Chapter 9. Gender representation in Wales: new approaches to candidate selection in UK’s devolved legislatures and beyond

Gender represents a very important, yet often neglected, element of political and constitutional change. In the the United Kingdom (UK) - an example of a state in relative constitutional flux - gender and constitutional reform have been closely intertwined the ‘new' politics, derived from the process of devolution to Scotland and Wales in particular. This has created conditions for a renewed debate on women representation in UK’s political and public life and resulted in a degree of better representation for women elected to the various UK legislatures. This chapter explores changes in the electoral opportunity structures for women in post-devolution UK, using Wales and its National Assembly as a case study. It will focus specifically on internal candidate selection processes within the main political parties in Wales -Labour, Conservative and Plaid Cymru. Our findings highlight the importance of endogenous and exogenous factors, both structural and cultural, in diversifying pathways into politics for women through innovative approaches to candidate selection strategies within parties, and through addressing structural barriers outside political parties. We argue that whilst the ‘new’ politics has brought some changes to electoral opportunity structures for women at subnational level, there has been no real cascading effect of positive changes at other levels, a culture of bias still stifling the internal party processes of selecting candidates