Key messages

• The idea of a ‘gender gap in political ambition’ came from American politics but now influences comparative politics.

• How political scientists talk about gender and political ambition has real-world effects.

• Rather than a gender ambition gap, scholars should consider the gendered dynamics of candidate emergence.

• Individual, institutional and contextual factors interact to shape candidate emergence in gendered ways.

Introduction

Over 75 per cent of politicians worldwide are men (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2019). One key explanation for women’s political under-representation has centred on political ambition, defined as a nascent interest in running for or holding elected office. Pioneering work in the United States by Richard L. Fox and Jennifer Lawless (2005, 2010) found that women manifest lower levels of political ambition than men. The existence of a gender gap in political ambition offered a straightforward, even intuitive, explanation for why fewer women than men run for office, capturing scholars’ attention. Researchers have replicated Fox and Lawless’s findings in the US (Fulton et al, 2006; Kanthak and Woon, 2015) and internationally (Allen and Cutts, 2020; Pruysers et al, 2020). The ‘gender ambition gap’ also has become a common talking point outside academia. For instance, during the 2016 US elections, in which Hillary Clinton was the first woman presidential candidate from a major party, a New York Times headline proclaimed that ‘The problem for women is not winning, it is deciding to run’ (Cain Miller, 2016). The article quoted US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who reported spending ten years convincing herself to run because ‘women are the worst self-doubters’ (Gillibrand, quoted in Cain Miller, 2016).

The gender ambition gap thus appears as an immutable, taken-for-granted fact about electoral politics. This special issue problematises this conventional wisdom by drawing on case studies from across the globe. In doing so, contributors engage with the broader research on the causes of men’s political over-representation. Some scholars have attributed women’s low election rates to problems of supply, focusing on who fills the pipeline to elected office, while others highlight issues of party demand, focusing on whether parties discriminate against certain types of candidates (for example, Norris and Lovenduski, 1995). Increasingly, these dynamics are seen as interrelated (for example, Murray, 2010; Carroll and Sanbonmatsu, 2013; Kenny, 2013). No standard or universally recognised qualifications for candidacy exist, but formal and informal requirements, such as party service, resources and experience, shape supply and demand along gendered lines. Consequently, scholars have argued that what seems like women’s lack of ambition is actually a rational decision to opt out of candidacy given a gendered political opportunity structure that favours majority men (for example, Carroll and Sanbonmatsu, 2013; Shames, 2017). Taken together, the existing research urges a more nuanced treatment of how gender shapes the candidate emergence process.

Our contributors move this research agenda forward by responding to one or more central questions. First, what individual-level factors shape political ambition for men when compared to women? Second, how do political institutions and party organisations determine the rules (both formal and informal) that structure candidate emergence, and with what gendered effects? Third, what policies or practices would boost the number of women running for office? Taken together, these questions move the research agenda away from explaining why (or whether) women have less ambition than men, and towards understanding what is gendered about candidate emergence . In doing so, the contributions highlight that the gender gap in political ambition does not result from women’s innate lack of political interest, confidence or courage. Rather, how one becomes a candidate cannot be divorced from the ways in which gender mediates: (1) the individual decision to run; (2) the institutional rules shaping candidate selection and electoral politics; and (3) the changing political context, such as national-level ideological shifts, new electoral rules or constitutional reforms. These three elements – individual factors, institutional rules and changing contexts – interact to explain where, when and why women run for elected office.

From gender gaps to gendered explanations

This special issue challenges the ready acceptance that the gender gap in political ambition explains women’s political under-representation. The popularity of this explanation stems, in part, from the broader Americanisation of comparative politics, meaning the ‘unreflexive importation of hypotheses from the American context into comparative studies’ (Teele, 2019: 15). The notion that political ambition drives candidate emergence is fundamentally American. Given that US political parties do not control ballot access, candidates are self-starters who weigh the costs and benefits of a political campaign (Schlesinger, 1966; Black, 1972; Fowler and McClure, 1989). A focus on whether candidates ‘self-recruit’ now shapes a significant body of gender and politics research not just in the US (Fox and Lawless, 2005, 2010), but in other countries too (for example, Evans, 2016; Kage et al, 2019). Yet, making political ambition central to analyses of candidate emergence makes little sense outside the US given that parties control ballot access in most countries (Piscopo, 2019).

Nonetheless, the assumption that women lack political ambition relative to men has gone global – and with real-world effects. If the problem is that women do not want to become candidates, then the solution does not require hard measures, like gender quota laws, but soft measures, like recruitment and candidate training. Hundreds of non-profit organisations worldwide currently work to inspire, encourage and prepare women candidates. They mainly deploy a motivational frame derived from the US-based research, one that exhorts women to ‘lean in’ to candidacy (Piscopo, 2019). For example, non-partisan groups like the UK’s Parliament Project and 50:50 Parliament have initiatives that ‘demystify’ the political process for women. British women Members of Parliament (MPs) credit these interventions with giving them the ‘confidence to stand’ (50:50 Parliament, 2019). International organisations like UN Women similarly provide leadership training to women aspirants, including workshops on developing personal brands and writing policy platforms. On Twitter, some Canadian women’s groups use the hashtag #askher to crowdsource the process of motivating women to run.

The global diffusion of women’s candidate training programmes, media headlines that highlight women’s self-doubt and campaigns that urge recruitment send the message that ending men’s over-representation depends on fixing women’s (perceived) deficiencies in confidence and skills. Yet, while encouraging women to ‘lean in’ may increase the supply of women candidates, opening the doors of political power depends on the strategic calculations of male gatekeepers (Valdini, 2019). Electoral politics is fundamentally exclusionary, no matter the country. If more women are trained and step forward but are not selected by party leaders, or if more women run but do not or cannot win, then efforts aimed at inspiring women aspirants could be seen as failing. Such failures may, in turn, reinforce narratives that blame the problem of women’s under-representation on women themselves (Piscopo, 2019).

The contributions to this special issue thus offer an important and timely interrogation of the ‘fact’ that women lack political ambition relative to men. Collectively, the articles identify explanations for women’s political exclusion that go beyond women’s (presumed) disinterest in running for office. First, becoming a candidate – which includes having and acting on ambition – depends on individual, institutional and contextual factors. These factors create an uneven political ‘playing field’: the game is receiving a nomination and the rules are organised to serve the aspirations, abilities and opportunities of elite men. Second, intersectionality matters: the deterrents to women’s candidacy may be especially pronounced for minority women, and majority and minority women may react differently to changing political contexts. Third, interventions must transform the playing field by accounting for the structural inequities between men and women, and among different groups of women. Taken together, the contributions signal the need to reframe the ‘gender gap in political ambition’ in terms of ‘gendered explanations for candidate emergence’. This approach recognises that individual factors, institutional rules and changing contexts matter but also interact; while the exact dynamics will vary by case, a complete explanation considers all three dimensions.

Outline of the special issue

Our first two contributions tackle the individual-level determinants of political ambition. Using survey data from Britain, Peter Allen and David Cutts (2020) ask whether personality explains the gender ambition gap. They find that personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience and emotional stability do not explain why women manifest less political ambition than men (though extraversion among women does raise their political ambition to levels similar to men). Allen and Cutts thus offer evidence that the gender gap in political ambition cannot be explained by gender differences in individuals’ psychological make-up. Similarly, Scott Pruysers, Melanee Thomas and Julie Blais (2020) use experimental evidence from Canada to conclude that sexist media treatment neither causes nor exacerbates the gender ambition gap. Women respondents expressed less political ambition than men respondents but exposure to a news article that sexualised women candidates or discussed candidates’ personal lives neither widened nor narrowed women’s disinterest relative to men. However, when men respondents were exposed to the sexualised coverage of male candidates, their political ambition dipped to women’s levels. Pruysers et al conclude that women may be habituated to unequal media treatment, with additional sexist coverage not further depressing their nascent ambition, while men are not accustomed to trivialising treatment, with such unfairness depressing their enthusiasm for political careers.

These findings underscore how women’s under-representation cannot be explained by individual factors alone. The next three contributions consider how institutions shape what having and expressing political ambition means, with gendered consequences. Cecilia Josefsson (2020) investigates diverging candidate selection procedures among parties in Uruguay, comparing right and left parties using primaries to right and left parties using exclusive leadership selection. She finds differences based not on ideology, but on procedure, with women disadvantaged by each. Primaries favour aspirants that have name recognition and financial resources, which men tend to have and women tend to lack. Party leader selection favours aspirants known for their trustworthiness and loyalty. However, male party leaders not only doubt that women have these qualities, but also feel that their power is threatened by women’s (supposed) disloyalty and untrustworthiness. Josefsson’s analysis signals that political ambition depends on institutional structures – a fact that women in her study recognised but that men did not. Male party leaders refused to acknowledge discriminatory rules, and instead explained women’s under-representation by pointing to women’s lack of ambition. In believing that women ‘lean out’ of candidacy, male gatekeepers avoid responsibility for reform.

Hilde Coffé and Louise Davidson-Schmich (2020) turn to electoral systems, similarly demonstrating that institutions shape political ambition differently for men and women. Using the mixed-member systems of Germany and New Zealand, Coffé and Davidson-Schmich explain that plurality races and proportional races create different profiles. The ideal district MP is available at all hours, covers all policy areas and is selected by party gatekeepers who care more about winning than about diversity. By contrast, the ideal list MP works more fixed hours, specialises in certain policy areas and is chosen by party leaders concerned with diversifying tickets. Coffé and Davidson-Schmich thus conclude that plurality rules are functionally adapted to men, whereas proportional rules are functionally adapted to women. This adaptation creates a gendered cycle of political ambition, wherein women aspire to proportional representation seats because these seats match their lived experiences and provide better odds of selection.

The nature of electoral competition and elected office also has gendered effects on political ambition in Ghana. In their article, Bauer and Darkwah (2020) point out that Ghanaian women do not lack ambition for political leadership – just the ambition for elected office. Electoral politics in Ghana is characterised by a politics of insult and an expectation of clientelism. Both features deter women, as women are more vulnerable to sexual taunts, slander and threats, and are less likely to have access to the networks and resources that sustain patronage. African assemblies, including the Ghanaian legislature, also have less power relative to the executive. Taken together, these factors mean that women who wish to influence policy may prefer to become ministers, not legislators.

Individual motivations thus interact with political institutions to shape when and where women run. The final two contributions examine this interrelation while adding a third consideration: the changing political context. In separate articles, Kristin Wylie (2020) and Kelly Dittmar (2020) analyse how national-level shifts triggered negative emotions in women, catalysing their decision to run. Wylie examines Brazil, where political parties dominated by men combine with entrepreneurial and expensive campaigns to minimise the nomination and electoral success of women, especially Afro-descendant women. However, a record number of women ran in the 2018 Brazilian elections. Institutional reforms that improved women’s access to campaign finance helped more women enter the arena. More significantly, the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the assassination of a black, lesbian councillor from Rio de Janeiro mobilised women and spurred their candidacies.

Similarly, in the US, the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump, who triumphed despite multiple allegations of sexual assault, boosted political ambition among progressive women. Dittmar analyses women candidates’ stated reasons for running, finding that non-incumbent women reported urgency, anger and/or threat as their motivations. These negative emotions were more frequently reported by white women than women of colour (in contrast to the Brazilian case), perhaps because women of colour candidates in the US anticipate a backlash for expressing negative emotions. These differences between Brazil and the US notwithstanding, Dittmar’s and Wylie’s findings echo Carroll and Sanbonmatsu’s (2013: 44) conclusion that women’s ‘ambition and candidacy can arise simultaneously’, especially when the costs of not running become too high.

Beyond ‘leaning in’ to candidacy

Taken together, the articles in this special issue give new vigour to a comparative research agenda on the gendered dynamics of candidate emergence. They problematise the conventional wisdom that women’s political under-representation is explained (merely) by women’s lack of political ambition relative to men. Collectively, they signal how gender mediates the individual, institutional and contextual factors that shape aspirants’ decision to run. When considered together, these dimensions offer more complete accounts about how aspirants become candidates.

Ending women’s political under-representation thus requires more than exhorting that women ‘lean in’ to candidacy. Neither ‘fixing’ women’s personalities nor changing their fear of sexism seems sufficient, as shown in the UK and Canadian cases, respectively. Instead, the analyses from Brazil, Germany, Ghana, New Zealand and Uruguay suggest that transforming the political playing field requires eliminating resource inequalities, overcoming party gatekeeper bias, challenging the gendered division of economic and household labour, and ending hostile and corrupt forms of doing politics. Furthermore, while the political upheaval shaping Brazil and the US is ideally avoided, women’s mobilisation to defend their rights shows that in certain circumstances, women want elected office. This special issue reminds scholars, policymakers and practitioners that women’s (presumed) political ambition deficit cannot become an excuse for forgoing the hard, long-term work of making electoral politics more equitable and more just.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Karen Celis, the journal editors, our authors and all the anonymous reviewers for making this special issue possible. We also thank our colleagues who have participated in roundtables and conference panels about political ambition over the past few years, including Rachel Bernhard, Elin Bjarnegård, Isabelle Engeli, Susan Franceschet, Magda Hinojosa, Shauna Shames and Dawn Teele.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.