Gender quotas in the 2019 European elections: insights from the Italian case

In the European elections of May 2019, Italy enforced for the first time the provisions of national law n. 65 of 22 April 2014 aimed at balancing gender representation. In particular, the law provides that: (a) party and coalition lists cannot be composed of candidates more than half of whom are of the same gender; (b) the first two candidates in a list must be of different genders; c) if a voter expresses three preferences, they must include candidates of different genders. Through the analysis of the Italian case, we try to assess the effect of gender quota provisions on gender representation in European elections: are women penalized by voters or in the selection of candidates? We use process tracing to analyse the phases from candidacy to appointment to the European Parliament. We find a persistence of under-representation of women deriving from the very low number of female party leaders (and, consequently, heads of lists); a lower tendency of female candidates to attract preference votes, and a change of gender representation caused by the obligation on candidates to opt for a specific position when elected in multiple constituencies.