Parity or patriarchy? The nomination of female candidates in British politics

Abstract

In recent years, parties in the United Kingdom have increasingly pushed for higher descriptive representation of women. To achieve this goal, Labour has introduced All-Women Shortlists, while the Conservatives have used the A-List and similar tools to promote women in their party. This article shows how All-Women Shortlists were effective at levelling the playing field between women and men, while the measures of the Conservatives did not fully achieve that effect. In fact, women are consistently nominated in less promising constituencies for the Conservatives. Nominating female candidates leads to more women being nominated in neighbouring constituencies in subsequent elections, while there is no evidence of cross-party contagion effects. Overall, these findings present strong evidence that the introduction of All-Women Shortlists started a dynamic process that consistently increased the number of female candidates and MPs for Labour, while the measures introduced by the Conservatives failed to achieve a similar effect.