How Political Participation Leads to Agency: Theory and Evidence from India

• In Event: Agency and Choice in Women's Political Participation

Abstract

Recent research suggests that women are often dependent on their household for their political participation, particularly in settings where they lack the individual-level resources – such as education, political knowledge, networks, and mobility – usually associated with participation. However, this raises important questions about women’s agency in voting. If households mobilize female turnout instrumentally simply because votes are valuable household assets, does that mean that women are mere puppets in the electoral process, used by men to amplify their voices? Or, conversely, do women exercise agency over their vote once they reach the polling station, given that the ballot is secret? I explore women’s understanding of agency in vote choice as well as the drivers that enable women to exercise this agency. This insight has important implications for our evaluation of household-supported female political participation: even if the gender turnout gap did not close because of women’s empowerment, women’s increased turnout – with support from their households – can still contribute to their empowerment.

Author

• Franziska Roscher, Georgia Institute of Technology