Rising to the Top: Gender, Political Performance, and Party Leadership in Parliamentary Democracies

Abstract

Party leaders are the main actors controlling campaign strategies, policy agendas, and government formation in advanced parliamentary democracies. Little is known, however, about gender and party leadership. This article examines gendered leadership patterns across 71 political parties in 11 parliamentary democracies between 1965 and 2013. It shows that men and women have different access to, and experiences in, party leadership and that these gendered political opportunity structures are shaped by parties' political performances. Women are more likely to initially come to power in minor opposition parties and those that are losing seat share. Once selected for the position, female leaders are more likely to retain office when their parties gain seats, but they are also more likely to leave the post when faced with an unfavorable trajectory. Together, these results demonstrate that prospective female leaders are playing by a different (and often more demanding) set of rules than their male counterparts. for their research assistance, as well as the SOAR program at the University of Southern California for funding this work. I would also like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers, who offered helpful comments and suggestions during the review process. Data and R code for replication can be found at

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: Women's Collaboration in US State Legislatures

“…Consequently, women are excluded from resources and positions of power (Barnes ). Women are less likely to be placed on powerful committees, hold fewer leadership positions in legislative bodies, and rarely preside over committees (O'Brien ; Thomas and Welch ; Towns ). Women may also be excluded from informal networks of power, not invited to important social events, or others may fail to provide them with strategic information at a time when it may be useful (Barnes ; Rosenthal ).…”

The gender politics of executive candidate selection and reselection

“…On the one hand, party ideology is a crucial determinant of women's representation, with left parties being more responsive to group representation demands through the use of gender quotas (Kittilson 2006). Yet, whereas cabinets led by left parties tend to be more feminised (Claveria 2014), in the case of top executive positions the effect of party ideology is inconclusive (O'Brien 2015;Wauters & Pilet 2015). Right-wing parties, which usually reject positive action, often apply a 'compensatory' strategy through which a significant proportion of women are placed in top positions (Simón & Verge 2017).…”

“…The scarce literature on reselection at the top executive level indicates that incumbency is the most prominent factor. This notwithstanding, research on gender and political parties has shown that female party leaders have a greater likelihood of stepping down when their parties lose vote share (O'Brien 2015;O'Neill & Stewart 2009). Loser candidates also tend to get another shot when being the party leader (Astudillo 2015).…”

“…Most works are single-case studies (see Clemens 2006;King 2002;Wiliarty 2008), and the few studies using a comparative approach are mainly descriptive and have overlooked the selection stage of the vertical ladder of political recruitment (Jalalzai 2004(Jalalzai , 2008; but see Reyes-Housholder & Thomas 2018). Nonetheless, as gender and politics scholars have noted, 'women continue to play by a different (and often more demanding) set of rules than men' (O'Brien 2015: 1023; see also Kenny & Verge 2016). Furthermore, these studies have so far assumed that individual characteristics as well as organisational and institutional factors weigh in similarly for male and female politicians.…”

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

“…Rather, there are several party‐level characteristics that could also explain variation in women's representation. First, we control for the gender of the party leader at the time of the election (via a dummy variable), and hypothesise that a female party leader could support other women running for office, including for a seat in Brussels and Strasbourg (O'Brien )…”