Abstract
The article contributes to the scholarly work on factors influencing women’s parliamentary representation by exploring the relationship between gender, gender quotas and the assignment of electorally viable list positions. Drawing on the insights from the existing scholarly work and feminist institutional literature, I investigate the impact of the introduction of legislated gender quotas in Poland in 2011 on the distribution of winnable positions on electoral lists in the European Parliament (EP) elections. I also analyse the role of incumbency advantage and national political experience in this regard, examining heterogenous effects between female and male candidates. The regression analysis relies on the original individual-level dataset created for this article, encompassing all EP elections in Poland to date (2004–2024).
I find a negative relationship between female gender and the allocation of viable list position, suggesting a possible gender bias of party selectorates. This bias diminishes when accounting for incumbency and national political experience, implying that women’s underrepresentation in winnable list positions is largely attributed to the unequal, gendered distribution of political and electoral capital. National political experience and incumbency advantage emerge as critical factors in the assignment of secure ballot spots, benefiting both male and female candidates equally.