Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Political Representation in the United States

In: Politics & gender, Band 8, Heft 4, S. 541-547

Abstract

In the Concept of Representation, Hanna
Pitkin (1967) argues that legislators should be judged by their
actions—substantive representation—and not just their closeness in
characteristics to their constituents—descriptive representation. Pitkin's
theoretical framework is the standard that political representation scholars
use when evaluating whether the presence of women or racial and ethnic
minorities in legislatures results in greater responsiveness to female or
minority interests. Do female legislators better represent the interests of
women in U.S. congressional committee hearings on domestic violence than
male legislators? Are minority legislators more active in advocating for
minority interests than white legislators in hearings relating to racial
profiling? Although Pitkin is skeptical that descriptive representatives
alone improve legislators' responsiveness to the interests of constituents
that they descriptively represent, extensive normative and empirical
analyses focusing on race and gender have demonstrated that it is not a
question of whether descriptive representation matters, but rather when and
how it matters to improving substantive representation (see, for example,
Bratton 2005; Canon 1999; Casellas 2011; Gamble 2007; Gay 2001; Grose 2011;
Haynie 2001; Lublin 1997; Mansbridge 1999; Tate 2003; Thomas 1994; Whitby
1997).