Institutional Security and Women’s Representation in Argentina

• In Event: Representation in Comparative Legislative Politics

Abstract

A long standing assumption in the literature on women’s representation is that, once in positions of institutional power, descriptive representatives will legislate on behalf of their group’s substantive interests. While the literature finds support for the notion that female representatives will prioritize women’s substantive interests in their legislative behavior, considerable variation across women within countries exists. In this paper, we explore one factor that may explain why some women place greater emphasis on women’s issues than others. Specifically, we examine how variation in a female legislator’s sense of future institutional security—measured by her tenure in the legislature and her margin of victory in the previous election—might condition her likelihood of legislating on women’s substantive interests. We argue that female legislators with more institutional security should be more likely to deviate from the party platform and act individually on behalf of women’s substantive interests, whereas female legislators with less secure electoral futures will adhere to the party platform to bolster their chances of reelection, even to the detriment of legislating on women’s substantive interests. We test this using data on bills initiated by female legislators in Argentina from 1983-2007. The findings should help us understand better why some women are more likely to focus on women’s substantive interests in political office than others, a question often overlooked in existing studies of women’s representation.

Authors

• Kaitlin Senk, Rice University

• Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer, Rice University