Tiffany D. Barnes

“Engendering” Politics: The Impact of Descriptive Representation on Women’s Political Engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa

Globally, there is a significant gender gap in political engagement between men and women; however, this gender gap varies both across countries and within countries over time. Previous research has argued that the inclusion of women in elite political positions encourages women’s political engagement at the citizen level—by augmenting women’s symbolic representation—and can reduce this gender gap. Using Afrobarometer data from 20 African countries across four waves of surveys from 1999 to 2008, we employ an interactive multilevel model that controls for the sex of the respondent, the percentage of women in the legislature, and the interaction of these two variables. We find that as women’s descriptive representation increases, the political engagement gender gap diminishes. This finding is robust across several measures of political engagement. Our findings suggest that the incorporation of women into political institutions encourages the political engagement of women at the citizen level.

Racializing Gender: Public Opinion at the Intersection

Efforts to understand the political implications of categorical prejudices—like racism and sexism—are complicated by the intersectional nature of social groups. Evaluating attitudes toward members of a single social category (e.g., African-Americans) in isolation can produce misleading conclusions, as racial cues commonly coincide with gender cues and create meaningful subgroups (McConnaughy and White 2014). The idea that different subgroups of women experience distinctive forms of discrimination is reflected in the concept of “double jeopardy.” Double jeopardy suggests that black and Hispanic women experience discrimination differently from white women or men of color because they simultaneously belong to a low-status gender group and a low-status racial/ethnic group (King 1988; Levin et al. 2002; cf. Sidanius and Veniegas 2000). As a result, women who are racial or ethnic minorities face a cumulative discrimination that extends beyond racism or sexism alone (King 1988; Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach 2008).

Gender and Legislative Preferences: Evidence from the Argentine Provinces

Women are underrepresented in most of the worlds legislatures. While the scarcity of female representation is problematic for multiple reasons, one of the central concerns of advocates and scholars rests on the assumption that women have different legislative preferences than their male counterparts. If this is the case, then it implies that where women do not occupy an equitable proportion of the legislature, their interests are not well represented.

Making Space for Women: Explaining Citizen Support for Legislative Gender Quotas in Latin America

Gender quotas have been adopted in over a hundred countries in an effort to address gender disparities in national legislatures. Yet the determinants of citizen support for gender quota policies remain largely understudied. We develop a theory that emphasizes the impact of institutional performance and political values to explain citizen support for gender quotas and how these two factors differentially influence men’s and women’s quota support. Based on data for 24 Latin American countries, we find that citizens in countries with relatively good governance quality who express a strong preference for government involvement to improve citizens’ well-being show the highest levels of quota support. Further, whereas good governance increases quota support at a higher rate among men than women, preferences for government involvement exert a stronger influence on women’s support for quotas. Consequently, good governance quality reduces the gender gap in quota support by substantially increasing men’s support for quotas.

American Party Women A Look at the Gender Gap within Parties

Research on the gender gap in American politics has focused on average differences between male and female voters. This has led to an underdeveloped understanding of sources of heterogeneity among women and, in particular, a poor understanding of the political preferences of Republican women. We argue that although theories of ideological sorting suggest gender gaps should exist primarily between political parties, gender socialization theories contend that critical differences lie at the intersection of gender and party such that gender differences likely persist within political parties. Using survey data from the 2012 American National Election Study, we evaluate how party and gender intersect to shape policy attitudes. We find that gender differences in policy attitudes are more pronounced in the Republican Party than in the Democratic Party, with Republican women reporting significantly more moderate views than their male counterparts. Mediation analysis reveals that the gender gaps within the Republican Party are largely attributable to gender differences in beliefs about the appropriate scope of government and attitudes toward gender-based inequality. These results afford new insight into the joint influence of gender and partisanship on policy preferences and raise important questions about the quality of representation Republican women receive from their own party.

A Reexamination of Women’s Electoral Success in Open Seat Elections: The Conditioning Effect of Electoral Competition

ABSTRACT This article reexamines gender differences in electoral outcomes. We consider whether electoral competition has a differential impact on the electoral fortunes of male and female quality candidates. This study uses an original data set containing detailed candidate information for US House open seat primary and general elections between 1994 and 2004. The results indicate that when multiple quality candidates enter the race, female quality candidates are at a greater disadvantage than their male counterparts. The results suggest that null findings from previous work are a product of the way the relationship between gender and electoral outcomes is typically modeled.

Engaging Women: Addressing the Gender Gap in Women’s Networking and Productivity

Women earn 40% of new PhDs in political science; however, once they enter the profession, they have strikingly different experiences than their male counterparts—particularly in the small but influential field of political methodology. For several years, the Society for Political Methodology, with support from the National Science Foundation, has attempted to address this gender gap through the Visions in Methodology (VIM) program. VIM features an annual conference that brings women together to present and discuss their research and to participate in professional-development sessions. Do programs like VIM have the desired impact? Using an original survey of political scientists, this study provides insights into the ways that bringing women together in small-group settings like VIM might facilitate networking and enhance productivity. In particular, the study finds that women who attend the VIM conference are better networked and more productive in terms of publication.

Women Cabinet Ministers in Highly Visible Posts and Empowerment of Women: Are the Two Related?

We evaluate global patterns of women’s access to the most powerful and prestigious cabinet posts: defense, finance, and foreign affairs. Although women remain dramatically underrepresented in these important portfolios, their access has increased notably in recent decades and varies dramatically across the globe. We theorize that women’s access to these posts may empower women citizens by fostering satisfaction and confidence with the government and cultivating beliefs in women’s ability to govern. Using our novel data, combined with the World Values Survey data from 58 countries from 1981 to 2014, we find that women’s presence in top cabinet posts is positively associated with women’s and men’s satisfaction with and confidence in government. Nonetheless, it is not associated with more positive evaluations of women’s ability to lead.

Assessing Ballot Structure and Split Ticket Voting: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment

Although a growing number of countries have implemented electronic voting, few scholars have considered the unintended consequences of such reforms. We argue that changes in ballot structure imposed by electronic voting, implemented under the exact same electoral rules, can facilitate ballot splitting. Exploiting data from three elections and a novel ballot reform in Salta, Argentina—electronic voting was incrementally introduced over multiple elections—we provide an empirical analysis of how ballot structure influences ballot splitting. We use the Geographic Information System to reconstruct precinct demographics and matching to address threats to random assignment. This empirical strategy allows us to treat our data as a quasi-experiment. We find that precincts casting electronic ballots under an Australian ballot, rather than the ballot-and-envelope system, have significantly higher rates of ballot splitting. Our findings imply that less complicated voting procedures can affect the composition of legislative representation and manufacture a more inclusive legislature.

Intersectional motherhood: investigating public support for child care subsidies*

ABSTRACT Past research shows that beneficiary characteristics shape public support for social welfare programs. Intergroup attitudes and stereotypes can determine whether a group is seen as deserving of aid or exploiting the system for personal gain. One’s own social group membership can also influence program support. Women, for example, tend to favor social welfare programs more than men, all else equal. In this paper, we investigate how race, gender, and class intersect to shape support for child care subsidies for working mothers among White Americans. Using a survey experiment that varies the characteristics of program beneficiaries, we consider (1) whether support for child care subsidies varies depending on the race and class of mothers receiving subsidies, and (2) whether women are generally more supportive of child care subsidies, in line with research on the gender gap in public opinion. The results indicate that racial cues affect White men and White women similarly, but that gender differences emerge in response to cues regarding recipient class.