Dissertation Project

2025 Delhi Election Press Conference for Congress Party

Focusing on political parties as the primary pipeline to electoral representation and as gatekeepers to women’s representation, my dissertation asks two main questions. First, how do political parties shape internal party promotion and candidate selection? Second, why does this process create gender gaps within the party hierarchy and electoral candidacy?

I argue that gender gaps in party hierarchies emerge because parties consider a combination of party-level (loyalty, previous political leadership experience, and networks) and candidate-level (caste, gender, financial resources, ability to establish support in a constituency, ability to provide services to constituents) characteristics when making decisions surrounding internal promotions and candidacy. On the supply side, I hypothesize that these factors interact with patriarchal gender norms to disadvantage women politicians, while on the demand side, parties’ decision-making processes disadvantage women through (a) outright discrimination, (b) double standards of evaluation, and (c) a gendered division of labor that siloes women into less influential roles.