Special Edition: Politics & Gender, 19(4) and 20(1) article summaries
Papers on immigration, communication and more
Welcome to a special edition of the Gender and Politics Research Substack. A few times every year, we’ll be partnering with the team at Politics & Gender, the journal, and summarizing their latest publication. A big thanks to their team for summarizing the articles below.
Kim, J. & Fallom, K.M. (2023) “Making Women Visible: How Gender Quotas Shape Global Attitudes toward Women in Politics.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
While there is an established literature on the implementation of gender quotas and their effects on women’s substantive and descriptive representation, less is known about the influence of gender quotas on attitudes about women representatives. Specifically, we know little about the differential effects of varying quota types and cross-national mechanisms linking gender quotas and attitudes. As quotas vary across the world in both their types and effectiveness in getting women elected, we should also expect to see variation in attitudes about women who ascend to office.
Kim and Fallom argue that gender quotas effects on attitudes towards women in politics depend on the type and strength of the quota. Robust quotas (those that produce high visiblity) in legislatures transforms attitudes as opposed to weak quotas (those that produce low visiblity). Whether or not a quota will have a positive or negative effect on attitudes towards women in politics depends on the type of quota, namely whether it functions through reserving seats for women or mandating a certain percentage of women are nominated as candidates. They test this mechanism through an analysis of four waves of the World Values Survey (1994-2014) over 87 countries. Using a multi-level mixed effects regression, they find that robust candidate gender quotas are related to positive attitudes towards women in politics, while robust reserved quotas have a negative effect. These results are pronounced in democracies over non-democracies, and do not vary by individual’s gender.
Wright, A.Z. (2023) “Telling the Tale: Black Women Politicians and Their Use of Experiential Rhetoric.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
When does it pay to leverage gendered- and raced-lived experiences as a political candidate? Theories on campaign rhetoric differ on this question, with some saying that using rhetoric that reminds audiences of the racial minority status of a candidate is detrimental to success, while others point to the utility of drawing from lived experience. Wright’s piece intervenes in this debate to ask specifically how Black women mayors – an understudied group – invoke their lived experience on the campaign trail. Drawing from Black feminist theory, she argues that Black women’s lived experiences illuminate the specific consequences of their raced and gendered positionality, making it beneficial for them to use what she terms “experiential rhetoric” while campaigning.
The paper investigates the campaign rhetoric of three Black women mayors: Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, and Muriel Bowser of Washington, DC. Through qualitative coding in NVIVO, Wright compares the rhetoric of these women to their opponents over 62 mayoral debates. She finds that these Black women mayors uses experiential rhetoric at a much higher rate than the Black men, white women, and white men they were debating. These results demonstrate that Black women are opting for a unique strategy centered around their lived experience when appealing to voters.
Johnson, J.E. (2023) “Authoritarian Gender Equality Policy Making: The Politics of Domestic Violence in Russia.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
Current scholarship has argued that the adoption of policies supporting women’s rights in authoritarian regimes should be understood as a practice of “genderwashing” in which authoritarian leaders bend to international and women’s movement pressures when passing laws so as to distract from the authoritarian nature of their regimes. While genderwashing helps explain many of these instances of gender equality policy uptake, Johnson argues that it does not help to explain all cases, in particular those outside of the MENA region which have gone understudied. To provide an alternative explanation, this paper turns to the least likely case of Russia.
Johnson conducts processes tracing of several different attempts to reform domestic violence policy in Russia. To do so a three-facet framework to explain the adoption of gender equality policy in the authoritarian setting is used. First opportunity in the forms of strategic predicaments determine when policies are successfully passed. Second, in the Russian case, elite insiders were the essential agents in success. Finally, to understand the passing of reforms, mechanisms such as signaling among elites are key. Through this framework, Johnson explains an alternative explanation of gender equality policy making in authoritarian regimes.
Erikson, J. & Josefsson, C. (2023) “Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices: Exploring Gendered Leadership Conditions in the Swedish Parliament.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
Sweden presents a unique case to study women in political leadership as it is one of the few legislatures that has numerically equal representation of men and women. Yet, gender-equal legislatures and their effects have not been fully explored in a literature that focuses on the more common legislative configuration of women in the minority. How do the gender ideals of leadership change in these contexts? Are women and men treated equal in practice when there is numeric equality?
Through interviews with 36 MPs who were mostly top leaders, as well as a survey sent to all Swedish MPs, Erikson and Josefsson tackle these questions. They find that the leadership ideals of the parliament are feminine-coded, emphasizing inclusion and interpersonal sensitivity. However, women reported masculine practices such as sexual harassment and the questioning of their competence. To understand the incongruence, the authors point to the feminist institutionalist perspective which notes how male norms are institutionalized and resist changes despite the growing inclusion of women into legislatures.
Sokolova, M., DiCaprio, A., Collinson, N. B. et al (2023) “Beating the Odds: Women’s Leadership in International Organizations.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
In international organizations there is a disparity between the values and policies that are promoted calling for the equal treatment of women and the number of women who have access to positions of leadership. While there is significant research looking at women’s representation in leadership in the corporate world and women’s representation in country-level governance, we know less about the positions of leadership women hold in the international organization realm. This paper seeks to fill this gap by looking at women’s leadership roles not just at UN organizations but other international institutions that deal with governance, likes the Association of South Asian Nations and large international nongovernmental organizations.
In analyzing this original dataset, the authors find that, since 1990, only ¼ of leadership positions have been filled by women. It is not just that women are not being given these positions they are also not being nominated for them. When women are nominated, they are likely to be chosen for the leadership positions. There is also evidence that women are being appointed to the same types of positions, suggesting that certain leadership roles are being reserved for women. These findings demonstrate the clear gap between endorsing gender equality policies and instituting them within international organizations themselves.
Bauer, N.M. & Cargile, I.A.M. (2023) “Women Get the Job Done: Differences in Constituent Communication from Female and Male Lawmakers.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
How do women representatives mitigate the gender bias they face when interacting with their constituents? With more women, and especially women of color, being elected in the U.S., asking these questions about how they navigate this important part of the democratic process allows us to better understand the link between women’s descriptive and substantive representation. Bauer and Cargile argue that women legislators adopt a feminine “homestyle” approach to constituent communication to overcome the barriers of gender and racial bias. This communication style is more responsive but also more empathetic and community-focused than their male counterparts.
This paper tests this theory of a feminine homestyle through an original audit study of legislators. Through the audit study they find that women are more responsive to constituent emails than their male colleagues and that their style of communication is also significantly different. Higher rates of women’s responsiveness also changes institutional norms of men’s responsiveness. These findings underscore the link between descriptive and substantive representation through demonstrating how women change the democratic nature of legislative institutions.
Cizmar, A. & Kalkan, O.K. (2023) “Hostile Sexism and Abortion Attitudes in Contemporary American Public Opinion.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
Public opinion on abortion in America has been found to be relatively stable. But what best explains these attitudes? While partisanship and religiosity are common explanations, the authors in this article point to another factor: hostile sexism. Hostile sexism is a specific attitude about women that manifests in anger over women challenging men’s authority. This type of sexism paints women as villains who are actively looking to take power from men. As the right to abortion challenges men’s control over women’s bodies, the authors argue that anti-abortion attitudes and hostile sexism are linked.
The authors test this theory through an analysis of the 2012, 2016 and 2020 American National Election Studies data. They construct a hostile sexism index and find that it significantly explains anti-abortion attitudes while controlling for other common explanations like religiosity and partisanship. The connection between this particular form of sexism and anti-abortion attitudes highlights the deeply gendered nature of abortion politics.
Albaugh, Q.M. & Baisley, E. (2023) “Gender and LGBT Affinity: The Case of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
As more openly LGBT politicians assume positions of leadership, we can ask what role LGBT affinity has in the election of these leaders. While there is an established literature on women’s gender affinity when voting for female candidates, less is known about the role of LGBT affinity in vote choice. The authors use the case of the former Ontario, Canada premier Kathleen Wynne, the first woman and the first LGBT minister in the province to test how gender and LGBT affinities intersect.
Albaugh and Baisley pool survey data from the election before Wynne became premier (2011) and her first election as the incumbent premier (2014). By comparing the vote choice of non-LBGT men, non-LGBT women, LGBT men and LGBT women, they are able to distinguish the role of gender and sexuality affinity voting. They find strong evidence for affinity voting in non-LGBT women, indicative of gender affinity, and LGBT men, indicative of LGBT affinity. The lack of evidence for affinity voting across all categories suggestions that group affinity may vary across groups.
Wang, D., Merolla, J.L. & Manganiello, A. (2023) “The Effect of Counterstereotypic Gender Strategies on Candidate Evaluations in American Elections.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
Women use a variety of strategies to both mask and highlight their gender when running for office. One such strategy is to highlight counter-stereotypic masculine traits as a way to distance themselves from negative associations of women in positions of power. There are debates in the literature as to whether highlighting masculine traits is an effective way for women to court voters. The authors argue that the success of the strategy depends on individual voter’s opinions on women in society. In this case, counter-stereotypic strategies would be most effective on voters holding sexist attitudes, as the masculine traits diminish the emphasis on the candidate gender.
Through a two-wave panel experiment, the authors test their theory of strategy effectiveness. Participants were exposed to vignettes featuring either a male or female candidate. In the control condition no traits were emphasized, while the treatment groups read vignettes with either agentic (masculine) traits or communal (feminine) traits. Their findings demonstrate that the use of counter-stereotypic traits by women led to participants seeing them as more agentic and as stronger leaders as compared to the treatment group with no emphasised traits. They also find that those with higher levels of hostile sexism are more likely to vote for women displaying agentic / masculine traits. These findings add further complexity to discussions of representation and the strategies women use to gain political office.
Pérez, L.C., Sáenz de Oger, S. A., Fortes, B.G. (2023) “Ideology and Party Positions on Gender Issues in Spain: Evidence from a Novel Data Set.” Politics & Gender, 19(4).
How does gender politics map onto party ideology as we begin to see the rise in popularity of radical right parties? The authors of this study develop new indicators of partisan stances on gender issues to aid in answering this question. The introduction of new measures, summarized below, allows for the comparative study of gender issues at the party level both across parties and across regions. The new measures investigate gender stances on four key issues: 1) welfare, 2) gender violence, 3) equal representation and 4) cultural values.
The authors validate their measures using data from the 2019 regional elections in Spain. Overall, they find gender to be salient in the election, with parties more to the right exhibiting lower scores on the gender issues scale. However, these results are not as straightforward when investigating the different dimensions of the gender indicator. For example, all the parties hold similar positions on welfare issues, while we see disparity between parties when it comes to equal representation and gender violence. From these new indicators we can see the multi-dimensional character of gender salience and party ideology.
Håkansson, S. (2024) “Explaining Citizen Hostility against Women Political Leaders: A Survey Experiment in the United States and Sweden.” Politics & Gender, 20(1).
Women in politics face greater levels of harassment from their constituents than their male counterparts. This paper adds to the expanding literature on this phenomenon by asking why women face this increased level of hostility. Håkansson conducts a survey experiment in the United State and Sweden to understand the role of sexism and norms in the treatment of women politicians.
The survey results tell a nuanced story of women’s harassment by constituents. First, Håkansson finds that respondents are not more accepting of the harassment of female politicians – on the contrary, there does not appear to be a general acceptance of harassment towards women. Second, the experiment demonstrates that participants were more likely to register their complaints with women over men when given the opportunity. This preference of directing complaints towards women helps explain the higher levels of hostility women in politics face.
Corral, A.J. (2024) “The Wall between Latinas and Latinos? Gender and Immigration Enforcement Attitudes among U.S. Latina/o Voters.” Politics & Gender, 20(1).
Recent voting patterns among American Latina and Latino voters have pointed to a clear gendered voting gap. This gendered difference in voting was exemplified in the strong support Donald Trump received from Latino voters in the 2020 election. Corral looks to one salient issue in particular to understand this gap: immigration. Utilizing data from the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Postelection Survey, several hypotheses from the literature about Latina support for immigration are tested.
The results from the multivariate analysis support two dominant explanations of Latina attitudes about immigration enforcement. The first – the “Latina/o gender hypothesis” – states that due to gendered acculturation processes, Latinas are less likely to support restrictive immigration policies than Latino men. The second hypothesis – the “immigrant identity hypothesis” – states that Latina women identify more with immigrants than Latino men. The support found for both hypotheses demonstrate a clear gendered divide in immigrant opinions and points to the underlying structural differences that shape these opinions.
Zwingel, S. (2024) “Women’s Rights Close to Home? The Miami-Dade County CEDAW Ordinance as Local Practice.” Politics & Gender, 20(1).
What does it look like when local governments take up international norms frameworks? While the federal government in the US has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), local governments across the country have participated in the Cities for CEDAW campaign through the implantation of the framework in their own jurisdictions. Zwingel investigates what this process of implementation looks like through a case study of Miami-Dade County in Florida.
Through an interpretivist approach, Zwingel interviewed members of three different civil society organizations active in Miami-Dade County and analyzed procedural documents related to the CEDAW town ordinances. The narrative developed points to a lack of resonance between international norms and the members civil society organizations in their communities. The findings point to a need to further consider the complexity of implementing international human rights norms on a local level.
Kras, H.R. (2024) “Does Procedural Fairness Influence Evaluations of Government Efforts to Combat Gender-Based Violence? Evidence from Brazil.” Politics & Gender, 20(1).
Since in the 1990s, countries across the world have adopted policies to combat gender-based violence (GBV). Once these policies have been implemented, how do citizens evaluate their effectiveness? Kras turns to the case of Brazil where the issue of GBV is particularly salient and the government has implemented a variety of policy solutions. Through a survey experiment, she tests whether perceptions of procedural fairness affect citizens evaluations of GBV policy.
Procedural fairness encompasses citizens opinions on whether the outcomes and processes of a policy are perceived as fair. Through a vignette describing a woman seeking protection from intimate partner violence at a women’s police station, Kras measures the evaluation of government performance through the manipulation of the levels of outcome and process fairness depicted in the vignette. The results demonstrate that a lack of fairness causes more negative evaluations of government performance.
Hinze, M.H. (2024) “Made for Men: Political Science Departments in the United States as Gendered Institutions.” Politics & Gender, 20(1).
How do women experience the gendered norms and practices in political science departments? Hinze examines this question through applying a feminist institutionalism framework to political science departments. Through a survey of 1,273 female PhD student and faculty members at American universities, the author seeks to understand the gendered norms which women face in their departments and how these norms have shaped their careers and experiences in academia.
Hinze finds that, in keeping with extant research on gendered institutions, a critical mass of women in political science departments is not enough to see a change in institutional norms. Rather, critical agents – i.e. women in positions of power who are pushing for institutional change – are essential for improving the experiences of women in political science departments. Important in seeing real change is understanding the intersectional nature of women’s experiences by recognizing the women of color and mothers face additional barriers within the institution of academic departments.
Jian, X. & Chen, C. (2024) “Gender Differences in Policy Preferences of Legislators: Evidence from China’s National Legislature.” Politics and Gender, 20(1).
Are women in single-party regimes supporting gendered issues in the same way as women in liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes? A lack of data has made answering this question of substantive representation difficult. Jian and Chen’s innovative approach in the case of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) allows us to begin to answer this question through a compilation of 38,383 proposals submitted to the NPC between 2013-2017.
The authors employ a bottom-up approach based on field work to identify policies that are both “feminine” or reflect “political stance” – i.e. are in line with Chinese Communist Party policy preferences. Their analysis demonstrates that gender does affect feminine policy preference with women forwarding proposals related to women and families. Their findings point us to new questions about the nature of substantive representation and how it is constrained (or not) by party systems.
Slaughter, C., Crowder, C. & Greer, C. (2024) “Black Women: Keepers of Democracy, the Democratic Process, and the Democratic Party.” Politics and Gender, 20(1).
Black women hold an important political and narrative place in the Democratic Party, often being singled out as the voting block that is most supportive of the party and its candidates. The authors of this paper examine this role by asking what motivates Black women to support the Democrats. In an intersectional analysis, they compare the motivations of Black women with those of white women and Black men respectively.
By analyzing the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, the authors find that Black women’s voting patterns differ in significant ways from white women and Black men. In particular, they are much more likely to strongly identify as Democrats, think voting is an effective tool to have their voices heard, and are favorable to Democratic candidates. The intersectional approach adopted in this study sheds light on the variance in political participation that is lost when Black women are not considered as a unique group of voters.
Curini, L., Decardri, S., Ferrara, A. et. al (2024) “The Gender Gap in Issue Attention and Language Use within a Legislative Setting: An Application to the Italian Parliament (1948–2020).” Politics and Gender, 20(1).
As the presence of women in parliaments has increased over time, are we seeing a similar increase in how much women and the issues that matter to them are talked about in parliaments? The authors of this study take up this question in an analysis of parliamentary debates in Italy from 1948-2020. Their analysis focuses specifically on not just the frequency that issues related to women are discussed but also the content of these debates and the language that is used.
Their results reveal a U-shaped pattern of substantive representation for the seven decades of their study. At first a pattern of tokenism occurs as a few women are present in parliament and they focus on gendered issues. As more women join parliament a decrease in mentions accompanies them, until they reach a considerable minority and women’s, or “communal issues”, again appear in a greater number of parliamentary debates once again. These findings point to existence of an “activation threshold” among female parliamentarians which connects descriptive to substantive representation.