THE CONTAGION OF WOMEN CANDIDATES IN SINGLE-MEMBER DISTRICT AND PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION ELECTORAL SYSTEMS - CANADA AND NORWAY

There is a distinct gap in women's representation in national legislat ures between countries with single-member district electoral systems a nd those with proportional representation electoral systems. While thi s gap has been well documented, there have been only limited attempts at explaining its existence. After reviewing the literature on the rep resentation gap, we Nm Co the party change literature and propose a mo dified contagion theory as one possible explanation for the gap. Conta gion theory suggests that traditional parties will feel pressured to n ominate more women if one of their political rivals, usually a smaller party farther to the left, starts to promote representation of women. We distinguish between macrocontagion and microcontagion and argue th at especially microcontagion is more likely to occur in party list pro portional representation systems than in single-member district system s. This should be true because contagion pressures are more likely to develop, and the costs of adapting to these pressures are less, in par ty list proportional representation systems. We formally test for micr ocontagion at the electoral district level in Canada and Norway, both leaders among their type of electoral systems in female representation . The data confirm our hypothesis by showing no indication of microcon tagion in Canada, but evidence of such an effect in Norway.