Descriptive Representation and Local-level Political Engagement

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

This session of the Political Behaviour Colloquium features a presentation by Daniel Kovarek (Research Fellow at the EUI Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies).

Does electing female leaders empower women’s political engagement? While past research focused on the effect of descriptive representation on women’s political attitudes and stated preferences, we have little evidence for its behavioural impact on the citizens’ level. Measuring this effect is challenging because data, such as voter turnout, typically occur before these significant events and are too sparse in time to allow causal comparisons. In this study, we utilise a unique dataset from Slovakia to measure civic engagement in a continuous fashion. We collect data from an online platform (Odkaz pre starostu) that allows citizens to inform their municipal authority of street problems needing their attention. We then use an established machine classification method to determine the gender of the users, exploiting that many of them use their full names when submitting problem reports. We employ this rich dataset (N = 122,659) in a natural experiment: we set to identify the effect of Zuzana Caputová’s election as Slovakia’s first female president in 2019 on the gender gap in problem reports using a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) technique. We find that the submission rate of female versus male users increased by 8 percentage points in the immediate aftermath of the election, reducing the pre-election gender gap on the platform by almost 20 percentages. Our study offers evidence for a plausible input-side effect of descriptive representation on mass democratic inclusiveness and political efficacy.

The Zoom link will be sent upon registration. If you would like to receive the paper, please contact PoliticalBehaviour.Colloquium@eui.eu.