ABSTRACT
Women’s political incorporation encompasses suffrage as well as election into political office and inclusion in political leadership positions. Standard accounts of political parties’ support for women’s political incorporation differentiate between “the left” and “the right,” expecting that parties viewed left-leaning incorporate more women than those viewed as right-leaning. Drawing from previous research on comparative political institutions, parties, and ideologies, this study argues that we are more likely to find right-leaning parties that have incorporated women at higher rates in some systems than in others. Empirically, this study’s cross-sectional analysis of 281 political parties in 35 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states shows that context matters for center and right parties’ incorporation of women, while left parties are more consistent cross-nationally. These findings controvert a homogeneous portrait of party families across political systems, pointing instead to the salience of context for differentiating among otherwise similar parties.
