Does better descriptive representation of traditionally underrepresented groups lead to better substantive representation of their interests in policy-making? In other words, do individuals elected to represent a group that has been previously underrepresented (e.g., the indigenous in Bolivia) demonstrate distinctly different policy views than those representatives who have traditionally held power? Does the strength of the link between descriptive and substantive representation depend on the types of institutional mechanisms designed to enhance descriptive representation, the types of parties descriptive representatives belong to, or the strength of party control over their behavior?
This project will attempt to provide answers to these questions as they pertain to one important form of substantive representation: the expression of policy views of descriptive representatives in legislative deliberations. It examines the deliberative behavior of descriptive representatives both on more traditional issues commonly explored in political science literature (e.g., land rights for indigenous representatives in Latin America, or social welfare policy for black representatives in the U.S.) and a wide variety of political issues that are arguably more salient to the general public (e.g., foreign policy, tax policy, and healthcare policy). In doing so, it develops an original measure of substantive representation that maps patterns in speeches during committee debates to uncover whether representatives from underrepresented groups espouse significantly different policy views than representatives from historically represented groups. It will explain and show how the political context conditions legislator behavior and determines the extent to which we should see differences between descriptive and more traditional representatives.
Building on previous work, the researcher proposes a contextual theory of substantive representation that accounts for why political context should affect the behavior of descriptive representatives in particular, thereby mitigating the link between descriptive and substantive representation. The researcher tests the theoretical argument using a sample of Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru) where there is cross-national and temporal variation across the three different political contexts (i.e., the extent of party control, the type of party, and the institutional mechanism used for increasing descriptive representation) and where the committee deliberations appear to serve the same purpose cross-nationally, which is 1) to set the terms of the policy debate and 2) to signal to constituents that legislators are working on their behalf. Field research for this project, which will be conducted in the legislative archives of each country, involves collecting and scanning committee debates as machine-readable documents, and the empirical analysis involves converting the text into data using automated content analysis to uncover patterns in speeches across representatives.
This project makes a substantial contribution by demonstrating whether or not changing the 'face' of the legislature has a significant impact on policy-making. It will uncover if electing members from a historically underrepresented group has an impact on how that group is represented, and if these newly elected descriptive representatives are doing anything different than traditional representatives. More importantly, the project will explore how the political context affects legislator behavior and mitigates the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation. This has a profound impact on understanding just how government can influence everyday life and the effects it has on democratic stability.
Does better descriptive representation of traditionally underrepresented groups lead to different policy interests represented in legislative debates? Do descriptive representatives present policy programs to the electorate that differ from those representatives of traditionally represented groups? Does the strength of the link between descriptive and policy representation depend on the types of institutional mechanisms designed to enhance descriptive representation, the types of parties descriptive representatives belong to, or the strength of party control over their behavior? This project attempts to answer these types of questions as they pertain to the strategy that legislators adopt to defend policy goals during legislative debates. It seeks to understand if the policy interests communicated by descriptive representatives from traditionally underrepresented groups differ from those communicated by legislators who represent traditionally represented groups and if the political context mitigates the extent to which we should observe distinct deliberative behavior between different types of descriptive representatives. Using legislative debates, I am developing an original proxy measurement of political representation that maps patterns in speech to uncover whether descriptive representatives from traditionally underrepresented groups present different policy views during legislative debate. A preliminary assessment after a year of conducting field research in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru suggests that descriptive representatives do present differing policy views during legislative debates when the institutional mechanisms that mitigate accountability make such a strategy politically viable for individual legislators. Where reelection---or, future career---is dependent on party leaders, descriptive representatives have a tendency to use legislative debates to defend the party’s position, since diverging from the party’s position could be politically costly for the individual. On the other hand, representatives have a tendency to present differing policy views from the party when they actually hold divergent views and when their political future is determined by their own political reputation or they are directly accountable to the electorate. These preliminary assessments are supported from over 80 interviews conducted with legislators (and a former president) in the three-country sample, across different types of descriptive representatives (e.g., men, women, indigenous, and mestizo) and status as members of a political party (e.g., majority and minority parties). I am currently developing a proxy measurement of political representation using legislative debates (after collecting more than 10,000 pages of legislative debates) to empirically test these preliminary conclusions. These preliminary assessments demonstrate support for one of my contributions to the political science literature. Descriptive representatives from historically underrepresented groups espouse differing views across a wide range of policy issues (e.g. economic issues and foreign policy), in addition to those issues that are historically interpreted as being associated with that group (e.g., land rights for indigenous people, health care issues for women). However, these different views are only observed in a specific political context, when individual legislators are more directly accountable to constituents, rather than party leaders. Until now, the literature has uncovered that legislators from historically underrepresented groups have a tendency to hold different policy priorities than those from traditionally represented groups. From this, we can observe how representatives justify their policy position across issue types and identify those political contexts where changing the demographics of the legislative chamber has an impact on legislative debate. This is valuable because we can observe that descriptive representatives are introducing new perspectives to legislative debates. By using legislative debates to understand political forms of representation, we can assess one of the primary resources that voters use to make voting decisions in the next reelection. So, although legislators within the same party may collectively support a policy, we can use legislative debates to identify the reason that policy is supported and if a legislator’s justification is similar to or different from those within her party. This further suggests that descriptive representatives tailor policy outcomes to appease those communities with shared traits. On a broader scale, this suggests that changing the demographics of the legislative chamber to reflect demographic distribution within the chamber should have a profound impact on the extent to which groups (particularly those who are historically underrepresented) have their policy interests translated into policy outcomes.
