Health and the Political Agency of Women Bhalotra, Sonia; Clots-Figueras, Irma
American economic journal. Economic policy,
05/2014, Volume:
6, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We investigate whether women's political representation in state legislatures improves public provision of antenatal and childhood health services in the districts from which they are elected, ...arguing that the costs of poor services in this domain fall disproportionately upon women. Using large representative data samples from India and accounting for potential endogeneity of politician gender and the sample composition of births, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in women's representation results in a 2.1 percentage point reduction in neonatal mortality, and we elucidate mechanisms. Women's political representation may be an underutilized tool for addressing health in developing countries.
Aiming at analysing all major security risks to a country, comprehensive National Risk Assessments (NRAs) can be used as a foundation for national security policies. Doing so manifests a modernist ...dream of securing societies through the anticipatory governance of risks. Yet, this dream resembles a nightmare of undemocratic state control in the name of security. Based on a critique of the politics of NRAs, this article offers a theoretical framework for evaluating their scientific and political credentials. Drawing on political theory of technocratic expert rule, ethical criteria of epistemic reliability and political representation are introduced to the debate. These criteria are then applied to an analysis of the NRAs of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. I argue that although these NRAs are convincing correctives to the risk perceptions of politicians and civil society, they are insufficiently reliable and representative for defining the scope and priorities of national security policies at large.
Many democracies use geographic constituencies to elect some or all of their legislators. Furthermore, many people regard this as desirable in a noncomparative sense, thinking that local ...constituencies are not necessarily superior to other schemes but are nevertheless attractive when considered on their own merits. Yet, this position of noncomparative constituency localism is now under philosophical pressure as local constituencies have recently attracted severe criticism. This article examines how damaging this recent criticism is, and argues that within limits, noncomparative constituency localism remains philosophically tenable despite the criticisms. The article shows that noncomparative constituency localism is compelling in the first place because geographic constituencies foster partisan voter mobilisation, and practices of constituency service help to sustain deliberation among constituents and within the legislature and promote the realisation of equal opportunity for political influence. The article further argues that it is unwarranted to criticise geographic constituencies for being biased against geographically dispersed voter groups, for causing vote-seat disproportionality, and for being vulnerable to gerrymandering. The article also discusses the criticisms that local constituencies may pose risks of inefficiency and injustice in resource allocation decisions, may lead legislators to neglect the common good, and may limit citizens’ control over the political agenda. Whilst conceding that these objections may be valid, the article argues that they do not outweigh the diverse and normatively weighty considerations speaking in favour of noncomparative constituency localism. Finally, the article’s analysis is defended against several variants of the charge that it exaggerates the benefits of geographic constituencies.
Quotas to promote women's representation in the world's legislatures have spread to more than one hundred countries. The diffusion of gender quotas poses a puzzle since they have often been adopted ...in countries where women have low status. International influence and inducements best explain quota adoption in developing countries. Promoting gender equality, including through gender quotas, has become a key part of international democracy promotion. The international legitimacy of gender quotas leads them to be adopted through two causal pathways: directly, through postconflict peace operations, and indirectly, by encouraging countries, especially those that depend on foreign aid, to signal their commitment to democracy by adopting quotas. An event history analysis, which controls for other relevant factors, shows that the hypothesized relationships exist. Further support comes from a process-tracing analysis of Afghanistan's 2004 quota.
Violence leaves significant social groups at a long-term disadvantage, including for generating income and accessing public services. In this article, we conduct a nationwide field experiment with ...local authorities in Colombia to evaluate how politicians respond to conflict victims in providing access to social services. We find that local officials are more likely to respond to requests for help from victims than from ordinary citizens and return friendlier and more helpful responses. Although politicians invest additional efforts to respond to conflict victims, we show that their responsiveness, affect, and helpfulness vary based on the ideological match between the party in power and the identity of the perpetrator of violence. Using interviews, we present evidence that elected officials respond to victims to signal their commitment to peace and to separate themselves from violent groups on their ideological side. These findings provide new insights into the dynamics of political representation in postconflict societies.
Women are underrepresented within political institutions, which can (negatively) impact policy outcomes. We examine women’s descriptive representation as politically appointed staff within ...ministerial offices. Politically appointed staff are now institutionalised into the policy process, so who they are is important. To date, collecting systematic data on political staff has proved impossible. However, for the first time we demonstrate how to build a systematic data set of this previously unobservable population. We use Australian Ministerial Directories (telephone records) from 1979 to 2010 (a method that can notionally be replicated in advanced democratic jurisdictions), to examine political advising careers in a similar manner as elected political elites. We find that work in political offices is divided on gender lines: men undertake more policy work, begin and end their careers in higher status roles and experience greater career progression than women. We find evidence that this negatively impacts women’s representation and their later career paths into parliament.
One oft-cited reason for women's political underrepresentation is that women express less political ambition than men. We reframe the puzzle of women's ambition deficit, asking why men have an ...ambition surplus. Drawing on the concept of symbolic representation, we theorize that political symbols convey to men their capacity for exceptional political leadership. We test our expectations with a US-based survey experiment in which respondents watch one of three ‘two-minute civics lessons’. Men who watched a video featuring the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers reported significantly more political ambition than men assigned to the control group. Additional studies indicate that the effects are specific to the Founding Fathers (as compared to early American statesmen). Men are also more likely than women to identify the Founding Fathers as inspiring figures and to feel pride when considering them. Our findings suggest how history is told contributes to men's persistent political overrepresentation.
Governments in democratic systems are expected to respond to the issue preferences of citizens. Yet we have a limited understanding of the factors that cause levels of responsiveness to vary across ...time and between countries. In this article, the authors suggest that political contestation is the primary mechanism driving policy responsiveness and that this, in turn, is mediated by political institutions and government popularity. To test this proposition, the authors analyze the responsiveness of executive policy promises (speeches) and policy actions (public expenditure) in Britain, Denmark, and the United States in the period from 1970 to 2005. These time-series analyses show that higher levels of political contestation are associated with more responsive executives.
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