ABSTRACT
The first chapter of this edited volume positions questions related to gendered electoral financing within the current literature and explains why a particular focus on incentives that use funding interventions to advance gender balance in politics is needed. Gendered electoral financing includes incentives that can work in tandem with or as an alternative to gender quotas. A typology of gendered electoral financing is developed. We define the concept and focus on two different subtypes, incentives to parties and cost relief to women candidates. We then show how our cases are selected to highlight the diversity of funding interventions, and also why we aim to look at these aspects across regions. Although there is often an assumption about how levels of democratization, regulation of funding regimes and electoral systems, and other socio-economic aspects affect dynamics related to political recruitment, there have been few attempts to examine in detail the similarities and differences across cases. We have therefore selected different types of cases to shed light on how similar processes take different forms in different contextual settings. All case studies are based on a common data collection instrument, and together the collection of cases provides a rich foundation for theory building.
