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Under the Microscope: Gender and Accountability in the US Congress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2021

JACLYN KASLOVSKY Open the ORCID record for JACLYN KASLOVSKY [Opens in a new window]  and
JON C. ROGOWSKI Open the ORCID record for JON C. ROGOWSKI [Opens in a new window]
JACLYN KASLOVSKY*
Affiliation:
Rice University, United States
JON C. ROGOWSKI*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, United States
*
Jaclyn Kaslovsky, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Rice University, United States, jk83@rice.edu.
Jon C. Rogowski, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, United States, jrogowski@uchicago.edu.
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Abstract

We study how officeholder gender affects issue accountability and examine whether constituents evaluate women and men legislators differently on the basis of their policy records. Data from 2008 through 2018 show that constituents’ approval ratings and vote choices in US House elections are more responsive to the policy records of women legislators than of men legislators. These patterns are concentrated among politically aware constituents, but we find no evidence that the results are driven disproportionately by either women or men constituents or by issues that are gendered in stereotypical ways. Additional analyses suggest that while constituents penalize women and men legislators at similar rates for policy incongruence, women legislators are rewarded more than men as they are increasingly aligned with their constituents. Our results show that accountability standards are applied differently across legislator gender and suggest a link between the quality of policy representation and the gender composition of American legislatures.

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Type
Research Article
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American Political Science Review , Volume 116 , Issue 2 , May 2022 , pp. 516 - 532
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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