Replication Data for: Selecting and Ranking Female Candidates Under PR: Evidence from a Two-Stage Conjoint Experiment with Party Elites

Replication data for forthcoming EJPR Article. Open the html file for a compiled description of the code. Use the quarto doc (qmd) for reproducing the results. Abstract: Does gender affect candidate selection and list placement under proportional representation (PR)? Existing research argues that PR systems have a positive effect on women's representation due to a more inclusive candidate selection process. However, analyzing the actual process of candidate selection under PR before observing the final party-list is challenging and little is known about the preferences and strategies of party elites when selecting and ranking candidates. To address this lacuna, we conduct a novel two-stage conjoint experiment with party elites in Austria, which allows us to differentiate between two distinct mechanisms in candidate nomination under PR: \textit{selection} and \textit{ranking}. Our findings indicate that women generally have an advantage with respect to \textit{selection} but find themselves subject to same-sex preferences when it comes to \textit{ranking} on the list, for which they otherwise benefit from being low-in-supply. These findings have important implications for understanding patterns of female under-representation in PR systems.