Candidate selection and informal soft quotas for women: Insights from Zambia

Abstract

What does it take for a female politician to win a party nomination? We still know little about women’s entry into politics in countries without formal gender quotas. Using data from Zambia, we argue that both in emerging and established democracies, centralized nomination processes both enable and disable women in contexts where gender quotas are not adopted. Informal institutions rarely benefit women more than men. Informal soft quotas may even act as glass ceilings that prevent women from being nominated, because party leaders rarely go beyond the informal quota threshold. This CMI Brief is based on the article “Candidate selection and informal soft quotas for women: Gender imbalance in political recruitment in Zambia” Politics, Groups, and Identities 7 (2): 401–411.