How Interest, Networks & Discrimination Shape Women’s Access to Political Power

• In Event: Political Ambition

Abstract

Women lack access to positions of power across a wide set of political institutions, including elected and appointed positions. But past studies often fail to disentangle institutionalized gender discrimination (demand) from women’s (lack of) interest in specific kinds of labor and policymaking (supply). Drawing on literature on women’s committee assignments, networks and power, and socialized gender roles, we first use our original Representation on City Boards and Commissions (RCBC) dataset on women’s share of more than 40,000 appointed seats across cities to demonstrate that women are unequally assigned to appointed boards by issue area across the United States. We then introduce a new database featuring women’s and men’s applications to sit on appointed boards in local government in the United States. These data contain detailed professional, civic, and political information for more than 2,500 applicants to a variety of appointed boards in a single city over time. In contrast to past research, these data permit us to test not just whether women’s interests differ from men’s, but also if the quality of their applications, access to networks and motivations to serve vary in meaningful ways. Using this new lens into local political power offers the opportunity to test both supply and demand explanations for women’s representation in what is both a key political role and a stepping stone to further political opportunities.

Authors

• Mirya R Holman, University of Houston

• Christina Wolbrecht, University of Notre Dame

• Lakshmi Iyer, University of Notre Dame