Previous work suggests that observing women officeholders increases women’s political ambition. Yet, jumps in women’s representation in the United States’ “Years of the Woman”—following the Anita Hill testimonies and the election of Donald Trump—are linked to women’s exclusion from political decision-making. Drawing on focus groups with prospective women candidates, we theorize that exclusion when combined with a gendered policy threat increases women’s political ambition. Using survey experiments replicated across different samples, we show that women who read about an all-male city council poised to legislate on women’s rights report increased ambition compared with their pretreatment ambition levels and to women in other treatment groups. Women’s increased sense of political efficacy drives these results. 

Politics is increasingly dominated by crises, from pandemics to extreme weather events. These Critical Perspectives essays analyze crises’ gendered implications by focusing on their consequences for women’s descriptive and substantive representation. Covering multiple kinds of crises, including large-scale protests, climate shocks, and war and revolution, the contributions reveal three factors shaping both the theoretical conceptualization and empirical analysis of crisis and women’s representation: (1) the type of crisis, (2) the actors influenced by the crisis, and (3) the aftermath of the crisis. Together, the contributors urge scholars to “think crisis, think gender” far beyond the supply of and demand for women leaders.

Reviews replication data and code for conjoint experiment presented in "Freedom of Expression in Interpersonal Interactions," which examines characteristics of political discussions and discussants that lead people to be more or less willing to express their true political opinions. This is a peer reviewed contribution to a symposium on free expression, edited by Yanna Krupnikov and Eitan Hersh.

Anne Wilke had a paper published in Comparative Politics special symposium on vigilantism!

"Peacebuilding amidst Information Warfare: How Disinformation Shapes Local Attitudes toward Peacebuilders in Conflict Settings" explores social media users’ exposure to disinformation in fragile and conflict-afflicted societies and how to shape their attitudes toward international peacebuilders This disinformation affects the prospects for peace, stability, and democratization.

Jacob Montgomery (WashU), Annamarie Prati (WashU), Roman Garnett (CSE), and Yehu Chen (DCDS) had their paper accepted at AISTATS.

Professor Butler published several articles this semester, including two in a top-3 journal of the discipline.

“The central argument is that the small quirks and differences across languages matter because they direct our attention to certain things and away from others. Those little nudges are then reflected in how we express politically relevant opinions.”

“Voter ID in the UK – Eroding Democracy or Guaranteeing Electoral Integrity?”

“Moderate Emergence in Alaska’s Top-4 Primary.”

Professor Will Nomikos and graduate students Gechun Lin & Dahjin Kim published an article, "America's electorate remains polarized along partisan lines about foreign policy during Ukraine crisis."

Congratulations to Professor Anna Wilke for being awarded a McDonnell Academy seed grant for her research titled, "How does girls' empowerment affect boys? Two field experiments on cross-gender spillover effects of public health campaigns"!