Corruption, gender, and elections: the presence of female candidates on party lists after corruption scandals in Chile and Uruguay

Many voters perceive women politicians to be less corrupt than men, and recent work finds that political parties run more women candidates when corruption is salient, such as after a scandal. Using data on candidate lists and national-level corruption scandals in Chile and Uruguay, I test if women candidates are more prevalent and if they perform better electorally during scandal-ridden election years. I find that scandalized parties do not increase the proportion of women on their lists, but non-scandalized parties do, which suggests that this feminization strategy is utilized more by “innocent” parties. I also find that women in Chile do not win more personal votes after a scandal, but women in Uruguay are associated with higher party list rankings post-scandal. These findings reveal that the use of the feminization strategy after corruption scandals is context-dependent, and parties feminize their lists differently depending on their own involvement with corruption.