Seminar:
How Descriptive Over- and Under-Representation Impacts Citizens Evaluations of Decision-making across Policy Domains - Jonathan Slapin (University of Zurich)
14:00-15:00 (GMT) Wednesday, November 5.
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Abstract: This paper demonstrates that the impact of descriptive representation on citizens’ perceptions of democratic processes varies with levels of representation and the nature of the issue being decided. In a survey experiment, a committee decides on three policies that disproportionately impact women, but which vary in whether individuals perceive them as touching on morality or conferring targeted benefits. Our findings show that citizens associate descriptive representation with fairness and are more amenable to decisions made by a representative body. However, perceptions of some decisions, e.g., regarding abortion, strongly improve with women’s equal and over-representation on the committee. On other issues — ones that could be perceived as offering women a targeted benefit — women’s over-representation reduces perceptions of fairness. These findings highlight the importance of exploring the interaction between decision-making body composition and the policy agenda when seeking to understand citizens’ views of democratic policymaking.
About the speaker(s): Professor Jonathan Slapin studied political science at Rutgers University and was a DAAD scholarship holder at the University of Konstanz. He received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007. His research focuses on the institutions of democratic politics, political parties and legislative politics. Since August 1, 2019, he has been Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics at the University of Zurich. Previously, he held positions at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Trinity College, Dublin, University of Houston, and University of Essex. At the University of Essex he was Director of the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis.