Double-Duty Politics: How Electing Ethnic Minority Women Can Keep Ethnic Majority Men in Power

• In Event: 339 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender. Gender, Politics, and Power

Abstract

Politicians elected to national office are increasingly diverse. Nevertheless, men from majority racial, ethnic, and religious groups continue to dominate national politics in most countries. In this paper, I investigate one of the mechanisms that contributes to the persistent overrepresentation of majority men in national legislatures and executive ministries around the world: double-duty politics – the strategic political incorporation of women from marginalized groups because of their doubly marginalized status. I suggest that because women from marginalized groups can add to diversity along more than one axis of inequality at once, their political inclusion maximizes diversity while also leaving the greatest space for majority men. I look for empirical evidence of double-duty politics, which is most likely to when ethnic minority women are represented at levels significantly higher than ethnic majority women and/or ethnic minority men. Here, I focus on Burundi and Vietnam. Ultimately, this research offers a new take on why—even in the face of intensifying pressure for change—majority men remain overrepresented in democratic politics worldwide.

Author

• Melanie M. Hughes, University of Pittsburgh