Closing the gap: how descriptive and substantive representation affect women’s vote for populist radical right parties

Abstract Although populist radical right-wing parties (PRRPs) are regarded as male-dominated, many have in recent years expanded their female electorate and reduced their electoral gender gap. Studies explain this trend as the result of a conscious strategy to target female voters through representation. This strategy is applied in both the descriptive and substantial realms, as PRRPs appoint female leaders and adopt relatively more progressive stances on gender, while still holding conservative, family-centred positions. However, the central question of whether and which of these strategies explain the closing gender gap in the populist vote has not yet been thoroughly comparatively examined. To answer this question, this study uses conditional logit models to explore the relationship between descriptive and substantial representation and women’s vote for a PRRP. The results show that a higher convergence between voter and PRRP positions on gender equality increases female votes for the PRRP. However, female descriptive representation does not prove relevant to explaining women’s vote for PRRPs. This has important implications for the literature on female representation in general, and women’s vote for PRRPs in particular.