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Theoretical work argues that citizens gain important symbolic benefits when they are represented by gender-inclusive institutions. Despite the centrality of this claim in the literature, empirical evidence is mixed. In this article, I argue that these mixed findings are—in part—because many Americans hold beliefs about women's inclusion that are out of step with reality. Leveraging variation in survey respondents' beliefs about women's representation, I examine how these perceptions influence attitudes toward Congress and state legislatures. In both cases, I find that believing women are included is associated with higher levels of external efficacy among both men and women. Using panel data, I then show that when citizens' underestimations (overestimations) are corrected, their levels of efficacy increase (decrease), shedding further light on this relationship. The findings presented in this research add new theoretical insights into when, and how, Americans consider descriptive representation when evaluating the institutions that represent them.

AbstractPartisanship is the dominant force that dictates American electoral behavior. Yet Americans often participate in elections in which either the partisanship of candidates is unknown or candidates from the same party compete, rendering the partisan cue meaningless. In this research, we examine how candidate demographics—specifically gender—relate to voter behavior and candidate selection in these contexts. Leveraging survey data from same-party matchups in congressional elections (resulting from "top-two primaries"), we examine the relationship between candidate gender and undervoting and vote choice. We find that in same-party matchups, women candidates are associated with lower levels of undervoting among women voters. Furthermore, we find that in mixed-gender contests, women voters from both parties and Democratic men are more likely to favor female candidates. The findings presented here have important implications for the literatures on gender and politics, electoral politics, partisanship, and the design of electoral institutions.

AbstractPopular commentary surrounding Michelle Obama focuses on the symbolic importance of her tenure as the nation's first African American first lady. Despite these assertions, relatively few studies have examined public opinion toward Michelle Obama and the extent to which race and gender influenced public evaluations of her. Even fewer studies have examined how theintersectionof race and gender influenced political attitudes toward Michelle Obama and her ability to serve as a meaningful political symbol. Using public opinion polls from 2008 to 2017 and data from the Black Women in America survey, we examine public opinion toward Michelle Obama as a function of respondents' race, gender, and the intersection between the two. We find that African Americans were generally more favorable toward Michelle Obama than white Americans, with minimal differences between men and women. Although white women were no more likely than white men to view Michelle Obama favorably, we find that they were more likely to have information on Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative. Most importantly, we find that Michelle Obama served as a unique political symbol for African American women and that her presence in politics significantly increased black women's evaluation of their race-gender group.

Extant research on public support for judicial nominees finds that ideological congruence with the nominee is the most important factor in an individual's decision to support a nominee. The research presented in this article develops the theory that for individuals from underrepresented groups, a shared descriptive identity with the nominee will moderate the negative effect of ideological distance. We test our theory using the nominations of Clarence Thomas, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. Furthermore, we conduct placebo tests to determine whether the effect of ideology is moderated for underrepresented groups when a shared descriptive identity is not present. We find that in the context of the Thomas nomination, a shared racial identity led to increased support for Thomas among liberal African Americans. We find similar effects in the case of Kagan and conservative women. In the case of Sotomayor, we find that a shared ethnic identity led to increased support among conservative Latinos, regardless of gender. We conclude by discussing the implications our findings have for descriptive representation and presidential selection of judicial nominees.

Despite a growing body of literature examining the consequences of women's inclusion among lobbyists, our understanding of the factors that lead to women's initial emergence in the profession is limited. In this study, we propose that gender diversity among legislative targets incentivizes organized interests to hire women lobbyists, and thus helps to explain when and how women emerge as lobbyists. Using a comprehensive data set of registered lobbyist–client pairings from all American states in 1989 and 2011, we find that legislative diversity influences not only the number of lobby contracts held by women but also the number of former women legislators who become revolving-door lobbyists. This second finding further supports the argument that interests capitalize on the personal characteristics of lobbyists, specifically by hiring women to work in more diverse legislatures. Our findings have implications for women and politics, lobbying, and voice and political equality in the United States.

Discussions of method, methodology and epistemology play an important role in the study of gender and politics. Contributing to this conversation, this article documents both gender and politics scholars' use of quantitative methods and also quantitative methods scholars' relationship with gender and politics research. Analysing work published in Politics & Gender, the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy and Politics, Groups, and Identities, we show that gender and politics scholars have been more than capable and willing to use quantitative methods. In contrast, our examination of articles published in Political Analysis suggests that the methods community does not typically engage with gender and politics scholarship. This is problematic because the insights provided by gender and politics research could help spur innovations in political methodology. We thus end with a call for greater collaboration between gender and politics scholars and quantitative methodologists.

"Quantitative Methods and Feminist Political Science" published on by Oxford University Press.