Are Women Less Effective at Passing Bills? Exploring the Direct and
Indirect Effects of Gender
Under Review
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Are women as effective as men in gaining approval for their 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 between gender, institutional positions, and bill approval using a novel non-parametric application of causal mediation analysis on bill data from the Argentine Chamber of Deputies. I do not find a direct effect of gender on bill approval. Unexpectedly, women enjoy slight legislative advantage from their assignment to less influential committees but only for certain types of bills. This paper makes important methodological and substantive contributions to understanding the direct and indirect relationships between gender and legislative outcomes.
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Institutional Security and Women’s Representation in Argentina
with Leslie Schwindt-Bayer
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A longstanding assumption in the literature on underrepresented group representation is that, once elected, descriptive representatives will legislate on behalf of their group’s substantive interests. While the literature finds support for the notion that female representatives prioritize women’s substantive interests in their legislative behavior, considerable variation exists across women within countries. In this paper, we explore one factor that may explain why some women place greater emphasis on women’s equality issues than others. Specifically, we examine how variation in a female legislator’s sense of institutional security—measured by her tenure in the legislature and her margin of victory in the previous election—might condition her likelihood of sponsoring bills on women’s equality issues. Legislators with more institutional security should be less constrained in their legislative behavior and have flexibility to work on a wider range issues, including more divisive and/or group-specific issues, than legislators with less institutional security. We argue that female legislators with more institutional security may thus be more likely to focus time and attention on women’s equality issues than female legislators with less institutional security. We test this using data on bills initiated by female legislators in Argentina from 1995-2007. We find that more senior female legislators introduce more women’s equality bills when compared with their more junior colleagues. Margin of victory does not moderate women’s bill sponsorship on women’s equality issues.
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Women’s Representation in Latin America: A Review Essay
with Leslie Schwindt-Bayer
Under Review
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This essay reviews five contemporary works on gender representation in Latin America. In the context of the increasing number of women entering arenas of representation in Latin America, this essay reviews the new questions that these works bring to light regarding women's representation in Latin America: What explains the increase in women's representation? What effects have these trends had on policymaking in Latin America? The literature reviewed provides new insights into our understanding of women's representation in Latin America by moving beyond the current literature to answer these questions. This essay demonstrates how these five works contribute to our understanding of women's representation in Latin America and move this field of research forward.
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The Odd Couple: Vote Seeking Behavior
in Closed-List Proportional Representation System
with Agustín Vallejo
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What explains variation in personal vote-seeking behavior in closed-list proportional representation systems? We argue that legislators in smaller districts will benefit from name recognition and cultivating a personal reputation with voters by targeting legislation towards their electoral districts as well as traveling back to their electoral districts to conduct constituency service. For legislators in larger districts, we argue that personal reputation is less important for their electoral success and we should see less personal vote-seeking behavior from these legislators. We investigate these relationships using data on bills introduced in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies as well as travel expenditures legislators use to return to their electoral districts. Argentina employs a closed-list proportional representation system, providing an optimal case study to investigate these questions.
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