostly benefited white women. I argue that a greater emphasis on the electoral trajectories of racialized women and men is needed.
“…Third , applying classic literature on candidate selection to the study of immigrant representation and in contrast to previous research, this paper suggests that parties not only use the nomination of immigrant-origin candidates per se as a signal of immigrant inclusion but also their list position. These findings are of political importance, given recent evidence advancing that advantageous list positions of immigrant-origin candidates improves immigrant political representation importantly (Van Trappen et al, 2021). Fourth , the construction and use of a new dataset on municipal elections in Switzerland empirically adds to the literature as it has enabled and provided first empirical evidence of these new theoretical contributions.…”
Political parties in Western democracies with large immigrant populations have become increasingly interested in nominating immigrant-origin candidates. This paper investigates how contextual factors explain parties’ effort of immigrant representation. I argue that nominations of immigrant-origin candidates are shaped by parties’ strategic calculations weighing out potential vote gains among immigrant-origin voters compared to a potential native backlash. I contend that alien enfranchisement and liberal naturalization policies provide decisive incentives to nominate immigrant-origin candidates. In contrast, economic insecurity implies potential material threat perceptions generating a native backlash against immigrants, reducing the nomination of immigrant-origin candidates. Using a novel dataset on candidates in Switzerland, the analysis reveals that the political and economic contexts indeed determine the number of immigrant-origin candidates and their ballot position, particularly those of non-Western origin. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of strategic behaviors of political parties and the promotion of immigrant representation.
In recent decades, representation of ethnic minorities increased significantly across Europe, while concurrently many political parties moved to the right on multiculturalism and immigration, a seeming paradox. We explain it by arguing that often it is the same parties that move to the right and simultaneously increase representation. They use this dual strategy in an attempt to positionally converge to the median voter, where the increased minority representation acts as a reputational shield to prevent allegations of intolerance. Looking at parliaments of eight European countries between 1990 and 2015, we find that parties that shifted to the right in response to a public mood swing to the right are indeed significantly more likely to bring more ethnic minority politicians into parliament. This has important implications for the literature on descriptive representation and party platform change.
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