(iPoster) A Seat at the Table? Marginalized Groups in Latin American Legislatures

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Political Science Education & Race, Ethnicity, and Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Race, Ethnicity, and Politics in an International Perspective

Abstract

Across Latin America, institutional reforms such as gender quotas and ethnic reserved seats have aimed to expand the political presence of historically marginalized groups. Yet even where these mechanisms exist, their effects on substantive representation remain uneven. This project examines the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation for women, Indigenous peoples, and Afro descendants, asking: why does the descriptive presence of marginalized groups translate into different levels of agenda setting power across countries and across groups—and how does the same group experience varying substantive influence across distinct national contexts? In other words, what explains variation in women’s, Indigenous, and Afro descendant substantive representation within groups across Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil?
I argue that the presence of legislators from marginalized groups increases the likelihood that issues relevant to those communities are introduced onto the legislative agenda; however, the strength of this relationship is conditioned by partisanship and institutional factors. Drawing on the theory of political presence, I conceptualize substantive representation as agenda setting power, operationalized through the initiation of bills related to women’s rights, Indigenous peoples’ interests, and Afro descendants’ interests. Because the three cases differ in the size and political salience of Indigenous and Afro descendant populations, the design and enforcement of inclusion mechanisms, and partisan structures, I expect meaningful within group cross country variation. For example, differences in Afro descendant agenda setting across all three cases.
Methodologically, the study adopts a legislator year unit of analysis, which captures the high turnover characteristic of Latin American legislatures and allows legislative behavior to vary across time. This approach aligns with established scholarship noting the region’s high rates of parliamentary circulation and the analytical advantages of structuring observations by year rather than by congressional session. The dataset covers 1998–2024 for Brazil and Colombia and 2009–2024 for Ecuador, examining bill initiation in each lower house or unicameral chamber.
The dependent variable, the number of gender related or ethno racial minority related bills initiated by a legislator each year, is modeled using an event count framework. Because I anticipate an abundance of zeros, I employ zero inflated negative binomial regression, which is well suited to differentiating structural zeros from stochastic zeros in legislative data. To reduce multicollinearity and maintain clarity across group specific agendas, I run separate models for each outcome (women related bills, Indigenous related bills, Afro descendant related bills). Descriptive representation is measured using both inclusion mechanisms (e.g., legislated gender quotas, reserved seats, and special districts) and the numerical presence of women, Indigenous peoples, and Afro descendants in the legislature. Substantive representation is measured through original keyword based content analysis of bill titles and summaries.
This study fills a critical gap in the literature by providing one of the few comparative analyses of descriptive and substantive representation for multiple marginalized groups across different institutional contexts. The design allows me to test whether increases in descriptive representation correspond to increases in group relevant bill initiation and to identify why the magnitude of this relationship differs across countries for the same group. For example, whether Afro descendant legislators in Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil exhibit similar or distinct agenda setting effects and whether those differences are driven by inclusion mechanisms, partisan alignment, or broader institutional contexts.
By centering within group cross country variation, this project offers several contributions to the study of political inclusion and representation. It clarifies the conditions under which inclusion mechanisms such as gender quotas, reserved seats, and special electoral districts translate descriptive presence into agenda setting power. It also advances understanding of how institutional design and party dynamics shape the substantive influence of women, Indigenous peoples, and Afro descendants across distinct national contexts. More broadly, the findings shed new light on how the incorporation of historically marginalized communities restructures legislative priorities and how their participation affects the depth and quality of democratic practice in the region.

Author

• Kim Jacks, University of Alabama