PUBLICATIONS
Published at Politics, Groups, and Identities
A longstanding assumption in the literature on women’s representation is that, once elected, descriptive representatives will legislate on behalf of women’s substantive interests. While the literature finds support for the notion that women representatives prioritize women’s substantive interests in their legislative behavior, considerable variation exists across women within countries. In this paper, I explore one factor that explains why some women focus more on women’s rights than others: sense of political security and establishment within the legislature. I argue that women legislators with more security within the legislature, measured as seniority, may be more likely to introduce women’s rights policies when compared with more junior women. Seniority provides legislators freedom to deviate from the party platform without fear of backlash from party leadership. I test this using data on bills initiated by legislators in Argentina (1983–2013). I find that more senior women introduce more women’s rights legislation.
with James Adams, David Bracken, Noam Gidron, Will Horne, and Diana O'Brien
Published at the American Political Science Review
Selected by APSA's Public Scholarship Program
Winner of the 2023 CSES GESIS Klingemann Prize
Selected by APSA's Public Scholarship Program
Winner of the 2023 CSES GESIS Klingemann Prize
Concern over partisan resentment and hostility has increased across Western democracies. Despite growing attention to affective polarization, existing research fails to ask whether who serves in office affects mass-level inter-party hostility. Drawing on scholarship on women’s behavior as elected representatives and citizens’ beliefs about women politicians, we posit the women MPs affective bonus hypothesis: all else equal, partisans display warmer affect towards out-parties with higher proportions of women MPs. We evaluate this claim with an original dataset on women’s presence in 125 political parties in 20 Western democracies from 1996-2017, combined with survey data on partisans’ affective ratings of political opponents. We show that women’s representation is associated with lower levels of partisan hostility, and that both men and women partisans react positively to out-party women MPs. Increasing women’s parliamentary presence could thus mitigate cross-party hostility.
Published at Legislative Studies Quarterly
Are women as effective as men at passing legislation? What are the institutional pathways through which gender affects bill approval? I argue that gender does not have a direct effect on a legislator’s ability to gain legislative approval. Instead, women are marginalized in their access to influential institutional positions – committee leadership positions, influential committee assignment, and bill content -- which may have consequences for bill approval. I examine these relationships using causal mediation analysis on bill data from Argentina from 1983 through 2007. I do not find a direct effect of gender on bill approval. Instead, women are negatively affected by their lack of access to committee leadership positions. While women do not experience legislative consequences directly, by virtue of being women, they do face indirect consequences through the positions they receive. This paper makes important methodological and substantive contributions to understanding relationships between gender and legislative outcomes.
WORKING PAPERS
Where are all the Women Prime Ministers? Voter Evaluations of Women Leaders
with Andra Pascu-Lindner
Under Review
As women have increased their political representation in recent decades, they remain under represented as party leaders and Prime Ministers relative to their representation as rank and file MPs. We seek to explain why women are excluded from these higher positions of political power and, specifically, why we see so few women Prime Ministers. To answer this question, we use an original survey experiment across six Western democracies to explore whether voters apply gendered stereotypes to their evaluations of Prime Ministers. We explore whether voters view women Prime Ministers as less competent in forming governing coalitions and less influential over policy outcomes that governments pursue. In general, we find that voters do not view women party leaders as less competent or less influential leaders when compared to similarly positioned men. Thus, it is unlikely that voter evaluations represent a potential barrier for women in seeking political leadership positions.
Gender Inclusivity Shifts Parties' Images Leftward: Observational and Experimental Evidence
with James Adams, David Bracken, Noam Gidron, Will Horne, Seonghui Lee, Diana O'Brien, Philip Santoso, and Randolph Stevenson
Under Review
Do citizens use a gender-based heuristic to make inferences about political parties’ ideological positions? We posit that citizens view more “gender inclusive” parties as more left-leaning than comparable male-dominated organizations. Cues about gender inclusivity, moreover, come not only from women’s presence in the legislative delegation, but also the use of voluntary gender quotas, party leader gender, and even the gender composition of parties’ rank-and-file supporters. We present observational analyses of election survey data from 21 Western publics over time, which show that – controlling for the left-right tones of parties’ manifestos – citizens perceive more inclusive parties as more left-wing, and that the cumulative impact of the four factors is substantial. We next report results from experiments conducted across four countries which provide further support for a gender-based heuristic. Clearly, to understand citizens’ assessments of parties’ ideological positions, we need to consider not only the message, but also the messenger.
Women's Legislative Representation and Human Rights Treaty Ratification
with Jessica Edry and Nicholas Coulombe
Under Review
Do recent increases in women's representation around the world have implications for international relations? We argue that greater representation of women in legislatures increases the likelihood of human rights treaty ratification. Drawing on findings of gender gaps in domestic policy preferences, we argue that, because women tend to be more supportive of policies that aim to support marginalized groups, they may be more inclined to prioritize the ratification of human rights treaties because these treaties align with their domestic policy preferences. We contend that, in countries where ratification depends upon legislative approval, legislatures are more likely to ratify human rights treaties as women's presence increases. Using an original dataset of 201 multilateral treaties, we find that countries become more likely to ratify human rights treaties as levels of women's legislative representation increase.
All drafts available upon request.