Gender, Politics, & Institutional Features in the U.S. & Comparative Contexts

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel includes five papers about institutional rules and the nature of women’s political participation in the United States, Malawi, Kenya, India, and Pakistan. The dominant literature about institutional rules and the gender gap in political participation focuses on the role of quotas. The papers in this panel emphasize alternative ways that institutions shape women’s engagement in political life, focusing on the role of deliberation rules, the gender composition of groups, law enforcement actors' ability to dismiss legal cases, and the need for male guardianship to access financial institutions. Together, the papers broaden the meaning of and explanations for how institutional rules generate disparities in women’s political participation. They emphasize the role of decision-making rules, mediated access to institutions, and, more broadly, the substantial effect that seemingly benign institutional features can have on women’s political engagement. In a literature where participation is often measured as a behavioral binary, the papers contribute by demonstrating the varied nature of political engagement and how institutional rules can differentially shape these various forms of interaction with the state.

In their paper titled “Electoral Quotas and Intersectional Discrimination: A Lab-in-field Experiment on Leadership Selection in Kenya,” Foong, Humphreys, and Kasara use a lab-in-the-field experiment to understand factors influencing intersectional discrimination in collective decision-making processes. Their paper complicates the literature about the effects of quotas by asking if and how gender quotas increase intersectional discrimination. They also ask whether collective decision-making, as opposed to private decision-making, affects the strength and patterns of discrimination and intersectional discrimination. This paper expands our understanding of double discrimination, a topic primarily examined in the U.S. context.

In a second paper, titled “Gender, Deliberation, and Natural Resource Governance: Experimental Evidence from Malawi,” Clayton et al. examine liberties bodies’ composition and how this affects the nature of deliberation in the case of natural resource governance in Malawi. Particularly, they randomize the gender composition of citizen action groups tasked with discussing deforestation policies to examine how group gender composition affects group deliberations and women’s political efficacy. Understanding the effects of women’s representation in natural resource governance bodies is particularly important in the context of Malawi, given Malawi’s loosely enforced gender quotas in land administration institutions and the country’s current deforestation crisis.

In their paper, “Why Discussion Rules Matter for Representation: Experimental Evidence from India,” Brulé, Chauchard, and Heinze also examine the nature of deliberation by offering evidence against the commonly held assumption that elected officials from disadvantaged and dominant groups are equally influential once in office. Through an original survey of 600 Indian village councils, they find that female village council presidents elected through quotas have less decision-making influence in village councils relative to their male counterparts. The second portion of their paper tests whether changing formal rules of discussion can decrease this gender gap in political influence in collective decision-making processes.

A fourth paper, titled “Common Exceptions: Understanding the U.S. Legal System's Differential Treatment of Sexual Violence Cases,” by Madison Dalton, seeks to understand why the state executes its protective functions in a gendered manner. The author presents evidence that democratically elected U.S. chief prosecutors dismiss sexual violence cases at a high rate relative to commensurate violent crimes, despite sufficient evidence for prosecution and victim cooperation. Based on an original survey of U.S respondents, the author finds this low prosecution of sexual violence cases runs counter to public preferences. The remainder of the paper asks why the public has failed to hold key legal actors accountable for acting counter to public preferences.

Finally, a fifth paper, titled “When do gatekeepers support women’s autonomy? Evidence from a field experiment in Pakistan,” by Natalya Adam-Rahman, examines when male gatekeepers are likely to support women’s access to financial institutions that facilitate transportation. The paper runs a recruitment experiment to test the circumstances under which male gatekeepers facilitate women’s financial access to a motorbike training program. The findings of this study will have implications for women’s autonomy, as women often need male guarantors to access financial institutions, including microfinance organizations.

Our panel presents an opportunity to put subfields of political science, particularly Comparative Politics and American Politics, into conversation with one another.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Common Exceptions: The Under-Prosecution of Sexual Violence Cases in the U.S. - Madison Dalton, Stanford University

• When Do Gatekeepers Support Women’s Autonomy? Experimental Evidence from Karachi - Natalya Adam-Rahman, Stanford University

• Gender, Deliberation, and Natural Resource Governance - Amanda Clayton, UC Berkeley; Amanda Lea Robinson, Ohio State University; Katrina Kosec, IFPRI; Boniface Madalitso Dulani, Michigan State University

• Electoral Quotas & Intersectional Discrimination: Leadership Selection in Kenya - Jonah Foong; Macartan Humphreys, WZB; Kimuli Kasara, Columbia University

• Why Discussion Rules Matter for Representation: Experimental Evidence from India - Rachel E. Brule, Boston University; Simon Chauchard, University Carlos 3 of Madrid; Alyssa Heinze, University of California, Berkeley

Chair

• Soledad Artiz Prillaman Stanford University

Discussants

• Mirya R Holman University of Houston

• Bonnie M. Meguid University of Rochester