The number of salient female executive leaders has dramatically increased over the last two decades. In many countries, executive politics is no longer an exclusive male domain. Using data from the four waves of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems surveys and from several waves of the AmericasBarometer surveys, I investigate whether the presence of salient female executive candidates in high-profile national elections influences women’s political engagement in the electoral process. The analysis reveals that the presence of viable female candidates has no immediate impact on women’s political engagement at the mass level.

Previous studies of voter turnout in Latin America have found weak and inconsistent evidence for the link between political institutions and electoral participation. In this article, I use data from an expanded dataset of voter turnout in Latin America (1980–2016) to show that institutions do have an impact on citizens’ decisions on whether or not to participate in concurrent elections. Whereas previous studies analyzed the effect of legislative institutions on voter turnout, this article estimates a series of models that demonstrate the impact of presidential institutions and the political context surrounding presidential elections on electoral participation. The findings suggest that when first-order (presidential) and second-order (legislative) elections take place concurrently, electoral participation is influenced primarily by presidential institutions (term length, presidential powers, and electoral rules) and the electoral context in which the presidential elections take place (effective number of presidential candidates).