Abstract
This paper examines how the population size of municipalities affects the number of female candidates in municipal elections. In less populous municipalities, elections tend to be candidate-oriented and personal networks are often crucial to win a seat, which discourages women from running for office. In more populous municipalities, by contrast, elections are party-centered as candidates rely on a party for its brand name and organizational resources, because a more extensive mobilization effort is required. In party-centered elections, parties can encourage women to run and help them win by providing organizational support. Building on these arguments, we hypothesize that as the population size of municipalities expands, and therefore the number of votes required for winning a seat increases, more women decide to run for office and win a seat. To test the hypothesis, we exploit a change in the size of municipalities before and after massive municipal mergers in the 2000s.
