Intersectionality, Recruitment and Selection: Ethnic Minority Candidates in Dutch Parties

This article aims to contribute to explanations why ethnic minority women outnumber ethnic minority men in national parliaments of European immigration countries. Extending the intersectional lens it asks: which ethnic minority candidates are recruited and selected? Drawing on nine elections (1986–2012) in the Netherlands, I find that the success of ethnic minority women candidates is not related to a structural advantage: it changes over time and across and within groups. How gender and ethnicity intersect is informed by generation, (parental) birth country, a group's political starting position and how political parties in power incorporate gender or ethnic diversity.