This paper explores the gendered dynamics of portfolio allocations in single vs. multi-party government cabinets. Previous literature emphasises the role of the head of government in deciding who gets what in their cabinet. However, in coalition governments, it is the constituting parties who put forward their candidates for ministerial office.

Why does this matter for women's representation? As party elites are more likely to be male, I argue that during the early rounds of coalition negotiations, the most important ministerial positions are claimed by men. Left-over positions are filled with women candidates to achieve the gender-balance decision making norm. In contrast, in a single-party government the head of government has more freedom in allocating positions and taking representational issues into account.

I measure the importance of portfolios by calculating saliency scores based on party manifestos. Following Bäck et al.'s 2011 paper on the role of portfolio saliency in coalition bargaining, I match cabinet portfolios with codes from the manifesto project to calculate a dynamic score for portfolio saliency that varies over time and between parties. If my intuition is accurate, we should find that in a coalition government, it is rarer for women to be appointed to the most salient positions. This effect should be exacerbated the more parties are members of a coalition. I also examine effects relating to traditional notions of femininity, female party leadership, and trade-off patterns, i.e. whether the appointment of few women is offset with the appointment to a high-saliency portfolio, and vice-versa.