Many come forward (still) too few chosen: Understanding candidate selection and women's, Black, Asian and minority ethnic peoples’, and disabled peoples’ underrepresentation in the British Labour Party (2000-2015)

Presented at the ECPG (European Conference on Politics and Gender), in Uppsala, Sweden (June, 2015). The proportion of legislative seats held by women and minority groups in most countries rarely, if ever, equals the group’s proportion of the population. Most scholars agree disproportional seat distribution is caused by the skewed composition of candidate pools put forward by political parties during elections. Scholars disagree whether unrepresentative candidate pools are caused by too few candidates of a certain type coming forward to participate in the process (supply) or by party selectors preferring some candidate types to others (demand). This paper draws upon British Labour party data from the 2001, 2005, and 2010 General Elections to explore supply and demand during each of the seven stages of Labour’s candidate selection process. Tests performed on data from 4622 aspirant candidates reveal women, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME), and disabled people are underrepresented in Labour’s candidate pools, which is caused by a lack of demand by local party selectors rather than an undersupply of these candidate types. Regression modelling of 44 variables drawn from survey data provided by 566 aspirant candidates more sharply focuses on the idea that party selectors prefer “ideal” type aspirant candidates. While these tests confirm a lack of central party selector preference toward the ideal type they confirm local party selector preference for aspirant candidates with certain ideal traits. Moreover, local party members are much more likely to select men over women in open, non-all women shortlist seats, which strongly suggests Labour retain or even expand guaranteed seats for women and perhaps initiate similar measures for disabled people. The same might be considered for BAME aspirant candidates, although it appears living locally is a much more important trait to local party selectors than race. The paper further provides a framework and methodology for analyzing selection outcomes in the lead-up to the 2015 British General Election.Not peer reviewedConference paperPreliminary draft. Do not circulate without the permission of the author