Women's Substantive Representation: Defending Feminist Interests or Women's Electoral Preferences?

Abstract. Opinion polls are a well-established part of political news coverage, especially during election campaigns. At the same time, there has been controversial debate over the possible influences of such polls on voters’ electoral choices. The most prominent influence discussed is the bandwagon effect: It states that voters tend to support the expected winner of an upcoming election, and use polls to determine who the likely winner will be. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying the effect. In addition, we inquired into the role of past electoral performances of a candidate and analyzed how these (as well as polls) are used as heuristic cues for the assessment of a candidate’s personal characteristics. Using an experimental design, we found that both polls and past election results influence participants’ expectations regarding which candidate will succeed. Moreover, higher competence was attributed to a candidate, if recipients believe that the majority of voters favor that candidate. Through this attribution of competence, both information about prior elections and current polls shaped voters’ electoral preferences.

Download Full-text

Female Representation in Colombia

10.1093/oso/9780190851224.003.0013 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Mónica Pachón ◽

Santiago E. Lacouture

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Political Context ◽

The Political ◽

Political Rights ◽

Female Representation ◽

Political Arena ◽

Substantive Representation ◽

Representation Of Women ◽

Electoral Democracy ◽

Almost All

Mónica Pachón and Santiago E. Lacouture examine the case of Colombia and show that women’s representation has been low and remains low in most arenas of representation and across national and subnational levels of government. The authors identify institutions and the highly personalized Colombian political context as the primary reasons for this. Despite the fact that Colombia was an electoral democracy through almost all of the twentieth century, it was one of the last countries in the region to grant women political rights. Still, even given women’s small numbers, they do bring women’s issues to the political arena. Pachón and Lacoutre show that women are more likely to sponsor bills on women-focused topics, which may ultimately lead to greater substantive representation of women in Colombia.

Download Full-text

Do Election Campaigns Matter?

The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.5 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 183-200

Author(s):

J. Alexander Branham ◽

Christopher Wlezien

Keyword(s):

Political Institutions ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Election Campaigns ◽

Aggregate Level ◽

Electoral Preferences

Do election campaigns matter? This chapter examines whether and how they do. It considers when they occur, what they do, and what effects they can have. Although candidates and parties would like to directly persuade individuals, it is difficult to detect those kinds of effects at the aggregate level since the effects are small and polling is imprecise. The chapter then introduces the “timeline” of elections and how we can observe preferences change and harden as the election approaches. This method allows us to test various hypotheses, such as whether political institutions matter for the evolution of electoral preferences over the timeline. The chapter concludes with a discussion of mobilization, which is a cost-effective way that campaigns can persuade people to vote who would not have otherwise.

Download Full-text

Negotiating Political Power at ‘Critical Junctures’: Women and Constitution Drafting in South Africa and India

Journal of Asian and African Studies ◽

10.1177/00219096211025806 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002190962110258

Author(s):

Nila Mohanan

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Comparative Analysis ◽

Political Participation ◽

Interest Group ◽

Political Power ◽

Substantive Representation ◽

Representation Of Women ◽

Critical Junctures ◽

Women's Participation ◽

Gain Access

From a feminist institutionalist perspective, this article engages in a comparative analysis of South Africa, one of the only post-transition democracies where women organized as a distinct interest group representing gender interests were able to negotiate and gain access to political power, and India, where women’s participation was predominantly as ‘nationalist women’. It argues that constitution drafting is a decisive critical juncture when descriptive representation can be translated very effectively into the substantive representation of women as equal citizens, provided women qua women and as gender-conscious agents are able to intervene to promote the cause of their effective political participation.

Download Full-text

Gender and Party Discipline: Evidence from Africa’s Emerging Party Systems

American Political Science Review ◽

10.1017/s0003055421000368 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

AMANDA CLAYTON ◽

PÄR ZETTERBERG

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Case Study ◽

Party Systems ◽

Substantive Representation ◽

Party Discipline ◽

Women Legislators ◽

Ability To Act ◽

Speech Data ◽

Legislative Effectiveness ◽

Gendered Expectations

Are men and women legislators equally loyal to their parties? We theorize that parties select candidates based on gendered criteria, leading to the (s)election of more disciplined women. Moreover, we argue that gendered expectations about proper behavior limit women legislators’ ability to act independently from their parties. Using surveys from over 800 parliamentarians across 17 African legislatures, we find that women report significantly higher levels of party discipline than do their men copartisans. From this survey data and new legislative speech data, we also find support for our proposed causal mechanisms. Further, we find that among women parliamentarians, party discipline is negatively correlated with the prioritization of womens rights. A qualitative case study of the Namibian Parliament illustrates our findings. We discuss the implications of our results for women’s legislative effectiveness, for the substantive representation of women’s interests in policy making, and for the continued democratization of emerging party systems.

Download Full-text

Participatory Representation in a Non-Western Context: The Case of Homeowner Associations in Beijing

Urban Affairs Review ◽

10.1177/1078087420919504 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 107808742091950

Author(s):

Ting Guan ◽

Tao Liu

Keyword(s):

Regression Analysis ◽

Organizational Context ◽

Substantive Representation ◽

Neighborhood Problems ◽

Homeowner Associations ◽

Transitional Society ◽

Representational Capacity ◽

Participatory Engagement ◽

Neighborhood Level

This article examines the concept and practices of “participatory representation” in the Chinese context, a subset of substantive representation that emphasizes “authenticity” and participatory engagement in solving neighborhood problems. Through examining Chinese homeowner associations (HOAs), we explain how representation operates at the neighborhood level in a grassroots organizational context without a Western style of democracy, identifying the determinants and capacities of participatory representation. By proposing a model of representational capacity and using logistic regression analysis, we find that four factors have an impact on the quality of participatory representation: (1) homeowner attributes (i.e., gender, occupation, and length of residence), (2) problem-solving effectiveness of representative organizations, (3) transparent and open elections, and (4) level of homeowner participation. We further suggest that in a transitional society like China, these representative organizations, namely, HOAs, act as important training grounds for democratic skills, through which participatory citizen engagement is being learned and cultivated. This study contributes to contemporary accounts of participatory representation by identifying the informal representation patterns within HOAs and their potential to foster civic participation and social democracy in China in the coming decades.

Download Full-text

Do Women Need Women Representatives?

British Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0007123409990408 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 171-194 ◽

Cited By ~ 49

Author(s):

Rosie Campbell ◽

Sarah Childs ◽

Joni Lovenduski

Keyword(s):

Gender Equality ◽

Empirical Research ◽

Political Elites ◽

Election Study ◽

Substantive Representation ◽

Men And Women ◽

Representation Of Women ◽

Mass Attitudes ◽

The Relationship ◽

Mass Level

This article analyses the relationship between the representatives and the represented by comparing elite and mass attitudes to gender equality and women’s representation in Britain. In so doing, the authors take up arguments in the recent theoretical literature on representation that question the value of empirical research of Pitkin’s distinction between substantive and descriptive representation. They argue that if men and women have different attitudes at the mass level, which are reproduced amongst political elites, then the numerical under-representation of women may have negative implications for women’s substantive representation. The analysis is conducted on the British Election Study (BES) and the British Representation Study (BRS) series.

Download Full-text