Financiamento de campanhas e desempenho eleitoral das mulheres nas eleições brasileiras (1998-2020)

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of institutional innovations in mechanisms to promote gender equality in the Brazilian electoral arena in the last three decades. The three waves of creation of legal instruments and the three adaptive reactions in party strategies are analyzed. Empirical evidence from the general and municipal elections of 1998 and 2020 was mobilized to analyze the evolution of female electoral participation in four dimensions: candidacies, campaign expenses, votes and seats won. The results show that the first two waves of institutional innovations that introduced quotas for reserved seats (1995-1997) and the mandatory filing of female candidates (2009) had their effectiveness mitigated by conservative reactions of party strategies. Only the third wave (2015-2018), arising from the Judiciary, which prohibited business fundingand established gender proportionality in the distribution of party resources, had significant impacts on female representation. Yet, even the effects of these last innovations were mitigated by adaptive strategies of parties that aimed to maintain the status quo of a predominantly male representation. These strategies have hampered the progress of promoting gender equality in the electoral arena, making it slower and more gradual than what is advocated by legal instruments.

KEYWORDS:
Female underrepresentation; Elections; Gender quotas; Electoral funding; Electoral success