Previous research shows that female politicians receive less media coverage and that articles refer more often to women’s family life, gender, personality, age and appearance. However, most research focuses solely on women as electoral candidates and is limited to campaign periods. Applying a broader timeframe is vital as voters’ perceptions of politicians are mainly constructed during routine periods. And the question arises whether women occupying elite positions in politics encounter the same media bias. This article addresses both shortcomings by conducting a longitudinal quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 4,298 individual mentions of Flemish ministers in 3,528 newspaper articles during three distinct periods of the political cycle. Contrary to the numerical female underrepresentation among candidates, our findings suggest that the media tends to overrepresent female ministers. Furthermore, we notice a strong focus on women’s gender throughout the political cycle and their physical appearance during election periods.

In understanding Muslim women’s political participation across Western European countries, Islam and its supposed linkage to patriarchy have been problematised in culturalist arguments. Contrarily, political science and migration studies consider religiosity as social capital and, thus, a mobilising force. This tension may help explain why results on religiosity and political empowerment are mixed and help understand Muslim women’s political participation, giving the women at this intersection specific attention. Gender equality views, political interest, trust and collective action strategies are culturalist and social capital factors considered as linking different aspects of Islamic religiosity to institutional and non-institutional participation. We do so by taking a multi-study approach, analysing two different samples of Muslim women in the Netherlands. Results show that Islamic religiosity mostly fosters Muslim women’s political participation but that it also reduces non-institutional participation, whereby the results for trust, political interest and activity in civic organisations support the social capital explanation more than the culturalist one.

The underrepresentation of women can be partly attributed to political parties: when selecting candidates, parties recruit fewer women than men. A common justification is that there are not enough ambitious women in the party. In this article, we test this claim by answering (i) whether women express less political ambition than men; (ii) whether this has changed over time; and iii) whether and how internal political efficacy influences political ambition. Based on three survey waves among Dutch party members, we conclude that women are to the same extent as men attracted by a political function when becoming a party member. Moreover, there has been no change in political ambition over time. Lastly, we find that internal political efficacy mediates the effect of gender on political ambition. This article thus shows that there is only a small gender gap in ambition and that there are ambitious women in Dutch political parties.

The Political Observatory (Polindex) is a multi-annual sociopolitical study conducted by the Chair of Legislative Studies at the University of Luxembourg. It aims to assess the sociopolitical state of the Grand Duchy in comparison with other European democracies (Germany, France, Italy and the UK). In the spring of 2023, for the first wave of Polindex, we surveyed 1,500 people (1,000 Luxembourgish citizens and 500 foreign residents) who answered a questionnaire comprising approximately 80 questions. The rationale behind the random selection of the participants was to observe Luxembourg’s demographic characteristics. In addition, the random selection took place in a proportional manner by using the demographic characteristics such as age, gender and region of residence. The data collected through surveying were coded and processed in SPSS Statistics. This descriptive analysis based on the processed data focuses on the citizens’ cohort and introduces the sociopolitical context for Luxembourg’s national elections, which took place on 8 October 2023, followed by a demonstration of some key findings of Polindex 2023 that provide a basis for the analysis of electoral dynamics. The article elaborates on the election results in light of these findings, providing a deeper understanding of shifting voting preferences compared to previous elections.

In 2021, we took over the editorship-in-chief of Politics in the Low Countries (PLC). Nearing the end of our term as editors-in-chief, we tried to determine how we fared in terms of gender balance among the authors. This has been one of the editorial board’s main concerns during our tenure as editors of PLC. In this short State of the Profession note, we tackle the question of gender bias among researchers who have published in the journal.