Symbolic Mobilization?

• Author: Kathleen Dolan
• Published date: 01 November 2006
• Date: 01 November 2006
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X06289155
• Subject Matter: Articles

American Politics Research

Volume 34 Number 6

November 2006 687-704

© 2006 Sage Publications

10.1177/1532673X06289155

http://apr.sagepub.com

hosted at

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687

Author’s Note: An earlier version of this research was presented at the 2005 American

Political Science Association meeting. The author thanks Kathryn Pearson, Tom Holbrook,

Jim Gimpel, and the reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Symbolic Mobilization?

The Impact of Candidate Sex

in American Elections

Kathleen Dolan

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

The increase in the number of women candidates in American politics has

raised questions about whether the presence of these women has an impact

on the public by mobilizing attitudes and behaviors. Employing National

Election Study data from 1990 to 2004, this work examines whether women

candidates influence levels of voter attitudes and behaviors and considers the

role of political party and electoral competitiveness in this symbolic mobi-

lization. The results indicate that there is little empirical analysis to support

the assumption that the presence of women candidates translates into any

widespread increase in political attitudes and behaviors.

Keywords: gender; candidate evaluation; elections; political campaigns

The increase in the number of women who run for and are elected to

office in the United States has been accompanied by an expanding lit-

erature that examines the impact these women have on our political system.

This literature often focuses on questions of representation and the “bene-

fits” that an increasing number of women candidates can bring to the polit-

ical system, particularly to women citizens. Of course, representation is a

complex term, encompassing many different elements of the roles political

leaders play in our system. Much has been written about the impact of

women on substantive representation, resulting in our understanding that

having more women in office tends to lead to different policy outcomes and

different procedural pathways. There is clear evidence that women and

women’s issues receive greater representation in law-making bodies as the

number of women officeholders increases (Burrell, 1998; Dodson, 1998;

Kathlene, 1995; Saint-Germain, 1989; Swers, 2002; Thomas, 1994).

688 American Politics Research

Furthermore, scholars find evidence that women elected officials pursue

their positions in more open, collegial, and inclusive ways than do men offi-

cials, representing a different style of “doing politics” (Kathlene, 1995;

Norton, 2002; Rosenthal, 1998).

However, a second aspect of representation, one that is more relevant at

the candidacy stage, is that of symbolic representation. Although the direct

benefits of symbolic representation may not be as easily quantified as those

of substantive representation, from the perspective of the political commu-

nity and its citizens, they are no less important. Given the historical exclu-

sion of women from candidacy and elective office, the presence of women

candidates can signal a greater openness in the system and more widely dis-

persed access to political opportunities for all (Burns, Scholzman, & Verba,

2001; Carroll, 1994; Reingold, 2000; Thomas, 1998). Women candidates

can also serve as role models or symbolic mentors to women in the public,

sending the signal that politics is no longer an exclusive man’s world and

that female participation is an important and valued act (Burrell, 1998;

Sapiro, 1981; Tolleson-Rinehart, 1992). Mansbridge (1999) suggests that

the increased representation of marginalized identity groups also affirms

that members of these groups are capable of governing and can serve to

more strongly connect group members to the polity. Finally, women candi-

dates are more likely to campaign on issues of interest to women, which

may catch the attention of women voters (Dabelko & Herrnson, 1997;

Herrnson, Lay, & Stokes, 2003; Larson, 2001).

The signals of openness, legitimacy, and identity sent by the presence of

women candidates can, in turn, stimulate activity and engagement on the

part of those members of the public heartened by an increasingly democra-

tic and representative candidate pool. Although men may be moved to

increase their participation as they see a more open system, it is to women

that the benefits of symbolic representation are assumed to accrue. Indeed,

according to Lawless (2004), we can think about symbolic representation

as “the attitudinal and behavioral effects that women’s presence in positions

of political power might confer to women citizens” (p. 81).

Despite the theoretical notion that women candidates could provide tan-

gible political benefits to citizens, particularly women, the empirical evi-

dence of this is still somewhat limited. Most of the work that examines how

people respond to the presence of women candidates has focused on a

single election or a small number of elections (Burns et al., 2001; Koch, 1997;

Sapiro & Conover, 1997) or a limited number of attitudes or behaviors

(Atkeson, 2003; Hansen, 1997). And none of this work has focused on the

primary method of citizen involvement in elections, namely voting.