Are minorities in politics held to a higher standard? Experimental & observational evidence from candidate selection
通过实验和观察数据，研究瑞典政党选拔者是否对女性、青年和移民候选人要求更高的政党忠诚度，发现他们并未对少数群体提出更高要求。
Are candidates from underrepresented demographics in politics held to a higher standard in candidate selection processes? We explore whether women, youths, and immigrants are required to demonstrate a greater commitment to the party line to be deemed suitable for office. Our focus is specifically on loyalty to the party line, a key selection criterion in most political systems. We analyze data from an original conjoint experiment involving 1,300 party selectors from six major political parties in Sweden, along with validated roll-call voting records and renomination data for all Swedish MPs elected between 2002 and 2022. Our findings suggest that Swedish party selectors do not demand greater loyalty from candidates belonging to political outgroups. On the contrary, equally loyal outgroup candidates are at least as appealing to party selectors as their ingroup counterparts, if not more so. This result contributes to debates on political representation and party politics and may also be of interest to practitioners focused on minority empowerment.