Ongoing Research Projects
Casa Rosada, August 2016
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Women as Leaders, Policy-Makers, and Symbols
Women have historically been denied access to the most powerful political posts, particularly prestigious inner cabinet portfolios within the executive branch. This global trend undermines one of democracy’s core principles—political equality—and has widespread implications for both the policy-making process and citizens’ support for government. In this project Diana Z. O'Brien and I examine the causes and consequences of women’s exclusion from four of the most powerful cabinet portfolios: finance, defense, interior/home affairs, and foreign affairs ministries. These prestigious positions have direct access to the chief executive and unparalleled policy influence. It is thus critically important to explain when, why, and how women break through the male-dominated status quo to access these posts, as well as to understand how women’s inclusion shapes policies that are central to the functioning of the state—e.g., security, human rights, trade—and affects citizens’ perceptions of government. The findings from this research have clear consequences for equality, democracy, public diplomacy, and representation. We were recently awarded a $429,000 grant from the NSF to support the next phase of our research. And we are thrilled to have Bomi K. Lee, working with us on the project in her capacity as an NSF funded postdoctoral scholar.
This first paper from this project was published at the American Journal of Political Science. In the first manuscript we focus specifically on the appointment of female defense ministers. In our new book project, we expand our focus to include foreign affairs ministers and interior/home affairs ministers and to consider the policy and symbolic effects of these prestigious appointments. Our work on defense ministers has been featured in The Guardian, Bloomberg's View, Foreign Policy and reprinted in over 15 news papers in seven different languages.
In our newest paper we focus on women's access to the finance post. In "Corruption, Accountability, and Women's Access to Power" (Armstrong, Barnes, O'Brien, and Taylor-Robinson, Forthcoming Journal of Politics), we argue that since women are often perceived as “cleaner” than men, where institutions allow heads of government to be held accountable on economic issues, chief executives may use women’s inclusion in high-profile posts to signal that they are curbing the abuse of public office for private gain. Using data on 153 countries over 16 years, we show that increases in corruption bolster women’s presence in the finance ministry (a high-profile post capable of quelling economic malfeasance), particularly in context of high accountability. The perception that women are less corrupt can thus create unique opportunities for women to access office. Our work on women finance ministers has been featured in Ms. Magazine (on multiple occasions) and FiveThirtyEight.
This first paper from this project was published at the American Journal of Political Science. In the first manuscript we focus specifically on the appointment of female defense ministers. In our new book project, we expand our focus to include foreign affairs ministers and interior/home affairs ministers and to consider the policy and symbolic effects of these prestigious appointments. Our work on defense ministers has been featured in The Guardian, Bloomberg's View, Foreign Policy and reprinted in over 15 news papers in seven different languages.
In our newest paper we focus on women's access to the finance post. In "Corruption, Accountability, and Women's Access to Power" (Armstrong, Barnes, O'Brien, and Taylor-Robinson, Forthcoming Journal of Politics), we argue that since women are often perceived as “cleaner” than men, where institutions allow heads of government to be held accountable on economic issues, chief executives may use women’s inclusion in high-profile posts to signal that they are curbing the abuse of public office for private gain. Using data on 153 countries over 16 years, we show that increases in corruption bolster women’s presence in the finance ministry (a high-profile post capable of quelling economic malfeasance), particularly in context of high accountability. The perception that women are less corrupt can thus create unique opportunities for women to access office. Our work on women finance ministers has been featured in Ms. Magazine (on multiple occasions) and FiveThirtyEight.
Class Representation in Latin America and Beyond
How does the near-exclusion of working-class citizens from legislatures affect citizens’ perceptions of democratic institutions? In our Political Research Quarterly article, Gregory Saxton and I argue that when groups of people are continually denied access to representation, citizens are less likely to believe that their interests are represented by the legislature. By contrast, more inclusive institutions that incorporate members of the working class foster support for representative bodies. We analyze public opinion data and data on legislator’s occupational backgrounds from 18 Latin American countries and find that greater inclusion of the working class is associated with better evaluations of legislative performance. These findings have important implications for strengthening democracy in Latin America, as they indicate that more diverse political institutions may be key to deepening citizens’ attachments to representative bodies.
In the second phase of this project we will use original survey data to test the causal mechanisms theorized in our argument. Yann Kerevel (Assistant Professor, Louisiana State), Saxton and I designed a series of survey experiments that we fielded in Argentina and Mexico in spring and summer 2019. Kerevel, Saxton, and I used this original survey data, along with cross-national data from LAPOP to develop a book manuscript exploring this topic. We have completed a full draft of the manuscript and are preparing it for peer-review.
In a related article at Legislative Studies Quarterly, Mirya Holman (Associate Professor, Tulane University) Victoria Beall (University of Kentucky) and I examine how class and gender intersect to structure representational outcomes. Though in recent years there has been increased attention to class representation, research and popular discourse on class largely advances a gendered definition of working class. Thus, much of the research on working-class representation has focused almost exclusively on men. Whereas working-class men are more likely to hold blue-collar jobs, working-class women are more likely to hold pink-collar jobs, or low-status occupations dominated by women. We argue that pink-collar legislators are uniquely positioned to legislate over redistribution policy. Combining a new coding of working-class backgrounds that accounts for pink-collar representation with spending data from U.S. states over time, we find that class and gender intersect to shape state budget allocations. Specifically, women’s pink-collar representation is associated with increased spending on both education and social services.
Our focus on pink-collar representation is further inspired by my earlier article at Politics, Groups, and Identities with Mirya Holman where we investigate whether dramatic increases in women’s numeric representation owing to the wide-spread adoption of gender quotas promotes the election of elite women or whether quotas can help diversify legislatures beyond simply increasing the number of women in office. Whereas critics of gender quotas argue that women selected via quotas are as homogenous—and elite—as those selected via traditional methods, we theorize that quotas (re)conceptualize views of potential political leaders and transform party recruiting networks. That is, because of gender segregated labor markets, women often have different professional and personal backgrounds than men. When more women are selected as leaders it changes the backgrounds and experiences of those in office and subsequently changes our ideas about what a leader looks like, who leaders are, and what experiences one needs in order to be a leader. As a result, we argue that quotas increase the diversity of women and men in office. In our forthcoming Journal of Politics article, we evaluate these claims with a new measure of diversity and a dataset of over 1,700 legislators in Argentinian sub-national government. We show that quotas increase the professional and personal diversity of women and men in office over time, suggesting that electoral gender quotas transform elite networks and candidate recruitment.
In the second phase of this project we will use original survey data to test the causal mechanisms theorized in our argument. Yann Kerevel (Assistant Professor, Louisiana State), Saxton and I designed a series of survey experiments that we fielded in Argentina and Mexico in spring and summer 2019. Kerevel, Saxton, and I used this original survey data, along with cross-national data from LAPOP to develop a book manuscript exploring this topic. We have completed a full draft of the manuscript and are preparing it for peer-review.
In a related article at Legislative Studies Quarterly, Mirya Holman (Associate Professor, Tulane University) Victoria Beall (University of Kentucky) and I examine how class and gender intersect to structure representational outcomes. Though in recent years there has been increased attention to class representation, research and popular discourse on class largely advances a gendered definition of working class. Thus, much of the research on working-class representation has focused almost exclusively on men. Whereas working-class men are more likely to hold blue-collar jobs, working-class women are more likely to hold pink-collar jobs, or low-status occupations dominated by women. We argue that pink-collar legislators are uniquely positioned to legislate over redistribution policy. Combining a new coding of working-class backgrounds that accounts for pink-collar representation with spending data from U.S. states over time, we find that class and gender intersect to shape state budget allocations. Specifically, women’s pink-collar representation is associated with increased spending on both education and social services.
Our focus on pink-collar representation is further inspired by my earlier article at Politics, Groups, and Identities with Mirya Holman where we investigate whether dramatic increases in women’s numeric representation owing to the wide-spread adoption of gender quotas promotes the election of elite women or whether quotas can help diversify legislatures beyond simply increasing the number of women in office. Whereas critics of gender quotas argue that women selected via quotas are as homogenous—and elite—as those selected via traditional methods, we theorize that quotas (re)conceptualize views of potential political leaders and transform party recruiting networks. That is, because of gender segregated labor markets, women often have different professional and personal backgrounds than men. When more women are selected as leaders it changes the backgrounds and experiences of those in office and subsequently changes our ideas about what a leader looks like, who leaders are, and what experiences one needs in order to be a leader. As a result, we argue that quotas increase the diversity of women and men in office. In our forthcoming Journal of Politics article, we evaluate these claims with a new measure of diversity and a dataset of over 1,700 legislators in Argentinian sub-national government. We show that quotas increase the professional and personal diversity of women and men in office over time, suggesting that electoral gender quotas transform elite networks and candidate recruitment.
Election Laws and Electoral Reform in Latin America
I’m currently working on a series of papers that examines the political implications of election laws and election law reforms in Argentina and Chile. In one portion of the project, Carolina Tchintian, Santiago Alles, and I exploit data from three elections and a novel state-level ballot reform in Argentina—a new ballot design was incrementally implemented over multiple election cycles—to examine how ballot structure shapes multiple facets of electoral outcomes such as ballot splitting, ballot roll off, and even women’s ability to garner support at the polls. We use GIS to reconstruct precinct demographics and employ matching to address threats to random assignment. This empirical strategy allows us to treat our data as a quasi-experiment. We demonstrate that minor changes in ballot structures, translate into substantial electoral consequences. The first manuscript from this project was published in the Journal of Politics. You can find a summary of our findings (in Spanish) on El Estadista.
Now, in a new book manuscript (under contract at Cambridge University Press) Alles, Tchintian, and I examine how different ballot structures influence the election of women and candidates from small parties, as well as voters’ ability to hold representatives in down-ballot races accountable.
In a related set of papers I use data from Chilean municipal elections to examine how election laws and recent electoral reforms influence both voters’ decisions to turnout and how they cast their vote once at the polls. In particular, in 2012, Chile passed a major election law reform to adopt automatic registration and voluntary voting. Prior to this, Chile, had a compulsory voting law combined with voluntary registration. University of Kentucky graduate student Gabby Rangel and I review the pros and cons of this reform in our article in the Election Law Journal, and then, in a second paper (PRQ), we systematically evaluate the implications of the reform on voter turnout in municipal elections. Whereas cross-national studies of turnout find that compulsory voting has the strongest impact on participation, boosting turnout by 10 to 15 percent, we argue that in the absence of compulsory voting, other institutions such as small district size, strong electoral competition, and moderate political fragmentation may be equally effective at mobilizing turnout. In compulsory systems, where voting is obligatory, these institutions should have no impact on turnout; instead, they foster lower levels of blank voting. We leverage the recent abolition of compulsory voting in Chile to test our hypotheses under two voting systems—implemented in the exact same districts only four years apart. Using this unique subnational research design across 345 municipalities, we find strong support for our hypotheses. In a third paper, Carolina Tchintian and I use data from 2,500 candidates on 640 electoral lists from Chilean municipal elections, to evaluate how information cues—such as incumbency and candidate sex—enhance or moderate primacy effects in open list PR elections in Chile. Together, these papers contribute to our understanding of how institutional design structures political outcomes.
Now, in a new book manuscript (under contract at Cambridge University Press) Alles, Tchintian, and I examine how different ballot structures influence the election of women and candidates from small parties, as well as voters’ ability to hold representatives in down-ballot races accountable.
In a related set of papers I use data from Chilean municipal elections to examine how election laws and recent electoral reforms influence both voters’ decisions to turnout and how they cast their vote once at the polls. In particular, in 2012, Chile passed a major election law reform to adopt automatic registration and voluntary voting. Prior to this, Chile, had a compulsory voting law combined with voluntary registration. University of Kentucky graduate student Gabby Rangel and I review the pros and cons of this reform in our article in the Election Law Journal, and then, in a second paper (PRQ), we systematically evaluate the implications of the reform on voter turnout in municipal elections. Whereas cross-national studies of turnout find that compulsory voting has the strongest impact on participation, boosting turnout by 10 to 15 percent, we argue that in the absence of compulsory voting, other institutions such as small district size, strong electoral competition, and moderate political fragmentation may be equally effective at mobilizing turnout. In compulsory systems, where voting is obligatory, these institutions should have no impact on turnout; instead, they foster lower levels of blank voting. We leverage the recent abolition of compulsory voting in Chile to test our hypotheses under two voting systems—implemented in the exact same districts only four years apart. Using this unique subnational research design across 345 municipalities, we find strong support for our hypotheses. In a third paper, Carolina Tchintian and I use data from 2,500 candidates on 640 electoral lists from Chilean municipal elections, to evaluate how information cues—such as incumbency and candidate sex—enhance or moderate primacy effects in open list PR elections in Chile. Together, these papers contribute to our understanding of how institutional design structures political outcomes.
Expert Survey: Women, Legislative Organization, & Presidential Systems in Latin America
Constanza F. Schibber (MSU) and I recently conducted an expert survey to better understand the informal practices that govern the committee appointment process. We are surveyed over 250 experts to evaluate the legislative practices in 19 assemblies in the Americas. Because some of these legislatures are bicameral, we are gathering information on a total of 29 chambers. The sample of assemblies includes those in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
The questionnaire centers on legislative committees and positions of authority. We seek to measure the prestige and importance of each standing committee and leadership position, which positions of authority are useful for distributing resources to the legislators’ constituency, who ultimately decides committee assignments, etc. We do not ask experts about formal procedures because those are available in chamber rules and constitutions. Instead, the survey aims to gather information on informal legislative practices in order to assess how much they differ from written procedures.
We expect the results to make an important contribution because, even though for a few legislatures these information has been gathered by other researchers, for most Latin American assemblies we do not even know which positions are most coveted by legislators.
One of the first projects to use this new survey data focuses on legislative institutions and gender. Incumbency disadvantage, seniority rules or even discrimination have been identified as potential causes for female legislators’ relegation to the sidelines. In our research Constanza F. Schibber and I expand this line of work by considering how variations in institutional design affect women’s appointments to powerful committees. In chambers where committees have substantial gatekeeping authority, a position in an influential committee is seen as more valuable to party leaders. As such, we hypothesize that when committees are afforded strong gatekeeping power, female legislators are more likely to be marginalized from prestigious committees than men. Conversely, if committees do not have gatekeeping authority, then female legislators should not be less (or more) likely than men to receive an appointment. We systematically test our conditional hypothesis using a novel dataset of legislators’ careers and committee appointments across Latin American. Importantly, in our analysis, the value of committee appointments varies not only across countries in terms of the committee system design and gatekeeping powers, but also within countries because not all committees are equally likely to impact the policy agenda. We use results from expert survey to better understand the informal practices that rule the appointment process and to identify prestigious and powerful committee appointments. This paper was presented at APSA 2019 and the research project was recently awarded the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for research in Women and Politics.
The questionnaire centers on legislative committees and positions of authority. We seek to measure the prestige and importance of each standing committee and leadership position, which positions of authority are useful for distributing resources to the legislators’ constituency, who ultimately decides committee assignments, etc. We do not ask experts about formal procedures because those are available in chamber rules and constitutions. Instead, the survey aims to gather information on informal legislative practices in order to assess how much they differ from written procedures.
We expect the results to make an important contribution because, even though for a few legislatures these information has been gathered by other researchers, for most Latin American assemblies we do not even know which positions are most coveted by legislators.
One of the first projects to use this new survey data focuses on legislative institutions and gender. Incumbency disadvantage, seniority rules or even discrimination have been identified as potential causes for female legislators’ relegation to the sidelines. In our research Constanza F. Schibber and I expand this line of work by considering how variations in institutional design affect women’s appointments to powerful committees. In chambers where committees have substantial gatekeeping authority, a position in an influential committee is seen as more valuable to party leaders. As such, we hypothesize that when committees are afforded strong gatekeeping power, female legislators are more likely to be marginalized from prestigious committees than men. Conversely, if committees do not have gatekeeping authority, then female legislators should not be less (or more) likely than men to receive an appointment. We systematically test our conditional hypothesis using a novel dataset of legislators’ careers and committee appointments across Latin American. Importantly, in our analysis, the value of committee appointments varies not only across countries in terms of the committee system design and gatekeeping powers, but also within countries because not all committees are equally likely to impact the policy agenda. We use results from expert survey to better understand the informal practices that rule the appointment process and to identify prestigious and powerful committee appointments. This paper was presented at APSA 2019 and the research project was recently awarded the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for research in Women and Politics.
