PUBLISHED and forthcoming
Acquarone, Iris E. and Gonzalo Di Landro. “Historically Marginalized Groups and Ideological Representation in Legislatures.” Legislative Studies Quarterly. 2024. 00(0): 1–8. [Appendix] [Replication]
Public facing @Razones y Personas
SELECTED WORK IN PROGRESS
Winner of the Rebecca Morton Poster Award
2024, Rebecca B. Morton Conference on Experimental Political Science, New York UniversityHonorable Mention, Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior Section Best Paper Award
2024, American Political Science Association
Representation is diversifying with the inclusion of multiple marginalized groups. Despite the costs of inclusion and candidate selectors' biases, recent work emphasizes it as a vote-seeking strategy. Why, of all strategies to gain support, would traditionally dominant elites choose to include candidates from backgrounds other than their own? I posit that the salience of marginalization within electoral contexts makes strategically inclusive parties opt for inclusion when electoral incentives align, such as when navigating uncertain scenarios, struggling electorally, and when voters explicitly favor it. 2x2 between- and within-subjects elite experiments with party gatekeepers in Uruguay show that the salience of marginalization drives the inclusion of women, minority, and youth candidates when parties face: (1) declining performance, (2) opportunities to select multiple candidates, and (3) demands for inclusion. This uncovers a new mechanism for descriptive representation, highlighting how electoral contexts shape elite decision-making: marginalization salience and electoral incentives interact fostering inclusive representation.
How diverse are political institutions? Despite the theoretical and political relevance of this question, there is no standard measure of diversity in political institutions, limiting systematic research on diversity of representation. To address this gap, I introduce the Diversity of Representation Index (DORI), a multidimensional metric that quantifies diversity within political institutions by considering the variety and balance of represented groups and the proportionality of their representation relative to their population size—i.e., their descriptive representation. Using examples from national parliaments in Canada and Germany, and data on the presence of women and African Americans in all 50 U.S. state legislatures and their populations from 2009 to 2021, I illustrate DORI's application and properties. I demonstrate the significance of assessing diversity and explore its implications for policy outcomes. DORI offers a valuable tool for representation studies, enabling empirical analysis of the multidimensional nature of political representation.
Does the electoral context shape the candidate supply among marginalized groups, and if so, how? Women, racialized groups, and youth have had lower political ambition and candidacy rates largely due to socioeconomic and political marginalization, yet the increased salience of such marginalization within electoral contexts has paralleled a surge in candidates from these groups. I argue that, alongside supply- and demand-side determinants, contexts marked by the salience of identity-based marginalization act as catalysts for political ambition and candidate emergence among marginalized groups. Survey experiments and a quasi-experimental analysis of U.S. state legislative elections demonstrate that the salience of marginalization within electoral contexts increases marginalized individuals' interest in running, nascent political ambition, and candidate emergence. Explicit public support for inclusion further enhances these effects, and key mechanisms include self-perceptions of qualifications, political efficacy, and electability. This research uncovers context as a new determinant of interest in office, shaping the candidate supply.
4. District Magnitude and Political Empowerment as Incentives for Minority Candidate Emergence
(with Matthew Hayes).
(with Matthew Hayes).
Political scientists have maintained a longstanding interest in enhancing minority representation in American politics. However, minority candidate emergence as the precursor to representation has been largely overlooked. We argue that district magnitude and political empowerment are key institutional drivers influencing historically marginalized group members' decisions to run for office in the United States. Drawing on an original dataset on African American's presence in office and candidate pools, district demographics, and electoral institutions, combined with candidate emergence data for most 2018 and 2020 state legislative elections, we show that African American candidates are more likely to emerge in multi-member state legislative districts and when politically empowered across various posts. These findings have important implications for understanding how institutions shape candidate emergence incentives and, ultimately, descriptive representation, and contribute to the renewed upsurge in electoral reform discussion in the United States.