Negotiating Ideologies: The Campaign for Gender–Balanced Boards and Commissions in Iowa

Abstract

ABSTRACT This interview and archival research case study of the successful movement to adopt state laws to require gender balance on Iowa state boards and commissions (adopted in the late 1980s) and to extend the law to local boards and commissions (adopted in 2009) provides an empirical challenge to two prominent theories of ideology—interest theory, in which the powerful impose ideology, and strain theory, in which people find ideology to cope with their experiences. My study suggests that traditional ideologies are not always the most powerful. While people tend to believe in ideologies they perceive as functional for themselves, ideology is better understood through a navigation theory in which people simultaneously hold multiple complementary and contradictory ideologies, and where particular contexts and people’s interpretations of those contexts impact how different ideologies are activated, understood, prioritized, negotiated, and applied.