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Radical‐right parties have gradually penetrated the political mainstream in many liberal democracies, marking a trend of 'democratic backsliding'. We propose that women's increasing visibility as representatives of radical‐right agendas makes democratic backsliders, their policies and their parties seem more legitimate, and may help explain their growing public acceptance. Our studies provide the first systematic examination of this hypothesis in three countries – Israel, Germany and the United States (N = 7203). In Studies 1a‐c, we show that voters perceive democracy‐eroding policies through a gendered lens – they attribute gender stereotypes to the parties promoting these policies and to the public supporting these policies. In Studies 2a‐c, we experimentally demonstrate the effect of politicians' gender on public acceptance of democracy‐eroding policies, politicians and parties, and demonstrate the role of gender stereotypes in mediating this effect. Finally, we show that the audiences susceptible to the mainstreaming effect of politicians' gender are precisely those that are often particularly repelled by radical‐right agendas and their perceived masculine image: Women and left‐wing voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a rich literature on gender stereotypes, few studies consider whether voters reward/punish women politicians differently than their men counterparts for their policy records. To study this question, we conducted a conjoint survey experiment with a quota-based nationally representative sample of 1495 American citizens. The experiment focuses on electing one of two hypothetical councillors (keeping their political experience constant) to become a mayor. We find that voters do not penalize women politicians more for breaking campaign promises. In fact, they are at least as likely to reward women politicians for keeping their promises compared to men politicians. This is true across genders and political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst there are significant electoral advantages for political parties to target women's votes, scholarship on recent electoral appeals questions the quality of gendered policy promises to address deep structural gender inequalities existing within the British state. This article examines British Election Study data to identify women voters' concerns and explores how the two largest Westminster parties developed appeals to women voters in the build up to the 2024 UK general election through an analysis of leadership speeches to the 2023 party conferences. We find a disconnect between women's electoral demands to address class-based gender inequalities and party attempts to 'weaponize' the woman question around status issues. We conclude by pointing to the enduring nature of gendered inequalities despite the election of a Labour government, which targeted appeals more closely to the class-based concerns of women voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2021 Scottish Parliament election delivered the most diverse range of MSPs in Holyrood's history, including a record number of women. We situate the 2021 election within its wider context, evaluating dynamics of party feminisation over time. Drawing on original candidate data and analysis of party manifestos across the main Scottish parties, we assess parties' substantive appeals to women voters; the integration of different groups of women as candidates, MSPs and leaders; and the adoption and implementation of gender quotas. We find evidence of descriptive and substantive party feminisation in Scotland over time—including increases in both the amount and diversity of party manifesto pledges directed at women voters; improvements in the number and diversity of women selected and elected; and the increasing diffusion of, and inter-party competition over, gender quota measures. Yet we also find that progress has been uneven across parties and that some groups of women continue to be descriptively and substantively under-represented in Scottish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does women's representation in politics affect working‐class women's attitudes toward political processes? Despite their increasing presence in the workforce, many women continue to concentrate in occupational sectors characterized by high economic vulnerability and low social status. This dynamic has important implications for the politics of representation. Previous studies suggest that women politicians positively affect women voters' political attitudes, but women's representation in politics is likely to have differing impacts on the political attitudes of working‐class and professional women. This study demonstrates that women's representation has a large class impact among women voters. In particular, using cross‐national data from 31 OECD countries as well as panel survey data from the British Election Study, we show that in countries with a higher degree of women's representation, there is more skepticism among women in low‐skill sectors toward voting and leadership than among those in white‐collar sectors. This is because there exist higher standards of accountability and relatability for women representatives among women voters. Given such high expectations, there is greater room for dissatisfaction among working‐class women than among their white‐collar counterparts when they constantly experience occupational segregation despite a high share of women in politics. In these settings, by contrast, women voters with high‐skill jobs are more likely to believe that voting and leadership matter, as they can better associate themselves with women political elites. Since men voters do not have strong expectations for relatability and accountability for public officeholders, the class impact of women's representation is weak among men. These findings have important implications for the symbolic representation of marginalized groups and democratic accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the literature on gendered candidate choice by investigating how voters' ideological positions on both the socioeconomic left–right and the cultural GAL–TAN dimensions are associated with support for women candidates, and how these associations play out among women and men voters. The study is situated in the open-list proportional electoral system (OLPR) of Finland, where voters are obliged to cast a vote for a single candidate from a large selection of nominees and where women have a strong presence in the political sphere. We use unique data on voters' self-reported candidate choice from two Finnish post-election studies in 2011 and 2019. The results show that a majority of both men and women voters tend to engage in same-gender voting, meaning that women voters are more inclined to cast a vote for women candidate than men voters are. We further show that the two ideological dimensions have different connections for men and women voters. While women voters' propensity to support women candidates is connected to their position on the left–right dimension, but not to the GAL–TAN dimension, the opposite holds for men voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the records of Labour's annual women's conference, this article analyses why, how and with what effects women activists in the Labour Party claimed to represent 'the housewife' in post-war Britain. Building on longstanding traditions on the left, Labour women saw a politics of housewifery as the most effective means of advancing the interests of working-class women in post-war Britain, and asserted the housewife's need for state intervention, good quality housing, and generous welfare provision. They also recognised that the housewife's concerns extended far beyond her own home, and were keen to promote her interests in different arenas, including paid work. Yet the success of groups like the British Housewives League meant that Labour women found it increasingly difficult to pursue a left-wing politics of the housewife. In opposition, they began to adopt the language of consumerism, losing sight of the emphasis on gender which had made their politics distinctive. This article thus shows that housewifery was a malleable and contested identity in the post-war period, valuable to those on the left as well as non-partisan women and those on the right. It also provides a new perspective on longstanding debates over the Labour Party's failure to appeal to women voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A woman has not yet shattered the "hardest, highest glass ceiling" of the American presidency. Our research answers two questions: Which groups are more likely to believe electing a woman president to be historically important? (R1), and When a presidential election is at stake, who is likely to support a woman candidate? (R2). Using observational data (n = 1075), our findings indicate that women, people who recognize sexism within politics, Democrats, and liberals are more likely to view a woman president as historic. Utilizing a list experiment of hypothetical 2024 presidential matchups, few who claimed to view a woman president as historic were willing to cast a vote in their favor. When push came to shove, Democratic women were the group most likely to vote for a woman presidential candidate. As parties look toward the future, this study offers insight into how voters respond to potential nominees and who parties will nominate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine cultural and ideological barriers to gender equality in a young democracy, Indonesia, where women's political representation has increased slowly since democratization, but where survey results point to declining support for women's political leadership. In both country and comparative literature, the effect of ideological factors—including religion—on voter support for women candidates is contested. Using results of a nationally representative survey, we group respondents according to a "political patriarchy" index. We find that being a Muslim is a strong predictor of holding patriarchal attitudes; university education is associated with gender-egalitarian views. Patriarchal views, in turn, are associated with opposition to increasing Indonesia's gender quota and with lower levels of self-reported voting for female candidates. Our findings suggest that patriarchal attitudes drive both policy preferences and voter behavior. We conclude that Indonesia's recent conservative Islamic turn likely underpins widespread—and increasing—opposition to gender equality in politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions did newly enfranchised women turn out to vote at levels approaching men? This question is important because if women's turnout lagged behind men's, politicians' incentives to advocate for women's interests could remain weak even after suffrage. I argue that women's turnout approached parity with men's in localities with strong incentives to vote and to mobilize among the general population. This is because women faced barriers to voting and were, therefore, more likely to vote and be mobilized under the most favorable circumstances. I then propose that electoral competition determines the strength of voting and mobilization incentives and, therefore, the gender turnout gap. Using sex-separated turnout data in Norway, I demonstrate that the gap narrows in high-turnout competitive districts in systems with single-member districts and in high-turnout within-district strongholds in proportional systems. I probe generalizability of my findings in New Zealand, Austria, and Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, Dr. Delia Dixon-Carroll (1872–1934) delivered dozens of speeches across North Carolina ahead of the general election in fall 1920, appealing to white women to register and vote for Democratic candidates. A suffragist, clubwoman, and Raleigh's first woman physician, she embodied the new woman of the early twentieth century while also extolling the traditions represented by the Democratic party, notably the white supremacy campaign of 1898 and Charles Aycock's administration. Stumping alongside the state's most powerful Democrats, she assured those who had opposed suffrage that white women would use their newfound political power to preserve the status quo, telling crowds that "when it comes to a question of white supremacy, the women of North Carolina will be there." A stalwart partisan and spokesperson who was recognized by her contemporaries as a party leader, Dixon-Carroll campaigned for Democrats for the rest of her life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on women candidates in American elections uncovers four key facts: Women (i) are underrepresented among candidates, (ii) are underrepresented among office holders, (iii) perform better in office, and (iv) win open seats at equal rates to men. Scholars offer two types of explanations: Women are less willing to run than men, due to differential costs or a gap in self‐perceived qualification, or voters discriminate at the ballot box. We formally model these mechanisms. Lower willingness to run predicts the first three facts but not the fourth. Voter discrimination at the ballot box predicts the first three facts and creates competing effects with respect to the fourth. Thus, the major stylized facts cannot be explained without voter discrimination, whether overt or more subtle. We explore whether a close‐election regression discontinuity distinguishes the mechanisms; surprisingly, it does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large number of female voters makes it imperative for contestants in the general election to optimize their support from this group. Furthermore, women's groups represent a reliable marketing force capable of influencing the decisions of other demographics. Through the Instagram application, this study investigates how the Strategy Analysis of Candidates for the 2024 Bengkulu Regional Head Election can enhance Brand Awareness among Women's Groups. The data were collected through interviews with two individuals expected to run in the 2024 Bengkulu mayoral election. Research findings reveal that Dedy Wahyudi, a former media worker, truly understands the significance of optimizing social media to reach his target audience. Therefore, Dedy Wahyudi uploaded numerous activities involving the 'Emak-emak' group on his Instagram accounts. Besides that, Ariyono Gumay prefers a face-to-face approach and group communication to engage with women's groups. In his Instagram posts, Dedy Wahyudi portrays himself as a family man, while Ariyono Gumay's photos depict him as financially successful. This study concludes that as someone who has long struggled with mass media, Dedy Wahyudi's efforts to utilize the media are very serious. Dedy uses social media to provide information, establish relationships, and offer entertainment. Thus, the election is still a long way off, and the timing of the declaration of candidacy is still being determined. Dedy has not yet effectively used social media to reach specific groups. Ariyono Gumay relies more on face-to-face communication with the target group, especially mothers. Ariyono trusts the power of in-person meetings more than interactions through social media, which are less personal and private. Dedy represents himself as a family man, while Ariyono Gumay portrays himself as an affluent and accomplished young figure, as this type of politician resonates well with the people of Bengkulu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although women make up half of Pakistan's population, their participation in politics has historically been limited. While women today are more politically active and articulate than in the past, their involvement is still hindered by various factors, including patriarchal structures, a genderbiased socio-cultural environment, and a conservative interpretation of Islam. This study utilizes qualitative methods to assess the participation of women as voters and candidates by examining the roles of far-right (Jamaate- Islami), central (Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf) and left (Pakistan People Party Parliamentarian) political parties in the 2008, 2013, and 2018 elections. Relevant secondary sources, including the selected parties' manifestos, have been analyzed through content analysis to establish the appropriate context. The research findings indicate that although regulatory efforts aim to increase women's representation, political parties frequently prioritize female candidates with preexisting political backgrounds. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that the parties' ideological positions significantly impact their dedication to female political participation and representation. Although political parties have made some progress in improving women's representation and participation in elections, it is clear that a significant and ongoing dedication is necessary to close the gender gap in political engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the effects of employment on voter turnout yields mixed results. Combining data from the largest workfare program in the world with data from over 50,000 Indian polling stations, we show that increased employment substantially increases female turnout. Mechanism tests suggest the results are driven by employment rather than income and program satisfaction. In particular, we find increases in the number of friends, discussions of politics with more people, and increased knowledge of politics. We also find effects on nonelectoral political participation, and we argue that the effects we identify are driven by autonomous political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nigerian women account for almost half of the country's population, yet they represent a minuscule percentage of elected positions. Many scholars have attributed this to the patriarchal system inherent in Nigeria. This study, however, submits that the rate at which women support women politicians during elections is a major contributing factor to unequal gender representation in Nigerian politics. The concept of the glass ceiling and postcolonial theory guided the explanatory framework for this study. The study was conducted among women within voting age in Ibadan, in southwestern Nigeria. The study adopted a mixed-method design to generalize and gain deep insights. Hence, the questionnaire was used to elicit quantitative data while the Key Informant interview (KII) was used to collect qualitative data. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 20 while qualitative data was content analyzed. While 87.3% of the respondents claimed they supported women politicians during elections, only 16.7% voted for them. On the reasons why women support female politicians, about 38.0% stated that they supported them because of their perceived ability to represent the interests of women better than men. However, 21.7% of the respondents felt that supporting women in politics may expose them to the danger of political violence inherent in Nigeria. Furthermore, negative stereotypes against women politicians were also found to be among the major impediments to their victory at the polls. Awareness campaigns for women's participation in politics, therefore, should also focus on encouraging women to vote for other women during elections, as that is the major means of ensuring adequate women's representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors influence women's political success in ethnically divided societies? Using an original survey experiment in the Indian state of Bihar, supplemented with qualitative interviews, we explore the impact of two factors—intersecting gender and caste identity, and the interaction of campaign appeal with voter experiences of caste discrimination—on women candidates' success in state-level elections. We find, first, that women voters prefer women candidates, and that Scheduled Caste and Muslim voters also prefer candidates from their in-groups. At the same time, we identify evidence of intersectional effects, namely, that Muslim women candidates suffer from a disadvantage vis-a-vis women candidates from other backgrounds. We also show that women voters prefer candidates who offer security, especially when the candidates are women. Finally, we demonstrate that personal experience with caste discrimination increases support for women candidates. These results indicate that voters see women leaders as well-placed to ameliorate their security vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women voted for the Democratic candidate more than men did in each US presidential election since 1980. We show that part of the gender gap stems from the fact that a higher proportion of women than men voters are Black, and Black voters overwhelmingly choose Democratic candidates. Past research shows that Black men have especially high rates of death, incarceration, and disenfranchisement due to criminal convictions. These disparities reduce the share of men voters who are Black. We show that the gender difference in racial composition explains 24% of the gender gap in voting Democratic. The gender gap in voting Democratic is especially large among those who are never-married, and, among them, the differing racial composition of men and women voters is more impactful than in the population at large, explaining 43% of the gender gap. We consider an alternative hypothesis that income differences between single men and women explain the gender gap in voting, but our analysis leads us to reject it. Although unmarried women are poorer than unmarried men, and lower-income voters vote slightly more Democratic, the latter difference is too small for income to explain much of the gender gap in voting. In short, the large gender gap among unmarried voters is not a reflection of the lower incomes of women's households but does reflect the fact that women voters are disproportionately Black. We used the General Social Survey as the data source for the analysis, then replicated results with the American National Election Survey data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains the electoral difference in Florida between the county-level vote received by Republican (R) President-elect Donald Trump and Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R) in the 2016 Florida general elections? Regression analysis is used to examine both support for Trump and Rubio, and the difference in support between these two once rival candidates in 2015-16 for the U.S. Presidency. The results indicate that President-elect Trump did better in Florida counties with larger percentages of lowereducated Whites, lower-income households and higher-unemployment rate. Instead, Senator Rubio performed better than Trump in Florida counties with larger numbers of Cuban and non-Cuban Hispanics, plus women and voters not registered with either of the main parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to vote is a keystone of democracy, but many groups, including those that were long excluded from the ballot, fail to exercise their rights in large numbers. In the United States, cutting edge research has argued that the first women to cast ballots were "peripheral" voters: their decisions to participate were even more sensitive to electoral competition than were men's, producing larger gender gaps in turnout in less competitive districts. This paper argues that the portability of the peripheral voting thesis depends on the electoral institutions when suffrage was granted. Using the example of Norway, which transitioned from majoritarian rules to proportional representation just a few years after women won the vote, I show that proportional representation, which increases competition on average, produces a dramatic fall in the gender turnout gap, particularly in previously uncompetitive districts. These findings suggest that electoral systems, more than gender, made women peripheral voters [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voting rights are fundamental human rights, but for women, getting them has been a difficult and protracted process. Even though women have recently made tremendous progress towards gender equality, they still encounter several challenges when trying to exercise their right to vote. In Pakistan, women got their right to vote since county's inception but their electoral participation remains quite meagre in all the general elections held in past. In the general elections of 2018 the total women turnout in Pakistan was 46.89% and the turnout of women in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was 32.96%. A country richly endowed with human capital along with a low women electoral participation is a phenomenon that raises many social-cultural, economic, educational, and political related questions. Based on such facts the dependent variable chosen in the present study is Women's Electoral Participation in the general elections of 2018. Its value is taken as one of the women has used her right to cast vote, zero otherwise. District Kohat is the universe of this study where women's turnout was 37.22%. A study is conducted to dig out the socio-cultural, economic, educational and Political barriers in the way of women voting rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen an unprecedented number of women candidates running for public office. Does the resulting potential for greater gender equality in political representation have downstream effects on individual-level political attitudes, particularly among women voters? Given the partisan imbalance in women's candidacies, do Republican and Democratic voters experience the growing gender parity in political representation differently? We explore these questions by employing a survey experiment in the 2018 Cooperative Election Study (CES) that manipulates the perceived trajectory of women's representation in politics. Our results suggest that priming future optimism as compared to pessimism in women's representation has little overall effect on the gender gap in political efficacy and interest, but that party affiliation can be a moderator in this context. We discuss the broader implications of our findings for women's engagement in politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties often seek to appeal to women voters through policy pledges. However, little is known about how – or whether – these policies influence women's voting behavior. Drawing on focus groups conducted with women voters, I explore how women perceive, experience, and negotiate gendered policies in their voting behavior using the 2015 British General Election as a case study. Overall, I find that "class-based" economic policies pertaining to the sexual division of labor matter to women voters, whereas policies seeking to tackle discrimination against women ("gender status" policies) are comparatively less salient. Crucially, attitudes toward class-based policies differ by life-stage. Taken together, I argue that studies on gender and vote choice should devote greater attention to the electoral context in addition to socioeconomic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide the first estimate of a door-to-door political campaign by an incumbent politician targeting women on electoral outcomes in a developing country. Women voters are informed of the public service delivery work undertaken by the incumbent in his tenure. The campaign was randomized at the precinct level, allowing us to use official electoral data on vote shares and gender-disaggregated turnout. Our results suggest that in a highly competitive campaign, the vote share of the campaigning incumbent increased by 5%age points. This increase was primarily driven by women who were campaigned independently of their male relatives. In precincts where both men and women were mobilized, the effect is not statistically significant. However, women's turnout in the election was unaffected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: Male gatekeeping and biased social norms in difficult settings characterized by fragility, authoritarianism, and conflict create challenges for women's political participation. This article explores the nature of challenges experienced by women and how they exercise political agency in such settings—as voters, claimants, and brokers of services, and as activists. Purpose: I investigate the range of expressions of women's political agency and responses they secure from public authorities in difficult settings. I ask the question: how and to what effect do women exercise political agency in difficult settings? Analysis of the range of expressions of political agency allows a broader view of women's engagement in politics. Methods and approach: The article develops a framework to identify the range of expressions of women's individual and collective agency from Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) studies conducted in Egypt, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan. This synthesis explores social norms and male gatekeeping; strategies women use to navigate these and limit backlash; and the changes that result from women taking action. Findings Evidence shows that social norms and male gatekeeping limit women's engagement in politics and their relations with multiple public authorities that operate in difficult settings. Women use gender‐specific repertoires to organize protests and make claims on authorities and specific strategies to reduce the risk of backlash from their own communities and security agencies. The findings show that, while there is some success in claim‐making on specific issues and that at a personal level women feel more empowered, these do not necessarily lead to systemic change. Policy implications: Donors and local authorities need to develop interventions that tackle male gatekeeping within political parties and communities to facilitate women's political engagement. Flexibility in funding will enable donors to work directly or indirectly with grassroots and national women's rights groups in difficult settings for developing contextualized, bottom‐up interventions. Strengthening pro‐gender‐equality alliances and spaces for deliberation will help to ensure that gender equality is not co‐opted by authoritarian leaders and populist groups and will sustain counter‐narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we close persistent gender gaps in political participation? We develop a theory highlighting the role of male household members as "gatekeepers" of women's participation in patriarchal settings and argue that the answer involves targeting these men. We conduct a field experiment in Pakistan and find that targeting women with a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote campaign has no effect on their turnout in a national election. However, women's turnout increases substantially when male household members are canvassed to support women's participation. Households where both men and women are canvassed see the largest increases in women's turnout and additional increases in political discussion and men's practical support to help women vote. Using a costly behavioral measure, we also demonstrate lasting effects on men's supportive behavior in these households two months after the election. Our results address the importance, and tangible benefits, of engaging men to ease constraints that hinder equal participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines why populists in Spain take positions on the issue of surrogacy which might divide the people through exploring the relationship between populism and surrogacy. Topics include the emergence of new populist parties in Spain after the 2015 Spanish national parliamentary elections, the percentage of Spaniards supporting a law on surrogacy and the controversy about populist parties' decision to take stances on issues of particular concern to a subset of voters like women.

The Australian House of Representatives contains far fewer women than men. But is this because parties of left and right discriminate against women or because voters do? Using a new dataset comprising 7271 House candidates from 2001 to 2019, firstly, we find that the percentage of women candidates is increasing, but is consistently higher for parties of the left than the right. Secondly, women tend to be selected more by parties of both left and right in unsafe seats. Thirdly, all else being equal, voters reward women running for Labor with over 1400 votes more, are neutral towards those of the Liberals and Greens, but tend to penalise women standing for the Nationals. We conclude that, overall, it is parties, not voters, driving under-representation of women in Australia's lower house. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties’ strategies and outcomes in the 2020 Slovak parliamentary elections in a gender perspective. Slovakia’s proportional electoral system features semi-open lists and one constituency. We study two determinants of women’s long-term underrepresentation in top politics: supply of female candidates by political parties (number of women and their positions on electoral lists) and demand by voters (number of preferential votes for women). In the 2020 elections, we identify three types of candidate lists: gender-sensitive, gender-ambivalent, and masculine. Non-masculine parties’ voters promoted women disproportionately, but their preferential votes did not compensate for women’s low starting positions. As voters’ demand could not override parties’ supply, we conclude that party gatekeepers are responsible for low female political representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little information exists about Indiana's Black suffragists and voters, making it difficult to draw a complete picture of their role in the suffrage movement and in state politics. Black women's suffrage groups sometimes organized with the help of their churches and worked with other civic groups such as the NAACP. Black suffragists and voters had in common a dedication to community service and improvement, approaching the vote as the means to achieving better schools and housing and greater access to employment and health care. The officers of Indiana's Black suffrage groups were middle-class and, in at least two cases, published authors. In Indianapolis, the three most visible Black suffrage leaders were teachers in the city's segregated public schools, making them very similar to prominent Black suffragists in other states. Unfortunately, these Hoosier suffragists left few statements about their suffrage work, and the groups they worked with left no minutes of their meetings. Their actions, if not their words, demonstrate that their efforts to win the vote were tied to community goals. [End Page 276] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the interaction of Turkish women voters with their spouses and close environment during the voting process and the changes that this interaction shows among women from different ethnicities were investigated. In this context, the participants were selected from 124,921 female voters registered in the Sivas Central electoral rolls and identifying themselves with different ethnic affiliations (Alevi, Circassian, Kurdish, Turkish Sunni, Armenian). By taking into account their ratio among all voters, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 500 female voters determined by stratified sampling. Our results show that, in voting, Kurdish women are predominantly influenced by their spouses and close environment with an average of 3.6, Circassian women are undecided with an average of 3.0, Sunni Turkish women and Armenian women are not affected by their spouses and close environment with an average of 2.1. In addition, our findings show that Alevi women are the women who are least affected by their spouses and close environment while voting with an average of 1.6. As we could find, in the literature, there is no study based on the level of influence of female voters by their spouses and close environment in the context of ethnicity. We think that our results can fill this gap in the literature and contribute to the relevant literature in fields such as political sciences, communication and behavioral sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The share of women in the Czech Republic's lower chamber of Parliament remains persistently low in comparison to other European countries, and below the world average. However, in the last general election, we observed a significant rise in voters' support for women, alongside slightly better women's positions on candidate lists. A flexible-list proportional representation (PR) system allows both the nominating political party and the voters to influence the composition of the legislature. However, it is not yet clear whether the low descriptive representation of women is due to the voters, the parties or both. Our primary goal is to test the actual effect of the parties and the voters on the representation of women in the Czech Republic. We analyse the Czech Statistical Office's open data on more than 16,000 cases of candidates who competed in eight Czech Chamber of Deputies elections between 1996 and 2021, and who were nominated by relevant political parties. As a dependent variable, we employ the share of voters casting preferential votes for a candidate, rather than the candidate's success in winning a mandate, which allowed us to include smaller parties. In contradiction to the common expectation of the existence of voter bias, being a woman helped candidates get more preferential votes compared to men, not only in the last but also in four out of seven previous elections. We thus argue that it is not voters, but rather systemic factors related to parties that favour men in the Czech elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of a randomized survey experiment demonstrating that the public evaluates women politicians more highly than men across multiple characteristic assessments. This finding is consistent with a recent wave of research indicating greater preferences for women politicians. Which respondents rate women politicians more highly, and why? We find that women and younger voters do not account for the greater marks given to women politicians. Instead, respondent partisanship and the presumed partisanship of the politician account for a great deal of our findings, with gender playing a complicating role. Democratic and Republican respondents are apt to project their own partisanship onto politicians, and across both parties, we find higher assessments for co-partisan politicians and for women politicians. On the whole, women politicians are evaluated on par with or significantly higher than men politicians across six characteristics, scoring especially well relative to men when politicians are presumed to be members of the opposing party and when traditionally feminine characteristics are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisanship 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do some types of voters vote more strategically than others? We examine this question using a large survey in Canada that asked respondents to rate not just parties and party leaders but also local candidates. Using a new technique for combining multiple preference measures into a single utility estimate, we find that better educated voters and richer voters vote more strategically, as do women and older voters (although the latter two differences are smaller). Together with recent evidence from the United Kingdom, these results suggest that (at least in multicandidate first-past-the-post elections) the same types of voters who are more likely to turn out are also more likely to make their votes count. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The women's electorate in the parliaments of the Third Republic and in the thirty-eighth Parliament of Great Britain endeavoured to create fairer social arrangements, an integral element of which include assurance of healthy motherhood and achievement of gender equality in everyday life. The issues of infant mortality, improvement of care by medical and nursing institutions or assurance of the improved wellbeing of women and children, were of unquestionable importance to the activities of female MPs in the Czechoslovak Republic and in Great Britain. The female MPs of both countries based their activities on similar expectations, such as equal conditions for women on the job market and true wage equality. The common reason for advancing these requirements was the fact that men and women had fought and worked together during the Second World War. The different post-war development of both countries led to different results. Escalating political developments in the Czechoslovak Republic disrupted the gender agenda and mutual communication between female MPs and culminated in Sovietisation of the social system, while Great Britain continued to realise a social state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are ambitious women punished in politics? Building on literature from negotiation, we argue that women candidates who are perceived to be ambitious are more likely to face social backlash. We first explore what the term 'ambitious' means to voters, developing and testing a new multidimensional concept of perceived ambition, from desire to run for higher office to scope of agenda. We then test the link between these 'ambitious' traits and voter support for candidates using five conjoint experiments in two countries, the U.S. and the U.K. Our results show that while ambitious women are not penalized overall, the aggregate results hide differences in taste for ambitious women across parties. We find that in the U.S. left-wing voters are more likely to support women with progressive ambition than right-wing voters (difference of 7% points), while in the U.K. parties are not as divided. Our results suggest that ambitious women candidates in the U.S. face bias particularly in the context of non-partisan races (like primaries and local elections), when voters cannot rely on party labels to make decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report is the first in a set of publications from a collaborative research and analysis venture between the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at UC Berkeley, and Tides to engage the evolving post-2016 US political landscape. Any such undertaking must be rooted in a nuanced and accurate diagnosis of the current moment. This report offers such a diagnosis.