Traits, Competences or Policy Signals? Explaining Women's Electability

• In Event: Old and New Actors in Middle East and North African Politics

Abstract

Promoting women’s rights and ensuring female representation has been a major issue, particularly since 2000 when parliamentary gender quotas were adopted in many Arab countries. Recent studies suggest that gender role congruent attitudes are more important drivers of women’s electability than modernization or religious factors, yet existing studies do not tease out which trait, competency, or policy stereotypes are most important. To assess which mechanisms underlie voter choice for female leaders from different generations, we adapted a classic experiment conducted in the US by Leonie Huddy and Nayda Terkillsen (1993) in which we test the role of gender-trait stereotypes (i.e., gender-linked personality traits) and gender-belief stereotypes (i.e., differing political outlooks of male and female candidates) as drivers of women’s electability. Utilizing candidate photos and descriptions embedded in a survey of 1,220 Tunisians conducted in 2014 shortly after that country’s Arab spring transition, we ask respondents at random how likely they would be to vote for one of four candidates: a 35-year-old woman, 35-year-old man, 65-year-old woman, or 65-year-old man. We then ask respondents their perceptions of the candidates’ traits (how rational, decisive, nice, sensitive, and honest the candidate is); competencies (how well he or she would handle the following areas: terrorism, education, women’s rights, economic inequality, providing wasta, and representing Tunisia abroad); and policy signals (how likely the candidate would be to promote socialist policy and religion). We find that candidate age is an important factor shaping women’s electability. Overall, voters prefer younger candidates of either gender over older candidates. This may be due to the transitional experience in Tunisia in which many voters demand candidates who were not part of the previous regime. Modernization theory has little explanatory power, but stereotypes about candidates’ competencies on the economy and security help explain women’s lower popularity among some voter groups. The results have implications for understanding the disadvantages that women and other marginalized groups face at the polls and for developing mechanisms to level the playing field.

Authors

• Lindsay J. Benstead, Portland State University

• Ellen M. Lust, University of Gothenburg