Politics of Interruption: Consequences of Interruptions on Legislative Speeches

• In Event: Poster Session: Women and Politics Research

Abstract

Floor time is a valuable commodity for legislators but there are marked gender differences when it comes to gaining access and participation. The literature has found that congresswomen wait longer to speak than congressmen and deliver fewer speeches than men (Kathlene 1994; Osborn and Mendez 2010), particularly when debates deal with topics that can be characterized as masculine (Bäck et al. 2014; Bäck and Debus 2018). This behavior is in line with Karpowitz and Mendelger's (2014) work that shows similar results in controlled experimental settings, adding the impact this gender gap has on perceived influence. Even in contexts where this is not the case, research has shown that women, unlike men, do not gain floor time as they gain positions of power (Brescoll 2011). We know that social and psychological barriers affect women's participation in all realms of politics. However, still missing from the literature are the mechanisms that lead to unequal access and participation within deliberative institutions. What affects the participation of women on the plenary floor?

Mendelberg et al. (2014) show that the interaction of individuals within deliberative bodies can enhance or undermine women's status in deliberation. We expand this line of research and analyze how interruptions to speeches affect a legislator's floor time and access. Interruptions can have a negative, silencing effect on lower-status groups, as well as a negative effect on the decision-making influence of the person being interrupted (Mendelberg et al. 2014; Karpowitz and Mendelger 2014). We argue that interruptions in the legislature act as communication signals that can harm the reputation of legislators. This signal is not the same for all legislators. Since legislatures are gendered institutions (Rosenthal 2002; Duerst-Lahti 2002; Schwindt-Bayer 2010) where norms of masculinity prevail, women are more likely to receive a signal that can harm their reputation, prompting them to strategically change their behavior (i.e. constrain the length of their speech) to avoid being interrupted a second time or, more generally, to avoid being interrupted altogether. Since the type of signal (interruption) sent is contingent on the status of the legislator receiving it, women in positions of authority should either be able to dismiss the cost of an interruption or receive a signal that does not challenge their reputation.

Using new data on legislative debates in Ecuador between 1988 and 2018, we show how congresswomen and congressmen react differently to interruptions, and how, unlike men, women change their behavior when interrupted. While women are less likely to be interrupted than men, interruptions silence women at a higher rate. On average, women receive harsher signals from the moderator than men, and have more dire consequences from interruptions than men, prompting congresswomen to closely follow the legislative procedure in part by self-limiting their floor time. Contrary, men are less risk-averse and speak for longer, suggesting they care less about interruptions (and their consequence) either because the signal sent by the moderator is more subdued, or because their reputation is less affected by it. These results are not limited to procedural transgressions. An extension of our analysis also finds that women who ``talk like men’’, or women who challenge through language the socially prescribed gender roles, are interrupted more often than men. High reputation, however, appears to be the great equalizer. Chairwomen and senior female members of Congress have, across the board, a similar behavior to that of their male counterparts, revealing either how political status changes the signal from the mediator or the cost of interruption has a proportionally smaller effect on the reputation of a high-reputation politician.

All the results obtained speak to the broader theme of the descriptive and substantive representation of women. We shed light on the mechanisms whereby gender bias affects women's representation in the legislature and political institutions more generally. As Taylor-Robinson (2014) writes, ``we have built a strong base of knowledge about how women get into the legislature and have begun to gather a base […] about what women do inside the legislature.’’ We address the latter, exploring a mechanism through which bias is generated in a gendered legislature. Furthermore, we show the importance of women accessing positions of authority within the legislature to gain space for equitable participation in the political process and, hopefully, equitable representation as well.

Authors

• Sebastian Vallejo Vera, Tecnologico de Monterrey

• Analía Gómez Vidal, Inter-American Development Bank