GENDER BIAS IN THE RECRUITMENT OF CANDIDATES BY POLITICAL PARTIES: THE CASE OF THE FEDERAL SENATE
Electoral recruitment. Political parties. Underrepresentation. Gender and politics. Federal Senate.
The aim of the research is to analyze how gender bias impacts the recruitment of candidates by political parties. We held a theoretical debate on political gender underrepresentation, the explanatory axes of gender underrepresentation in the upper chambers, political recruitment and gender bias and relationships between formal and informal institutions. Through semi-structured interviews with incumbent female senators, elected in 2018 and 2022, leaders of political parties and of women's organizations within the parties, we will carry out a comparative study on electoral recruitment for the Senate in the Workers' Party (PT), in the Progressive Party (PP) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD). We will also analyze the statutes and women's organizations of the parties of the three party groups, to understand the differences and similarities, in addition to their relationship with the informal institutions that govern recruitment based on the perceptions of the people interviewed, in order to identify similar mechanisms that lead to the maintenance of male predominance in recruitment.