Revealing the “Secret Garden”: The Informal Dimensions of Political Recruitment

Abstract

Candidate selection and recruitment has been notably described as the “secret garden” of politics—an obscure process, often hidden from view, that is regulated largely by internal party rules, informal practices, and power relationships (cf. Gallagher and Marsh 1988). In this contribution, we contend that informal party practices and their gendered consequences are critically important for understanding the continuity of male political dominance and female underrepresentation. Rather than make a strict separation between formal and informal rules in the recruitment process, we argue that gender politics scholars must instead identify and empirically investigate the specific combinations of such rules that impact upon women's and men's political participation in parties. The proposed approach allows for a more nuanced understanding of the bounded nature and variable outcomes of institutional innovation and party change.

Do young female candidates face double barriers or an outgroup advantage? The case of the European Parliament

“…Party nominations have generally been dominated by men (Bjarnegård & Kenny 2015). Middle-aged to senior men generally make up the majority of party elites, and over decades they have formed tight networks of control over nominations (Kenny & Verge 2016).…”

Comparing Candidate Selection: A Feminist Institutionalist Approach

“…This is not to argue that formal rules do not matter for gender and candidate selection; rather, formal rules should be understood in connection to the informal practices that they affect and are affected by (cf. Bjarnegård and Kenny 2015). There is a large literature demonstrating how formal regulations such as electoral systems and electoral gender quotas can fundamentally shape and alter party selection practices in gendered ways.…”

Doing Politics Differently? Applying a Feminist Institutionalist Lens to the U.K. Women's Equality Party

“…Formal rules are consciously designed and specified in writing (Lowndes, 2014). Researching formal party rules is relatively straightforward, then, involving the collection of party documents and written material; although, as Bjarnegård and Kenny (2015) point out, these are not always readily available to outsiders. In the case of WEP, a range of documents were collected and analysed from the first two years of the party's existence, dating from the formation of the party in March 2015, until just after the party's first conference in November 2016.…”

“…Informal dynamics within political parties are more difficult to capture, partly because of the often 'hidden' character of these practices (Hinojosa 2012;Bjarnegård and Kenny, 2015). Accordingly, scholars working in the FI tradition have tended to use more time-consuming and field-intensive qualitative methods to identify the 'rules-in-use' in particular empirical contexts, including in-depth interviews; participant and non-participant observation; and semi-ethnographic methods (see for example Norris and Lovenduski, 1995;Malley, 2012;Verge and de la Fuente 2014).…”

“…Yet, on the other hand, informal practices can often conflict with or override formal rule changes or exist alongside formal arrangements as a parallel institutional framework (Helmke and Levitsky, 2006). And when formal rules are not actively maintained or enforced, political actors can also mobilize informal practices to resist formal rule changes (such as gender quotas) that clash with their interests (Hinojosa 2012;Bjarnegård and Kenny, 2015).…”