Do parties affect gender differences in candidate persistence after electoral defeat? This study asks whether party ideological orientation—left versus right—shapes whether losing an election sidelines women or leads parties to support their return. Using a consistent within‑party research design across two countries, the authors compare how loss influences the likelihood that defeated candidates of different genders run again, and whether that relationship varies by party ideology.
Cross‑national municipal data Within‑party regression‑discontinuity design Gendered post‑defeat persistence
Data and methods
The analysis applies a consistent within‑party regression‑discontinuity design to open‑list municipal elections in Chile and Brazil. The study compares candidates who narrowly lose to those who narrowly win within the same party lists, a design the authors use to estimate how an electoral loss changes the probability of a subsequent candidacy for men and women.
Main findings
Across the two countries, the authors report a clear pattern: a loss discourages women in right‑leaning parties significantly more than it discourages men, while left‑leaning parties show a smaller gender gap in post‑defeat rerunning. The paper frames these results as evidence that party organizations—rather than only individual motivation or electoral rules—serve as important gatekeepers in the pipeline of female candidacy.
- The gendered discouragement after loss is larger in conservative parties than in left‑leaning parties.
- Left‑leaning parties appear more likely to reinvest in defeated female candidates, producing a smaller gender gap after loss.
