Why Do Women Reduce Corruption? Voter Stereotypes Across European Regions

• In Event: Gendered Political Economy

Abstract

Previous research shows that citizens perceive women in positions of power as more effective than men holding similar positions. Barnes, Beaulieu and Saxton (2018) demonstrate this in an experiment focusing the Mexican police force and Barnes and Beaulieu (2019) in an experiment focusing the U.S. House of Representatives. These studies find that information about women’s outsider status and risk aversion strengthens this effect, and also that there are gender difference between respondents. Most studies to date however, focus on one or a few contexts thereby limiting our understanding of how contextual differences may influence citizens’ expectations on women candidates.

This study builds on previous studies in the gender and corruption field and investigate why and where citizens perceive women candidates as more effective. Specifically we test whether women political candidates are perceived as less likely to engage in corruption based on the following assumptions: Women candidates may be perceived to be more risk averse and therefore less likely to engage in criminal behavior such as corruption or they may be seen as less likely to engage in corruption because they are marginalized and therefore excluded from male dominated and corrupt elite networks However, women may also on average be seen to have a different political agenda than men and therefore be expected to be more invested in well-functioning (and low corrupt) public services (Bauhr et al 2019). This latter mechanism has received much less attention in experimental studies to date. Furthermore, previous research suggest that the extent to which institutions operate impartially, or societal levels of corruption, influence voter expectations on their elected representatives

Our study builds on newly collected data from a unique survey experiment fielded among a representative sample of citizens in 231 EU regions using the 2020 EQI survey and investigates voter stereotypes about why women candidates reduce corruption and their perceived electoral viability as mayors. Respondents were randomly assigned into one of four groups (one control group) where they respectively received a treatment linked to (i) women’s outsider status (ii) women’s risk aversion and (iii) women’s policy agenda (being more concerned about providing good public services, such as health and childcare).

Our preliminary results show interesting variation in the extent to which citizens are guided by these stereotypes about women candidates across European regions. We find that citizens who perceive high levels of impartiality in their institutions are less convinced about women’s anticorruption potential, while citizens who perceive that favoritism and partiality is the norm are more likely to believe in the beneficial effect of women candidates. We also find that the relative importance of the three stereotypes investigated varies across contexts. While results are still in a preliminary stage, we believe that this study will substantially enhance our understanding of citizens’ perceptions of women representatives, and thereby also their expectations on why, how and where women candidates may contribute towards lower levels of corruption.

Authors

• Monika Bauhr, University of Gothenburg

• Nicholas Charron, Goteburg University

• Lena Wangnerud, University of Gothenburg