Do Minority Leaders Face Harsher Penalties for Imperfections in U.S. Elections?

• In Event: Gender and Voting Behavior

Abstract

Women and racial and ethnic minority politicians have been increasingly visible in U.S. politics. Nevertheless, white and male politicians make up a disproportionate share of elected office relative to their share of the general population. In this paper, we contribute to the growing research on how voter bias may harm minorities in political leadership, thereby hindering greater gender and racial representation in the United States. Specifically, we examine if American voters hold female and racial or ethnic minorities to a different standard compared to their male and white counterparts. We employ two novel experiments, focusing on features of politics and voting behavior that have been largely overlooked in previous research.

The first question we address is whether or not American voters judge female politicians differently compared to their male counterparts. A large body of empirical research suggests that the answer is no—that women and men have reached parity in society. Yet, women continue to be underrepresented in politics. We posit that one critical oversight of previous gender and politics studies is that they have largely examined whether voters evaluate female and male candidates differently based on non-negative qualities (i.e., positive or neutral characteristics), neglecting the fact that real-world campaigns often center around exposing and highlighting candidates’ flaws. We study whether voters react in a gendered manner to a wide range of candidate flaws that represent violation of common leadership traits that have been noted as being important in previous studies.

Additionally, we ask the same question pertaining to reactions to candidate flaws for racial and ethnic minorities, an under-explored area of research. Research on the types of biases voters have and how such biases affect assessments of politicians of color are relatively scarce. Like women, racial and ethnic minorities may be hindered by certain preconceptions voters hold. For example, it is possible that flaws may be exaggerated in the mind when a candidate is not white, as certain flaws may confirm preconceptions voters have about racial minorities. We add to this emerging body of literature by incorporating an examination of the differential effects of candidate critiques on voting behavior by candidate race in two hypothetical candidate choice experiments.

We also depart from other studies in that we examine the effect of critiques that unfold in a sequential manner. This is important because of the nature of how information is conveyed to voters. Unlike extant candidate studies that generally focus on voters' response to a one-shot exposure of candidate qualities, we devote some attention to how sequential exposure to candidates' characteristics affects voters' evaluations of the candidates, and document the change in candidate assessments with each additional piece of information about the candidate. To our knowledge, this study is the first to assess the effects of conveying sequential information in vote choice experiments.

Lastly, we examine if differential penalties by gender manifest different patterns by race. Some scholars argue that the interaction of race and gender mitigates both racial bias and gender bias. Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach (2008) refer to this as “intersectionality invisibility” whereby individuals can easily escape many of the discriminatory practices that target their groups compared to members who more closely fit the prototypes of these groups. On the contrary, it is possible that minority women face double disadvantages in politics (King, 1988). More empirical research on intersectionality of race and gender is necessary. We pay attention to the role that these various dimensions play empirically in our hypothetical candidate choice experiments to shed light onto how the race, ethnicity and gender of political leaders shape voting behavior.

Cited Works

King, D. K. (1988). Multiple jeopardy, multiple consciousness: The context of a Black feminist ideology. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 14(1), 42-72.

Purdie-Vaughns, V., & Eibach, R. P. (2008). Intersectional invisibility: The distinctive advantages and disadvantages of multiple subordinate-group identities. Sex roles, 59(5-6), 377-391.

Authors

• Soosun You, University of California, Berkeley

• Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, UC Berkeley