“Does Politicians’ Gender Matter in their Evaluation by Voters?”

“Does Politicians’ Gender Matter in their Evaluation by Voters?”

ABSTRACT:

 Previous studies on gender bias in the evaluation of politicians by voters have reported mixed results. We seek to understand these mixed findings by focusing on Japan, where female political representation is the lowest among advanced democracies and gender stereotypes are prevalent. We propose that gender stereotypes and the dearth of women in politics affect the evaluation of politicians via two distinct mechanisms: biased beliefs and weak priors. The two mechanisms are assumed to run counter to each other, thus leading to the null or mixed findings for gendered evaluation reported by previous studies. To test our argument, we conduct a series of surveys experiments in Japan. Our findings conform to neither of the two mechanisms. Even in a society with low female political representation, we find no evidence of the gendered evaluation of candidates. We suggest that, rather than influencing the evaluation of candidates by voters, gender stereotypes dissuade women from aspiring to a political career and elite electoral gatekeepers from selecting female candidates.

BIO: 

Seiki Tanaka is an assistant professor of international relations at the Department of International Relations and International Organization (IRIO), the University of Groningen. His interest lies in exploring and researching the processes and mechanisms underlying social conflicts and cooperation. In particular, he studies the microfoundations of social diversity and conflicts and how different groups of people -- different gender, ethnic, income, and national groups -- can co-exist within a society in an era of globalization and technological advancement. He has received several awards and grants for his research.

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