The Nomination of LGBTI+ Candidates in Proportional Electoral Systems

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Abstract

The nomination of openly LGBTI+ candidates is often seen in the US literature as a supply-side phenomenon. Namely, LGBTI+ candidates will arise in those single-member districts whose population holds more favorable views towards the LBGTI+ community. This approach overlooks the role of political parties as active recruiters or blockers of minority candidates. Moreover, it ignores how the candidate selection process occurs in proportional electoral systems. This paper introduces a new way to understand the nomination of LGBTI+ candidates in such systems combining the supply and the demand side. On the one hand, we propose that LGBTI+ candidates will be more likely to appear in those places with organized LGBTI+ activism. On the other hand, parties with more liberal social views will be more likely to recruit candidates from such movements. We empirically assess these relations using a novel dataset on Spanish LGBTI+ candidates and activist organizations.

Authors

• Joel Canto Roche, University of Toronto

• Javier Martinez Canto, IBEI