Descriptive Representation Research Articles

Citizens’ Preferences for Multidimensional Representation

How do citizens want to be represented in politics? We investigate citizens’ multidimensional preferences regarding six conceptions of representation that are derived from political theory. Using original item batteries and a conjoint experiment, we elicit the relative importance of the dimensions and the types of representation people prefer on each dimension. Our results from surveys fielded in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany show that 1) descriptive representation has comparatively limited appeal for citizens at large, but is more important for historically marginalized groups; 2) citizens do not focus on local politicians when thinking about who represents them, but also seek representation from politicians in other districts; 3) while citizens strongly value substantive representation, they are largely indifferent as to whether their representatives are responsive to electoral sanctions. Our findings have important implications for how political scientists study democratic representation.

Do public attitudes on gender equality affect candidate selection in proportional representation systems? Evidence from European Parliament elections

A shift in public attitudes towards gender equality may explain improvements we have witnessed in women’s descriptive representation. However, existing studies rely on cross-sectional comparisons, likely beset with confounding problems. To examine the causal effect of public attitudes on candidate selection, we draw on data from more than 10,000 candidacies across four European Parliament elections (1999–2014). Using a difference-in-differences approach, we compare nomination decisions in countries with major attitude changes between elections to those in the control group. We find no evidence that shifts towards more egalitarian gender attitudes lead to an increase in women candidates, neither overall nor in subgroups by electoral system or socio-cultural party positions. The heterogeneity of effects across time and space appears to be a plausible explanation for our findings.

Representing Iceland on the UN Security Council: Does Nordic membership matter?

Are Iceland’s interests represented on the UN Security Council, even when Iceland is not a member? This paper explores two questions: whether the Nordics share cohesive foreign policy preferences, and whether these shared preferences translate into substantive representation on the UN Security Council. Using ideal points derived from UN General Assembly voting patterns, the study systematically compares the alignment of Nordic preferences with Iceland’s. The analysis finds that while Nordic countries consistently align in their foreign policy preferences, their ability to advance shared goals during Security Council membership is limited. These findings suggest that substantive representation is constrained, but that does not preclude the possibility that Iceland may still benefit from the symbolic and descriptive representation afforded by Nordic involvement. The study contributes to broader debates on small-state collaboration and the complexities of achieving tangible policy outcomes within multilateral institutions.

Skinfolk, but Not Kinfolk? Paradoxical Representation Among Ethnic Minority Conservative Political Elites in the UK

As the number of ethnic minority politicians increase across countries like the United Kingdom and the United States, so too have instances in which these officeholders act against the communities they descriptively represent. In this contribution, we introduce the concept of paradoxical representation which we argue functions through neoliberal, post-racial scripts of color-blindness and meritocracy. Similar to research on gender representation which calls into question assumptions that substantive representation will follow unproblematically from women’s descriptive representation (Celis and Childs 2012), we argue that ethnic minority representatives can act as “post-racial gatekeepers.” This means paradoxically working against rather than for marginalized ethnic minority groups (Saini, Bankole, and Begum 2023). Through political discourse and policymaking, these representatives construct and “gatekeep” hegemonic ideas around race, racism, gender, and migration.

Gendered Backlash Depends on the Context. Reassessing Negative Campaigning Sanctions Against Female Candidates via Large-Scale Comparative Data

ABSTRACT On paper, women politicians should be punished more than men when they go negative during election campaigns. Yet, empirical evidence in this sense is surprisingly scarce, and findings offer a muddled picture. In this article, we argue that existing research has, so far, neglected to consider a fundamental intervening factor: the role of the context, and specifically the level of descriptive representation of women in politics. Using novel large-scale data for 700+ candidates having competed in 150+ elections in 94 countries worldwide, we test – and confirm – the expectation that women are especially punished for negative campaigning in countries with low descriptive representation of women in politics. This pattern does not hold in more gender-equal contexts. Additional observational evidence from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) shows that this electoral punishment is likely due to voters expressing lower likability of women candidates (compared to men) when the former go negative in countries where women are less established in political leadership positions. We suggest that inconsistent results in previous studies are likely due to the lack of comparative focus.

In the Interest of Millennials? Exploring Generational Representation in US State Legislatures

Abstract The literature on representation has shown that those who reflect the characteristics, traits, and/or experiences of a group (descriptive representation) are more likely to represent that group’s interests (substantive representation). In this paper, we argue that questions about representation should be considered with regard to generational identity. Drawing upon research that shows the importance of the Millennial Generation identity for understanding Millennials’ attitudes and policy preferences, we look at whether this identity matters for the legislative representation of group interests by examining bill sponsorship activity in 31 state legislatures. Our results tentatively support the expectation that the Millennial generation identity conditions the sponsorship of Millennial interest bills. Millennial legislators are more likely than non-Millennial legislators to sponsor bills that disproportionately impact their group members. This result is observed among both Democrat and Republican legislators, but at different magnitudes and for different issue priorities. These findings suggest that the Millennial generation identity is a meaningful determinant of legislative behavior, even when examined alongside partisanship.

Basis is also explanation: Interpretable Legal Judgment Reasoning prompted by multi-source knowledge

The task of Legal Judgment Prediction (LJP) aims to forecast case outcomes by analyzing fact descriptions, playing a pivotal role in enhancing judicial system efficiency and fairness. Existing LJP methods primarily focus on improving representations of fact descriptions to enhance judgment performance. However, these methods typically depend on the superficial case information and neglect the underlying legal basis, resulting in a lack of in-depth reasoning and interpretability in the judgment process of long-tail or confusing cases. Recognizing that the basis for judgments in real-world legal contexts encompasses both factual logic and related legal knowledge, we introduce the interpretable legal judgment reasoning framework with multi-source knowledge prompted. The essence of this framework is to transform the implicit factual logic of cases and external legal knowledge into explicit basis for judgment, aiming to enhance not only the accuracy of judgment predictions but also the interpretability of the reasoning process. Specifically, we design a chain prompt reasoning module that guides a large language model to elucidate factual logic basis through incremental reasoning, aligning the model prior knowledge with task-oriented knowledge in the process. To match the above fact-based information with legal knowledge basis, we propose a contrastive knowledge fusing module to inject external statutes knowledge into the fact description embedding. It pushes away the distance of similar knowledge in the semantic space during the encoding of external knowledge base without manual annotation, thus improving the judgment prediction performance of long-tail and confusing cases. Experimental results on two real datasets indicate that our framework significantly outperforms existing LJP baseline methods in accuracy and interpretability, achieving new state-of-the-art performance. In addition, tests on specially constructed long-tail and confusing case datasets demonstrate that the proposed framework possesses improved generalization abilities for predicting these complex cases.

The Weight on Her Shoulders: Marginalization of Women Legislators in Parliaments and Substantive Representation of Women

Abstract Studies have widely documented that women's descriptive representation in parliaments enhances their substantive representation. We probe this relationship under varying levels of women's collective and individual marginality based on an original dataset documenting the parliamentary behaviour of Israeli legislators over eleven parliamentary terms (1977–2015). Using several measures of individual-level marginality we show that marginalized female legislators are more prone to engage in gender-related parliamentary activity than their less marginal counterparts, albeit only under a certain threshold of women's marginality as a group. The article elucidates the dynamic nature of the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of disadvantaged groups by demonstrating that it is contingent on their collective standing in parliament and on the marginality of individual legislators as manifested in their strategic choices.

Selecting Diversity: Ethnicity, Party Strategies and Candidate Selection in New Zealand Elections, 1996–2020

Candidate selection shapes descriptive representation in important ways; you cannot be elected without first being selected. Unravelling opaque candidate selection processes is therefore critical to understanding descriptive representation and political parties’ electoral strategies. Drawing on a new dataset of New Zealand candidacies from 1996 to 2020, we demonstrate variation in candidacy patterns across parties, ethnic groups, and time. We show that both the centre-left (Labour) and centre-right (National) have increased the ethnic diversity of their candidate slates over time, although Labour’s overall share of non-majority candidates is higher than National’s. Both parties have primarily used the party list, not district candidacies, to achieve diversification. This approach leads to some volatility in representative diversity, in part due to list composition practices that prioritise incumbents and cluster ‘ethnic’ candidates. Thus, while New Zealand candidate slates show notably high diversity by international comparison, non-majority candidates can nonetheless find themselves in electorally vulnerable positions.

Rethinking descriptive representation in the 2019–20 US Democratic primary debates

Advocacy for historically marginalized groups is often attributed to officeholders who are viewed as group members themselves, called “descriptive representatives.” However, this account of political representation rarely includes whether the officeholder self-identifies as a group member. A burgeoning literature examines the significance of public figures’ self-presentation. This study splices public figures’ self-presentation into analyses of the correspondence between descriptive and substantive representation. It examines the US Democratic primary debates (2019–20) for descriptive and substantive representation. It shows that public figures who are not widely received as members of historically marginalized groups may nonetheless narratively construct the descriptive representation that is generally expected to go with substantive representation. Individuals who are widely viewed as descriptive representatives do not consistently call attention to this group membership; however, when they do, they are especially likely to advocate for the social groups whose membership they are understood to share.

Who wins when? Election timing and descriptive representation

AbstractWe examine how the timing of local elections affects the success of minority candidates, who remain woefully underrepresented in public office. We build on research showing that concurrent elections narrow racial gaps in voter turnout and leverage changes in the timing of local elections in California. Our analysis shows that filling local offices in November of even years increases minority officeholding, at least for some groups. The results demonstrate how, when, and for whom election timing matters. Latinos gain most, potentially at the expense of White and, to a lesser degree, Black representation. An investigation of potential mechanisms suggests that these effects depend on group population size and the magnitude of the turnout changes. An increase in the number of co‐ethnic candidates running also appears to contribute to the representational benefits of on‐cycle elections. Finally, the effects are most pronounced during presidential elections, when turnout improvements are largest.

A Man's World? The Descriptive Representation of Women Inside Europarties

AbstractMen are over‐represented in the majority of national political parties. This article makes a significant contribution to the analysis of women's representation inside ‘Europarties’ that operate at the European level. It draws on new data, including interviews with Europarties' representatives. We focus on women's representation in party leadership positions, including Spitzenkandidat:innen. We show that more women have become part of Europarties' leaderships in recent years, but that overall, men remain over‐represented, especially in right‐wing parties. We explain this development by focusing on the role of gender quotas and women's organisations in enhancing women's representation. Whereas gender quotas have increased women's presence in leadership bodies, women's organisations have not. Drawing on feminist institutionalism, we also analyse some of the informal norms and practices that have (dis)empowered women. We argue that without statutory gender quotas for governing bodies, as well as formal and transparent decision‐making processes, women risk being excluded from leadership positions.

“The Druze vote in Israel: between ideology, socioeconomic status, kinship, and the Nation-State Basic Law”

ABSTRACT This study investigates the determinants of Druze voting behaviour in Israel, focusing on three theoretical frameworks: ideological, socioeconomic, and kinship theories. Analysing electoral data from 2003 to 2022, the study examines trends in voter turnout and party preferences among the Druze community. Findings reveal a complex interplay of factors influencing Druze political choices. The ideological theory suggests that shifts in political ideology, particularly in response to legislative changes such as the 2018 Nation-State Basic Law, impact Druze voting patterns. Conversely, the socioeconomic theory posits that local economic conditions, education levels, and population demographics shape voting behaviour. Furthermore, the kinship theory highlights the significance of community ties and descriptive representation in guiding political allegiances. Through statistical analysis, the study identifies kinship ties, specifically the inclusion of Druze candidates within political parties, as the most significant predictor of Druze voter support. This suggests that community representation holds considerable sway over Druze political choices, transcending the influence of ideology and socioeconomic factors. In conclusion, while all three theories offer valuable insights, the dominance of the kinship theory underscores the importance of identity and descriptive representation in shaping Druze electoral outcomes in Israel.

Indigenous Diffuse Support and Descriptive Representation in the Canadian House of Commons

AbstractDo Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada display lower levels of diffuse support than non-Indigenous settlers? Given settler colonial relations (both historic and contemporary) and Indigenous peoples’ own political thought, we can expect that Indigenous peoples would have even lower perceptions of state legitimacy than non-Indigenous peoples. However, there are conflicting expectations regarding whether the descriptive representation of Indigenous peoples in settler institutions is likely to make a difference: on one hand, Indigenous people may see themselves reflected in these institutions and consequently feel better represented; on the other hand, these forms of representation do not challenge the underlying colonial nature of these institutions. Using data from the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Studies, our statistical analysis demonstrates that: (1) diffuse support is significantly lower among Indigenous peoples than non-Indigenous peoples, including people of color; (2) Indigenous respondents across multiple peoples have similarly low levels of diffuse support, and (3) being represented by an Indigenous Member of Parliament does not change the levels of diffuse support among Indigenous peoples. Overall, our research highlights the outstanding challenges to achieving reconciliation through the Canadian state and points to ways large-N analyses may be made more robust.

From the closet to spotlight: the rising tide of lesbian, gay and bisexual political candidacies

ABSTRACT Is there a positive sexuality gap in access to political candidacy and elected office, similar to those found in other forms of political engagement? We utilise validated data on same- and different-sex families from the Swedish administrative registry to descriptively examine long-term trends in access to political candidacy and elected office among Swedish lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) persons. With data covering twenty-four elections and a sample size of nearly seventy million individuals, our findings reveal a gradually emerging positive sexuality gap in access to political candidacy and a declining share of ‘sacrificial lambs’ among LGB candidates. We verify the robustness of these findings with the help of two original representative samples from the Swedish population. By shedding light on the existence and durability of a positive lavender gap in access to political candidacy, this study contributes to existing debates concerning the obstacles to minority political participation and descriptive representation and how they might be overcome.

Descriptive Representation and Reproductive Health Outcomes: The Role of Women Candidates in Reducing Teen Birth Rates.

Teen birth rates remain a pressing public health issue in the United States, with significant long-term health risks for both mothers and children. Previous research has primarily focused on the impact of women in elected office on reproductive health outcomes, but less is known about the influence of women candidates. This study explores the relationship between the number of women candidates in county-level elections and county-level teen birth rates, highlighting the role of women candidates as visible role models and agents of potential policy change. We utilized a dataset covering county-level elections from 2010 to 2020, along with teen birth rate data from the CDC. We employed a multilevel model to analyze the relationship between the cumulative number of women candidates and teen birth rates, controlling for socioeconomic and health-related factors, such as insurance coverage and social vulnerability. The findings indicate that as the number of women candidates increased, the estimated county-level teen birth rate declined. This effect was observed across different election years, with more substantial impacts in midterm and presidential elections. The analysis also confirmed that socioeconomic conditions, such as a lack of health insurance, contribute to higher teen birth rates. Women candidates, even when not elected, serve as important role models and influence reproductive health outcomes in their communities. Increasing the number of women candidates at the local level may be an effective strategy for reducing teen birth rates and improving public health outcomes.

Measuring Mayoral Responsiveness to Latine Lesbians and Gay Men

AbstractUsing a national audit of mayors in the United States, this paper examines responsiveness to Latine lesbian and gay constituents who request that their city issue an LGBTQ pride proclamation. Drawing on theories of intersectionality, descriptive representation, and political institutions, we articulate the conditions under which mayors are responsive to public-facing constituency service requests to issue LGBTQ pride proclamations. We find that mayors are more responsive to requests from lesbian couples than gay couples. In addition, baseline responsiveness to our inquiry was influenced by mayors’ identity characteristics. LGBTQ mayors were more likely to respond than non-LGBTQ mayors, but Latine mayors were less likely to respond than non-Latine mayors. In addition, mayors who represent cities where nondiscrimination ordinances protect LGBT people from discrimination were more responsive than mayors who represent cities where LGBT people are not protected from discrimination. These findings demonstrate how intersectional frameworks can advance audit experiments and that shared descriptive characteristics do not inevitably translate into responsiveness, a common assumption in single-axis studies of representation.

Voter attitudes and politicians with health conditions and disabilities

AbstractBackgroundMillions of Americans live with chronic health conditions and disabilities. While disability and disabling conditions are common in the United States, the number of politicians and candidates with disclosed disabilities or chronic health conditions remains extremely low.ObjectivesThis study examines what drives the lack of descriptive representation of individuals with disabilities or chronic health conditions. In particular, it examines whether disability bias, or more specifically ableism, drives voter bias against politicians with health challenges and disabilities.MethodsThe analysis relies on two original surveys with samples of American respondents that match Census quotas on key indicators. The first survey was administered to more than 1800 U.S. respondents in 2018. The second survey was administered to 6345 U.S. respondents in 2020. The approach combines observational and experimental data, as well as quantitative and qualitative analysis.ResultsThe findings reveal that voters are significantly less likely to support candidates with disclosed disabilities or health conditions. Mental illness and HIV face the strongest discrimination, while physical challenges due to birth conditions like wheelchair usage and dwarfism are the least penalized. A combination of prejudice, negative character assessment, and electability concerns drive voter bias.ConclusionUnderstanding the barriers to the election of politicians with disabilities and chronic health conditions is crucial to improve the representation of marginalized communities, as descriptive representation improves public policy outcomes for marginalized communities.

Small states’ diplomacies: changes in women’s descriptive representation in the Baltic states’ foreign services (1991–2021)

ABSTRACT By tracing gender inequality in the top leadership positions in the Baltic Ministries of Foreign Affairs and at ambassadorial levels over the past 30 years, this article provides the first historical and empirical comparison of women’s representation in the three Baltic foreign services, identifying where women have been and are presently positioned. Our examination also reveals patterns in how the Baltic diplomatic corps’ composition has changed over time, and where and why change is not visible. This empirical research draws on unique datasets collected by the authors of all Baltic ambassadorial appointments for the 1991–2021 period.

Organizational leaders and intersectional advocacy

ABSTRACT Social and economic justice organizations (SEJOs) often provide the sole form of political representation for marginalized communities in the United States. Despite broad representational claims, however, they are less likely to advocate on behalf of intersectionally disadvantaged constituents. We argue that SEJOs pursue intersectional advocacy at higher rates under conditions of descriptive representation by their leaders. We test this claim using an original dataset of bureaucratic lobbying efforts by a set of such groups between 2004 and 2014. We find that organizations led by Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color (BIWOC) and white women promote intersectional advocacy at significantly higher rates than those led by men of any race or ethnicity, but that organizational mission, rather than leadership, predicts the influence of intersectional advocacy. We conclude that while descriptively representative leadership can rectify biases in advocacy agendas, structural conditions moderate intersectional policy influence.