scholarly journals Gender and Roll Call Voting Behavior in Congress: A Cross-Chamber Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Frederick
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Common Space ◽  
Female Legislators ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Male House

Numerous studies have examined the roll call voting behavior of women in Congress. Much of this scholarship has focused on whether female legislators tend to be more liberal than their male colleagues. However, most of this research has examined whether gender differences exist within a specific legislative chamber. This paper seeks to build on this past research by exploring whether the relationship between the descriptive and substantive representation of women is contingent upon the institutional context in which female legislators serve. Using Common Space Scores which estimate the roll call voting behavior of U.S. Senators and U.S. House members on a scale that allows for comparisons across each chamber this study analyzes the voting records of Female Senators, Male Senators, Female House Members and Male House Members in the 109th-111th Congresses. The results show that in the contemporary Congress, gender exerts minimal influence on how legislators cast their votes with the exception of female Republican Senators who are noticeably more liberal than Republicans in both the House and Senate.

scholarly journals Lipstick and Logarithms: Gender, Institutional Context, and Representative Bureaucracy

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 553-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAEL R. KEISER ◽  
VICKY M. WILKINS ◽  
KENNETH J. MEIER ◽  
CATHERINE A. HOLLAND
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Context ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Representative Bureaucracy ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Active Representation ◽  
Women In Education ◽  
Contextual Environment

According to the theory of representative bureaucracy, passive representation among public employees will lead to active representation in bureaucratic outputs. Existing research demonstrates that the link between passive and active representation exists for race but not for sex. Past research on this topic has not, however, taken into account the contextual environment that affects whether sex will translate into gender and lead to active representation in the bureaucracy. In this paper, we create a framework that specifies the conditions that affect whether passive representation results in active representation for sex and then test this framework using the case of education. We find that passive representation of women in education leads to active representation and that the institutional context affects the extent to which this link between passive and active representation occurs.

Political Dynamics and Senate Representation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy J. Schiller ◽  
Charles Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Joint Session ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Legislative Activity ◽  
Key Indicators ◽  
Committee Assignments ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Margin Of Victory

This chapter explores the links between the indirect electoral mechanism and patterns of representational behavior that appear to differ markedly from that exhibited by U.S. senators today. Specifically, it examines whether U.S. senators' institutional activities were connected to the dynamics underlying their election to office—for example, whether their election was resolved on the first ballot or required joint session balloting to resolve, and their margin of victory. The chapter proceeds in three parts. First, it presents a quantitative analysis of the patterns of separate or joint elections along with the number of ballots it took to resolve elections once they moved into joint session. Second, it assesses the relationship between how senators were elected and key indicators of legislative activity, such as bill sponsorship, committee assignments, and roll call voting. Third, it compares the behavior of senators elected under indirect elections to their directly elected modern-day counterparts.

scholarly journals Representation and Rights: The Impact of LGBT Legislators in Comparative Perspective

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW REYNOLDS
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Government Ideology ◽  
Bisexual And Transgender ◽  
Lgbt People ◽  
The Impact ◽  
National Legislatures ◽  
The Relationship

This article focuses on the link between the representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in national legislatures and the existence of equality laws focused on sexual orientation. It addresses three interrelated questions: how many “out” LGBT legislators have served in national parliaments, what explains the cross-national variation in their legislative presence, and what is the relationship between the presence of gay legislators and the enactment of laws that treat gay and straight citizens equally? There is an established literature arguing that the representation of women and ethnic minorities “descriptively” in national legislatures improves the realization of their policy preferences and the position of the group within the society as a whole. This article draws on that literature and extends the analysis to LGBT communities. It finds that the presence of even a small number of openly gay legislators is associated significantly with the future passage of enhanced gay rights, even after including controls for social values, democracy, government ideology, and electoral system design. Once openly gay legislators are in office they have a transformative effect on the views and voting behavior of their straight colleagues. This “familiarity through presence” effect is echoed in studies of U.S. state legislatures and levels of social tolerance of homosexuality in the population at large.

The Role of Personal Attributes in African American Roll-Call Voting Behavior in Congress

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 408-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Rocca ◽  
Gabriel R. Sanchez ◽  
Ron Nikora
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Personal Attributes ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Roll Call Voting

Roll-call Voting Behaviour in Legislatures

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Simon Hug
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Important Research ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Individual Accountability

Roll call votes offer rich behavioural information on individual members of parliament (MPs) and have been used to study many important research questions, also dealing with issues of representation. With the help of such votes MPs (and/or their parties) can be held to account. Thus, scholars have assessed broadly whether political parties act in a disciplined fashion and what affects the voting behavior of individual MPs, thus covering both processes of collective and individual accountability. The literature finds that evidence for such accountability relationships, is, however, also hampered by different uses of roll call votes across time and space.

German Parliamentarism in 1848: Roll-Call Voting in the Frankfurt Assembly

1981 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald J. Mattheisen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
Party Discipline ◽  
Partial Revision ◽  
Government Coalition

The reputation of the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 has undergone a partial revision in the last few years. Its members used to be considered political novices from whom one could learn little about how to run a parliament (Huber, 1960: 613 is typical). Ziebura (1963) was perhaps the first to challenge this view. He showed that the Frankfurt Assembly was, in fact, run in a very professional way: It created sophisticated and disciplined political parties, and these parties actually exerted effective control over parliamentary business. They even joined together to form a coalition that gave reliable political support to a German provisional government. Kramer (1968), Boldt (1971), Botzenhart (1977), and Langewiesche (1978) have subsequently documented the skillful organization of these parties and their attempts to control members, to create extraparliamentary connections, and to maintain both a formal government coalition and an organized opposition. Kramer (1968: 175-178) has shown that they were particularly successful in applying party discipline to voting behavior: The results of voting could often be foretold simply from a knowledge of how the parties stood on the question at issue.

Critical Mass Theory and Women's Political Representation

2008 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 725-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Childs Sarah ◽  
Lena Krook Mona
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Gender And Politics ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Subsequent Research ◽  
Female Legislators ◽  
The Relationship

In studies of women's legislative behaviour, the concept of critical mass is widely used and, more recently, criticised as a tool for understanding the relationship between the percentage of female legislators and the passage of legislation beneficial to women as a group. In this research note, we revisit classic contributions by Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Drude Dahlerup and outline and discuss their assumptions regarding anticipated connections between numbers and outcomes. We find that later gender and politics scholars have often misconstrued their work, with crucial implications for subsequent research on relations between the descriptive and substantive representation of women. We argue that clarifying the theoretical origins of the critical mass concept is crucial for forging a more coherent and cumulative research agenda on women's political representation.

Politicians' Beliefs about Voters

1967 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Kingdon
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Implicit Theory ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Roll Call Voting ◽  
Campaign Strategies ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Lewis A

The pattern of communications between representatives and constituents has become a matter of central concern to many students of legislative behavior. As Lewis A. Dexter points out, the statement that a Congressman “represents” his district is only shorthand for the fact that the Congressman “represents his image of the district or of his constituents.” This image is established, according to Dexter, by the communications between representative and constituents: “what he hears from the district as he interprets it.” Miller and Stokes explore directly Congressmen's images of their constituents' opinions. The representative's image of his district is significant because it may constitute part of the explanation for various important types of behavior, such as his roll call voting, the stands he takes on issues of public policy, and the formulation of his campaign strategies.A portion of a representative's image of his district is composed of his beliefs about voters, his explicit or implicit theory of voting behavior. Because his position is contingent upon the approval of a majority of voters in an election, he is likely to consider at least to some degree the effect that various of his decisions might have on election outcomes. In making such judgments, the representative probably makes some assumptions, conscious or not, about the manner in which voters make their choices. If he believes, for example, that voters pay close attention to his actions, he probably feels more constrained by his district's likely opinions than if he does not hold that belief.

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