Comparative and International Politics Working Group Seminar

Gendered Candidate Selection and District Competitiveness: Evidence from Horizontal Party Laws in Mexico

Presentation by:
Lucia Motolinia
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Washington University in Saint Louis

Quotas and affirmative action initiatives have significantly increased the number of women candidates in recent decades. Yet, the proportion of women in political office has grown at a lower rate, as parties often place women in unwinnable races. This article argues that women-oriented party organizations (WPOs) play a crucial role in strengthening the pipeline of women in politics and mitigating gender disparities in the candidate pool. Thus, in the presence of WPOs, parties are less likely to relegate women to hard-to-win districts. Using a regression discontinuity (RD) design, we analyze the impact of Mexico's horizontal parity law on over 25,000 mayoral candidates (2018–2021). We combine this with original state-party-specific data and 27 semi-structured interviews across 9 states during the candidate selection period. Results show that parties systematically nominate women in harder-to-win municipalities, a pattern primarily associated with party-states lacking WPOs. WPOs are also associated with higher recruitment of women and help eliminate disparities in the candidate pool. Further analyses indicate that taste-based bias among both party selectors and voters is also at play.

Lucia is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. Her recently published book titled Unity Through Particularism: How Electoral Reforms Influence Parties and Legislative Behavior received APSA's Political Parties and Organizations Section Emerging Scholar Award. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as The American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, and World Politics.