How Do Gender and Disability Intersect in Candidate Evaluations?
(with Stefanie Reher)

Women are overwhelmingly underrepresented in most political institutions across the world. Current studies focus on the role of gender stereotypes in how voters evaluate female candidates as a way to explain the underrepresentation of women. Unknown, however, is how candidate gender intersects with disability in shaping how individuals perceive political candidates. Through a survey experiment with a conjoint design in the UK we investigate how candidate gender and disability influence voters’ perceptions of candidates as competent and compassionate as well as candidates’ policy-specific competences and their ideological positions. The findings suggest that, while gender by itself has limited effects, candidate disability influences how voters perceive their personality traits, policy competences, and ideological beliefs. Importantly, some disability stereotypes seem to be applied more to male than female candidates, suggesting that intersectional approaches to studying voter perceptions and candidate competition are vital.

Hereditary Politics: The Role of Gender and Kinship in Voters’ Evaluations of Political Candidates
(with Kenneth McElwain)

Extant scholarship shows that voters use gender stereotypes to evaluate political candidates. Unknown, however, is how political candidate’s gender intersects with family connection in shaping voters’ perceptions of candidates. Using survey experiments with a conjoint design Japan and Taiwan, we investigate the impact of candidate gender and kinship on voters’ evaluations of candidates as competent, compassionate, and progressive leaders. We also analyze how voters’ own identities and experiences shape their perceptions of candidates. Taking a comparative approach, we argue that gender and kinship affect voters’ evaluations of candidates and that this effect could be context-specific. Not only does this study fill a gap in existing literature on the effect of stereotypes on attributions of candidate competencies, but it also offers implications for policymakers, political parties, civil society organizations, the public, and – importantly – female politicians with family connections themselves to combat biased evaluations of candidates.

Constraints on Women Politicians’ Role Model Effects: Evidence from Africa
(with Kim Yi Dionne)

Female political leaders inspire women to engage in politics — but not everywhere. In this study, we examine how context can blunt the impact of women’s representation on women’s political engagement. Using a multi- level model, we analyze survey data from 33 African countries to study female politicians’ role model effect on women’s political interest and political participation. We find that only in contexts where women’s political status does not outstrip women’s social status will women’s representation be associated with greater political engagement. This role model effect only holds for certain types of political engagement. For example, while we find women’s representation associated with women’s reports of discussing politics, we find no association between women’s representation and women’s reported voting behavior. This study suggests an important link between female politicians’ role model effect and the context in which female citizens are situated. Our results have implications for understanding how women’s political representation could unintentionally create a backlash in women’s political engagement.

Limited Democracy? The Impact of Democratization on Women’s Political Participation
(with Wonjun Song)

Gender equality is considered a core component of democracy. Yet, most literature examining the gendered impact of democratization focuses on its influence on women’s political representation and empowerment. Understudied is how democratic experiences shape other aspects of gender equality, such as women’s political participation. Using the four latest waves of the World Values Survey, this paper investigates the effect of democracy on various forms of women’s political participation in 48 countries. We hypothesize that the longer a country experiences democracy, the more likely women are to engage in politics. We also hypothesize that the impact of electoral democracy and liberal democracy differ across various types of political action. A multilevel analysis finds that democratic experiences have no impact on women’s formal political participation but lead to higher women’s informal participation. Our findings also show that electoral democracy is not associated with women’s increased formal participation while liberal democracy is associated with increased women’s informal participation. Our analysis raises implications for the meaning and influence of democratization on gender equality, particularly in a comprehensive and unbiased form that gives women an opportunity to express their political preference via different venues.