Mobilizing the Underrepresented: Electoral Systems and Gender Inequality in Political Participation

The forthcoming article “Mobilizing the Underrepresented: Electoral Systems and Gender Inequality in Political Participation” by Øyvind Søraas Skorge is now available in Early View and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Political Science. 

How can we design political institutions that bring marginalized citizens into politics?  An electoral system with proportional representation (PR)—instead of a winner-takes-all plurality system—has long been thought to be a key part of the answer. Using a quasi-experiment, I show that although PR does indeed help, its effect on the inclusion of marginalized citizens hinges more on the political and social environment than often thought. For women’s inclusion in voting, which is the focus of this study, the introduction of PR works best when elections were previously uncompetitive and women already possess strong social networks. 

Citizens have long been marginalized on the basis of their gender. Gender inegalitarian norms and opportunities meant that women were severely outnumbered by men at the voting booth in the early 20th century. Gender inequality in voting lasted well into the 1970s in most advanced democracies, and disparities in other forms of political participation, such as campaigning and representing political parties, continue to persist across the globe. 

Electoral systems are crucial for the inclusion of marginalized groups due to their effect on elites’ mobilization incentives. When one candidate is all but certain to win a district under plurality rule, there is no need to try to mobilize voters. Women thus remain marginalized and less likely to vote than men. In close plurality races, however, the fierce competition for votes means that party elites attempt to tap into the female pool of unmobilized voters. Thus, as elites have an incentive to mobilize across all districts under a PR system, replacing plurality with PR is likely to improve gender equality in voting in previously uncompetitive districts. 

Despite such incentives, however, party elites may struggle to access female voters if women are marginalized from the public sphere. PR may therefore particularly reduce gender disparities in voting where elites can gain access to pools of potential female voters through pre-existing women’s networks, formed for instance during petitioning activities or schooling. Electoral competition and pre-existing networks thus work in tandem.  

Our ability to examine the effects of electoral systems on underrepresented groups has been hampered both by PR’s close correlation with other socio-economic factors and the lack of voting records split by sex.  Studying the case of Norway addresses both of these challenges. Between the 1916 and 1919 elections, the Norwegian Parliament required 296 of the 688 municipalities to change their electoral system from plurality to PR. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that replacing plurality with PR improved gender equality in voting: before the reform, every fifth voter was female; after the reform, every third voter was female. The effect is especially pronounced in previously uncompetitive districts and where women’s networks are present.   

Is this a peculiar historical case or a finding with more general applicability to other countries and time periods? I identify comparable associations between PR and gender equality in voting in three other settings: in the switch to PR at the national elections in Norway in 1919, in a sample of Western countries in the early 20th century (which have turnout split by sex), and in a sample of 55 countries globally in the 21st century.  The evidence therefore suggests the results travel far beyond the Norwegian case. 

PR’s mobilization effects may also apply to other underrepresented groups beyond gender. That said, women make up half of eligible voters, whereas that is clearly not the case for minority groups. The electoral impetus for their mobilization is thus weaker. The PR effect on gender equality is therefore likely to form an upper bound of the effect for minority groups. 

Gender inequality in political participation is often portrayed as “sticky”, and subject to change mainly through intergenerational replacement. The results of this study give cause for a more optimistic appraisal, suggesting that institutional change can, quite rapidly, increase gender equality in electoral participation. 

About the Author: Øyvind Søraas Skorge is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bjørknes University College. His research “Mobilizing the Underrepresented: Electoral Systems and Gender Inequality in Political Participation” is now available in Early View and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Political Science.