Substantive Representation Research Articles

New media for the new electorate? Congressional outreach to Latinos on Twitter

ABSTRACT Over the last decade, Latinos have exercised rapidly growing influence in elections. This trend has coincided with the closing of the so-called digital divide between Anglos and Latinos and increased use of social media platforms for constituency outreach by members of Congress. Leveraging a battery of indicators associated with Latino outreach by U.S. representatives in communications via Twitter throughout the 112th Congress (the first “tweeting” Congress), we demonstrate that representatives pursue digital home styles oriented toward specific demographic constituencies, and, furthermore, reveal that representative ethnicity shapes Twitter outreach to Latinos in ways that have important implications for the substantive representation of Latinos. Our findings build on previous research which to date has largely presumed that Twitter outreach is characterized by relatively homogenous in-party communication patterns, and has identified only limited evidence that representative ethnicity impacts digital home style.

One Step Forwards, Two Steps Back: Women’s Rights 20 Years after the Good Friday Agreement

Despite the relatively unusual (by global standards) involvement of women in negotiations to the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), it is generally recognised that gender has been marginalised both in the descriptive and substantive representation of women in conflict transformation. Twenty years after the Agreement, this article discusses and reflects on the implications of the exclusion of gender policy issues both for women and wider society. Within the agreement itself women are only briefly mentioned with regard to political participation, and the institutional structures created from the GFA through their very design deprioritise any identity cleavage which is not ethno-national. In addition to impacting on the representation of women in formal politics, gendered issues such as gender-based violence either become sectarianised or marginalised, but ultimately remain unresolved. The article addresses the potential for developing and creating gender-sensitive policy concluding that processes of civic engagement and mobilisation offer increasing potential to disrupt the limitations of the overarching macro-political institutional structures.

The Wielding Influence of Political Networks: Representation in Majority-Latino Districts

Latino-majority congressional districts are far more likely to elect Latino representatives to Congress than majority-white districts. However, not all majority-Latino districts do so. This paper addresses this question, and it investigates how the level of influence of political parties and interest groups in majority-Latino districts substantially shapes Latino representation to the US House of Representatives. I rely on five case studies and a dataset of candidates to open congressional races with a Latino population plurality from 2004 to 2014. The evidence indicates that groups and political networks are critical for Latina/o candidate recruitment, the organization of resources in a congressional district, the deployment of campaign resources on behalf of certain candidates, and the eventual success of Latina/o candidates. The findings suggest that Latino descriptive and substantive representation are shaped by the wielding influence of political parties and interest groups.

Advocating Policy Interests in Local Politics : Women’s Substantive Representation in Japan and South Korea

Advocating Policy Interests in Local Politics : Women’s Substantive Representation in Japan and South Korea

Ethnicization or de-ethnicization? Hungarian political representation in the Romanian parliament

The main goal of the paper is to understand how substantive representation of minorities works through ethnic parties and what the relationship between substantive and descriptive representation is in this specific case. Focus on the traditional understanding of substantive representation is common when analyzing the representation of minorities and marginalized groups, but only a few studies look at the substantive representation of national minorities from a constructivist approach, and even fewer are centered on Central and Eastern Europe. The paper argues that besides ethnicizing their demands, representatives of minorities have a wide array of strategies to achieve their goals. Using the parliamentary representation of Hungarians in Romania as a case study, I show that the strategies chosen in ethnic claims-making are context-dependent: ethnicizing messages are used only in specific cases, while de-ethnicization is applied in debates thought to be important for their community. These are part of a ba...

Conceptual and methodological challenges in the study of symbolic representation – an introduction

ABSTRACTHow is symbolic representation to be conceptualized and empirically examined? There is no unique answer to this question and each of its possible answers raises particular methodological challenges. The Dialogues section “Investigating symbolic representation” explores new directions for theorizing about and empirically investigating symbolic representation. This collection of contributions seeks to advance the study of symbolic representation in three key ways. Firstly, we suggest that gender politics scholars need to conceptually clarify how symbolic representation should be understood. Secondly, this concern leads us to examining in a more systematic way what are the expected links between symbolic representation and the other two dimensions of political representation Pitkin distinguished – descriptive and substantive representation. Thirdly, we call gender and politics scholars to critically engage with the question about which methods and research tools may allow us to effectively grasp symbolic representation at the empirical level.

Capturing in words what a symbol symbolizes? Challenges for studying symbolic representation from a discursive approach

ABSTRACTStudying symbolic representation is not only relevant, but also challenging. Hanna Pitkin [1967. The Concept of Representation. CA: University of California Press, 97] already warned us that “[w]e can never exhaust, never quite capture in words, the totality of what a symbol symbolizes: suggests, evokes, implies.” We will discuss the opportunities and challenges we encountered in our study of symbolic representation from a discursive politics approach, where we took political discourse as the agent. A discursive approach has allowed us to study symbolic representation as a dimension of representation per se, and to unpack the relation between agent and principal in symbolic representation by revealing the activity of constructing meanings and ascribing them to the principal. Yet, a number of questions arise: what makes a symbol a symbol and what does this mean for a discursive approach to symbols? What makes symbolic representation different from substantive representation when the agent is of a discursive nature? And what methodological challenges does the broadening of the agent in symbolic representation to discourse include?

That's what friends are for: how intergroup friendships promote historically disadvantaged groups' substantive political representation.

The interests of historically disadvantaged groups risk being overlooked if they are not present in the decision-making process. However, a mere presence in politics does not guarantee political success. Often groups need allies to promote their interests successfully. We argue that one way to identify such allies is to judge politicians by whether they have friends in historically disadvantaged groups, as intergroup friendships have been shown to make people understand and feel empathy for outgroups. In other words, intergroup friendships may function as an important complement to descriptive representation. We test our argument with a unique survey that asks all elected political representatives in Sweden's 290 municipalities (response rate 79 per cent) about their friendship ties to, and their representation of, five historically disadvantaged groups: women, immigrants, youths, pensioners and blue-collar workers. We find a strong correlation between representatives' friendship ties to these groups and their commitment to represent them. The correlation is especially strong for youths and blue-collar workers, which likely can be explained by the fact that these groups usually lack crucial political resources (such as experience and education). We conclude that friendship ties function as an important complement to descriptive representation for achieving substantive representation.

Explaining the political under-representation of Asian Australians: geographical concentration and voting patterns

ABSTRACTIn terms of Asian Migrant and Ethnic Minority (MEM) representation, the Australian Parliament is one of the most unrepresentative when compared to other similar settler societies such as Canada and the United States. This article examines why the Australian Parliament still predominantly comprises members of parliament from British and European Backgrounds despite Australia’s rich multicultural heritage involving a long history of non-British and European migration. One of the main reasons put forward for the low participation of Asian migrant and ethnic minorities in the Australian Parliament is the lack of geographical concentration of Asian migrants and the declining importance of the ‘ethnic vote’, which in other similar settler countries has led to the selection and recruitment of MEM candidates to competitive seats. This article explores the geographical concentration of Asian migrants in competitive seats as well as voting patterns among Asian Australians using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Election Studies. In doing so, this research considers whether there is potential for the incorporation of MEM interests in the future through descriptive and substantive representation.

The Influence of Women Legislators on State Health Care Spending for the Poor

In the realm of representational politics, research exploring the relationship between descriptive representation and substantive representation is conflicted with some scholars finding policy outcomes influenced by the presence of women in office and others displaying a complicated or null relationship. We enter the discussion by investigating the effect of increased representation of women across state legislatures on state health care spending for poor children, the disabled, and elders, issues which disproportionately affect women. Using a 50-state dataset spanning from 1999 to 2009 we find that spending is indeed more generous when the number of women representatives is substantial, regardless of party. This generosity, however, is conditional upon the presence of considerable aggregate need. The findings suggest that contextual factors must be considered when exploring the influence of women on policy outcomes.

An easy concession or meaningful representation? Minority women in French politics

Why have minority women in France made more strides than minority men in terms of gaining access to formal political power? Why have they become, in essence, the face of diversity in French politics at the elite national level? In this article, I propose that minority women’s rise to power has been anything but accidental and is the deliberate consequence of a system cognizant of the need to diversify politics, but institutionally and ideologically underprepared to do so. Because Republican assimilation obviates the formal recognition of minorities in the public sphere, politicians have strategically opted to include minority women in greater numbers than minority men on national electoral party lists and Cabinets in order to satisfy the de facto requirement of minority representation in the “safest” way possible. More specifically, I propose that politicians across the ideological spectrum often consider minority women ideal candidates specifically for their ability to serve a uniquely dual political purpose. On the one hand, minority women are visible enough to satisfy the basic need for minority descriptive representation. On the other hand, minority women are also deemed more “assimilable” than men and therefore not too “visible” to actively threaten Republican ideals or alienate conservative voters. Finally, if minority women are favored precisely because they promise not to dramatically rattle the status quo, this paper suggests that their increasing political presence will struggle to facilitate concomitant progress in the substantive representation of minorities in France.

Making the absent present: Political parties and emigrant issues in country of origin parliaments

A growing number of countries have granted their emigrant citizens the right to vote in homeland elections from afar. Yet, there is little understanding of the extent to which emigration issues are visible in the subsequent legislative processes of policymaking and representation. Based on an original data set of parliamentary activities in Spain, Italy, France and Romania, this article analyses why political parties pay attention to emigrants. To that end, we propose a conceptual framework which draws on both theories of issue salience and substantive representation. Bridging these two frameworks allows us bring in both parties (salience) and constituencies (representation) in the analysis of the linkage between electorates and parliaments at a transnational level. We test a series of hypotheses and find that parties are more likely to focus on emigration issues the stronger their electoral incentives and in the context of electoral systems allowing the emigrants to elect special emigrant representatives.

Voting locally abstaining nationally: descriptive representation, substantive representation and minority voters’ turnout

ABSTRACTDo disadvantaged minorities turnout less when they have descriptive yet not substantive representation? When minorities have descriptive representation, their representatives’ activities and preferences might not necessarily increase minorities’ public goods’ access. With substantive representation, minority representatives pursue policies that improve minorities’ public goods’ provisions. We claim that voters’ calculus might decrease turnout in the first case and increase it in the latter case. We examine this claim in the Israeli context focusing on the Arab-Muslim minority in Israel and comparing it to the Jewish majority and Druze minority. We show that different minority representation qualities in different institutions induce different turnout behaviours across institutions within the same minority. Specifically, Muslim Arabs decreased their turnout in national elections and increased it in local elections.

Are (populist) radical right parties Männerparteien? Evidence from Bulgaria

This paper focuses on the representation of women in radical right parties and examines the often assumed relationship between the radical right and gender, namely that radical right parties are overwhelmingly ran, supported by, and representing the male part of the population. Using data from elections, party platforms, and parliamentary committees the paper asks ‘Are PRR parties Männerparteien?’ Using data from Bulgaria, we suggest that the Männerparteien argument is too simplistic and argue that in order to make a claim about representation, one needs to study both female and male MPs and across all party families. We find that while radical right parties are still primarily composed of men, an examination of the substantive representation of women’s issues, puts this relationship into question. Furthermore, we show that while men outnumber women in all political parties, both radical right women and men have been more active in women’s issues than their gender counterparts from other political parties. These findings suggest two things: one, we cannot study gender equality matters without comparing the activity of both men and women; and two, the classification of radical right parties as Männerparteien based on descriptive representation only, is too simplistic and to an extent, misleading.

Great Expectations: Gender and Political Representation in the Pacific Islands

Women make up just 6.1 per cent of Pacific parliamentarians. Increasing women’s representation is a key area of focus for political leaders and aid donors, both as a human rights issue and as a vehicle for the substantive representation of women. Women’s participation in politics in the Pacific Islands is often seen as a form of social contract between women. Female voters are expected to vote for female candidates. In exchange, female parliamentarians are expected to act, not just for the constituency that elected them, but for women as a group. This article examines the expectations that are placed on the political participation of Pacific women, and argues that attempts to increase women’s participation in politics in the region should avoid reinforcing these expectations through an emphasis on substantive representation.

Climbing the Ladder of Participation: Symbolic or Substantive Representation in Preparing Uganda for REDD+?

The United Nations (UN) and World Bank programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Deforestation (REDD) plus improving forest governance (REDD+) promotes carbon-emission reductions and sustainable forest management. The World Bank and the UN require developing countries to prepare for REDD+ via a consultation process with input from indigenous and forest-dependent peoples. This article focuses on stakeholder consultations carried out under the Ugandan REDD+ preparation process, examining whether these fulfill the conditions necessary for substantive local democratic representation. The article shows that even though REDD+ claims to be democratic and participatory, the Uganda program allows the input of only a few selected stakeholders – mainly the government actors and a limited number of NGOs. Further, despite claiming to be democratic and participatory, the program privileges REDD+'s programmatic goals over democratic procedures. In this context, the REDD+ consultations serve largely to—1) 'educate' the participants to secure their support in implementing the 'technical' aspects of the programme, 2) help the government to legitimise its REDD+ strategy; and 3) speed up the implementation of the REDD+ programme despite the lack of substantive representation.

Substantive Black Political Representation: Evidence from Matching Estimates in the United States House of Representatives

I seek to determine whether race is a factor in how black representatives vote in the United States House of Representatives; if so, this suggests electing more black representatives may improve the economic and political position of blacks if policy positions taken by black representatives on bills that fail to pass would provide tangible positive impacts to members of the black community if passed. Confounding the impact of legislator race, districts represented by blacks on average are quite different than those represented by whites. While past research on this topic uses linear regression techniques with undesirable properties, I improve on past research using matching techniques with more desirable properties. Utilizing a combination of Mahalanobis and propensity score matching, within-caliper matching, and exact matching using data from the 100th–113th Congress, I show black representatives are more likely to vote in agreement with the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus on all votes and on Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Americans for Democratic Action, and Congressional Quarterly key votes, indicating a substantive racial impact on roll-call voting.

Gendering security: The substantive representation of women in the Israeli parliament

The study focuses on the links between gender and national security in the legislative arena in Israel, considering whether men and women legislators prioritize security differently, alongside other thematic policy areas. The centrality of national security issues in Israeli politics makes it a good case study for these questions, as it enhances existing gendered stereotypes. The article examines two competing hypotheses. The first suggests that Israeli female legislators will mostly refrain from addressing national security policy issues, focusing instead on softer policy issues, such as gender equality, education, health, and welfare. The second suggests the opposite, claiming that women legislators in Israel will align themselves with their male counterparts’ set of priorities, focusing heavily on issues related to national security. The study finds support mostly for the former: Israeli female legislators are especially active in policy areas relating to women’s issues and children/family and are less active in regard to national security, a policy area heavily dominated by male legislators.

The gendered leeway: male privilege, internal and external mandates, and gender-equality policy change

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the question of why male politicians continue to be relatively unlikely to act in favor of gender-equality policy change, despite the advances in gender equality in recent decades. Drawing together literature on men and masculinities, feminist institutionalism and women’s substantive representation, we present a theoretical argument in which we distinguish between an internal and an external mandate to push for gender-equality policy change. We argue that both these mandates apply to female politicians but not to their male colleagues. As a consequence, a gendered leeway exists: men have more leeway than women in political maneuvering. We illustrate this argument by analyzing high-ranked party representatives within the self-labelled feminist Swedish Social Democratic Party. This article contributes theoretically to the launching of a research agenda on the role of men in processes of gender-equality policy adoption.

Immigrant Representation in the Swedish Parliament: Towards Homogeneity or United Diversity?

Abstract The current study explores how immigrants are represented within the two largest political parties in Sweden, the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party. Apart from exploring the descriptive representation of immigrants in the Swedish parliament, this article explores whether immigrant representation in the two parties in question results in visible diversity in views on immigration and in particular asylum politics. We are predominantly interested in exploring whether immigrant parliamentarians, who might have identities and experiences differing from the majority of the parliamentarians, represent views departing from the general party lines. The theoretical underpinnings of the article are based on an intersectionality approach and historical and feminist institutionalism, specifically the politics of presence, which explores the link between a critical mass in politics and critical acts or substantive representation. The first findings of the study, which have been reached primarily through a qualitative comparative analysis of survey material, are mixed. The number of Social Democratic and Moderate immigrant parliamentarians does not reach the level of foreign-born citizens in Sweden. Nevertheless, there appears to be room for diverse views on immigration and asylum politics that depart from the general party lines in both parties.