How Gender Conditions the Way Citizens Evaluate and Engage with Their Representatives

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Costa ◽  
Brian F. Schaffner
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Study Panel ◽  
Rate Female

Scholars argue that women’s presence in politics enhances symbolic representation, such as positive evaluations of one’s representative and increased political engagement. However, there is little empirical evidence of these symbolic benefits from descriptive representation. With data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study panel survey, we examine how a change in the gender of a representative affects individuals’ perceptions of that representative and likelihood to contact them. In general, we find that women express more positive evaluations of female representatives than male representatives, yet they are also less likely to contact female representatives. By contrast, the effect of an elected official’s gender does not significantly affect how men evaluate or engage with that official. However, we also show that partisanship conditions these effects, perhaps due to the fact that gender stereotypes operate differently for Democrats than Republicans. For example, women rate female Republican legislators more positively than they do male Republican legislators, but neither women nor men rate Democratic legislators differently based on their gender. The findings provide strong evidence that gender matters when it comes to representation, but contrary to some conventional wisdom, female elected officials may actually enjoy some advantages in terms of their standing among constituents.

Descriptive Representation and the Political Engagement of Women

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-362
Author(s):  
Jennifer Wolak
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Elected Office

AbstractWhen women are represented on the campaign trail and in elected office, women in the electorate have been shown to report greater engagement in politics. However, most evidence of the effects of descriptive representation on women's empowerment is drawn from surveys from the 1980s and 1990s. I update these studies to consider how women candidates and officeholders affect the political knowledge, interest, and participation of other women in the electorate. Using responses from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study from 2006 to 2014, I find that both men and women are more politically knowledgeable when represented by women in Congress and in state government. Considering political engagement, I find little evidence that women are more politically interested or participatory when residing in places with more female officeholders or candidates. Women's political presence as candidates and officeholders does not uniquely encourage other women to engage in political life.

scholarly journals An Examination of an Interviewer-Respondent Matching Protocol in a Longitudinal CATI Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-324
Author(s):  
Brady T West ◽  
Michael R Elliott ◽  
Zeina Mneimneh ◽  
James Wagner ◽  
Andy Peytchev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Indicators Of Success ◽  
First Contact

Abstract This article presents results from an experimental study in Germany designed to test the effectiveness of a novel protocol for matching participants in a national panel survey with interviewers employing computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) on selected sociodemographic features, including sex, age, and education. We specifically focus on the ability of the protocol to engender close matches between respondents and interviewers in terms of these features, using both theory and empirical evidence to suggest that this type of matching will improve cooperation rates in surveys employing CATI. We also focus on indicators of “success” at first contact (defined as a successful interview or establishment of an appointment for an interview) as a function of whether the matching protocol was in use on a given day and whether specific types of matches generated higher rates of success overall. We find strong evidence of the protocol effectively establishing close matches, and we also observe that matches based on education proved especially effective for rates of “success” in a panel survey that focused primarily on labor market topics. We conclude with thoughts on practical implementation of this approach in other settings and suggested directions for future work in this area.

scholarly journals Changes in perceptions of media bias

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316802098744
Author(s):  
Kirby Goidel ◽  
Nicholas T. Davis ◽  
Spencer Goidel
Keyword(s):  
Attitude Change ◽  
Media Bias ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Change Perceptions ◽  
Individual Perceptions ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
The Media

In this paper, we utilize a module from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study to explore how individual perceptions of media bias changed over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign. While previous literature has documented the role of partisan affiliation in perceptions of bias, we know considerably less about how these perceptions change during a presidential election. Consistent with existing theories of attitude change, perceptions of bias polarize with strong Democrats moving toward believing the media were biased against Hillary Clinton (and in favor of Donald Trump) and independent-leaning Republicans moving toward believing the media were biased against Donald Trump. At the end of the 2016 election, more individuals believed the media were biased against their side. These effects were moderated by how much attention individuals paid to the campaign.

scholarly journals Through what mechanisms do protected areas affect environmental and social outcomes?

2015 ◽  
Vol 370 (1681) ◽  
pp. 20140267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Ferraro ◽  
Merlin M. Hanauer
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
The Past ◽  
Made In

To develop effective protected area policies, scholars and practitioners must better understand the mechanisms through which protected areas affect social and environmental outcomes. With strong evidence about mechanisms, the key elements of success can be strengthened, and the key elements of failure can be eliminated or repaired. Unfortunately, empirical evidence about these mechanisms is limited, and little guidance for quantifying them exists. This essay assesses what mechanisms have been hypothesized, what empirical evidence exists for their relative contributions and what advances have been made in the past decade for estimating mechanism causal effects from non-experimental data. The essay concludes with a proposed agenda for building an evidence base about protected area mechanisms.

scholarly journals Political Engagement and Crime Victimization: A Causal Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Isabel Laterzo
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Causal Analysis ◽  
Community Context ◽  
Individual Identity ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Crime Victimization ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Key Issues

In recent years, research has demonstrated that crime victimization serves as a catalyst to political engagement. However, much of this work has not addressed two key issues: 1) the true causality of this relationship, and 2) how victims’ identities and personal experiences might influence this relationship. This paper tackles these issues by testing the effect of victimization on non-electoral engagement using the Two-City, Six-Wave panel survey administered in Brazil between 2002 and 2006. It finds that the causal relationship between victimization and engagement only exists for participation in political party meetings. Furthermore, when exploring the role of individual identity and community context, only men, those who live in safe neighborhoods, and White Brazilians experience an increase in their engagement. Meanwhile, women, those in unsafe neighborhoods, and Afro-Brazilians do not experience such an increase. Those who have not experienced discrimination also increase their participation, while those who have experienced discrimination do not.

Descriptive Representation and Black Political Involvement

Gaining Voice ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 97-122
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Clark ◽  
Ray Block
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
Black Representation ◽  
The Us

A healthy representative democracy requires that citizens be politically involved, and it is especially important to consider the political involvement of groups that are marginalized, such as African Americans. Building on the political empowerment hypothesis, the chapter argues that an increased black seat share and black representation ratio should be associated with increased black political involvement. Using 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study data, the chapter describes how in states with an increased black seat share in the legislature blacks are more likely to be highly interested in politics and are more likely to vote. In states with a higher black representation ratio, blacks are more inclined to persuade others to vote. Black representation in the US House does not increase black political involvement, despite being the focus of many scholarly works of political empowerment.

Science, Scientism, and Evolution

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-138
Author(s):  
Michael L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Philosophical Naturalism ◽  
General Audience ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Evolutionary Science

This chapter discusses some themes to which Lewis returned often because they reflect philosophical errors that are still influential in culture—science and scientism, evolution and evolutionism. Under the facade of science, even the science of evolution, philosophical naturalism, materialism, and reductionism serve as the paragons of knowledge and often guide social policy. Thus, “scientism” and “evolutionism” are labels for the combination of naturalism and science in general and evolutionary science in particular. Lewis defines science as seeking natural causes for natural effects, which, when successful, formulates laws of the physical operation of nature. Such an intellectual enterprise is neutral with respect to religious and theological positions and is hardly strong evidence for naturalism and empiricism. Lewis identifies the conflict as occurring, not between science and religion (or theism), but between naturalism and theism as philosophical worldviews. As a case in point, Lewis sees no conflict between the scientific theory of evolution and its increasing confirmation by empirical evidence, but he does see a conflict between evolution as interpreted by philosophical naturalism—with ideas that humanity is not of special worth, that there is no God who is ultimately responsible for the existence of the world, and so on. An item of particular interest is the Lewis–Van Osdall correspondence (recently discovered, never before published) regarding what advice Lewis would offer on Van Osdall’s contemplated book aimed at presenting science to a general audience, especially a Christian audience.

scholarly journals The effect of preregistration on trust in empirical research findings: results of a registered report

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 181351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarahanne M. Field ◽  
E.-J. Wagenmakers ◽  
Henk A. L. Kiers ◽  
Rink Hoekstra ◽  
Anja F. Ernst ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Bayes Factors ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Research Initiatives

The crisis of confidence has undermined the trust that researchers place in the findings of their peers. In order to increase trust in research, initiatives such as preregistration have been suggested, which aim to prevent various questionable research practices. As it stands, however, no empirical evidence exists that preregistration does increase perceptions of trust. The picture may be complicated by a researcher's familiarity with the author of the study, regardless of the preregistration status of the research. This registered report presents an empirical assessment of the extent to which preregistration increases the trust of 209 active academics in the reported outcomes, and how familiarity with another researcher influences that trust. Contrary to our expectations, we report ambiguous Bayes factors and conclude that we do not have strong evidence towards answering our research questions. Our findings are presented along with evidence that our manipulations were ineffective for many participants, leading to the exclusion of 68% of complete datasets, and an underpowered design as a consequence. We discuss other limitations and confounds which may explain why the findings of the study deviate from a previously conducted pilot study. We reflect on the benefits of using the registered report submission format in light of our results. The OSF page for this registered report and its pilot can be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/B3K75 .

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