Browsing by Author "Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Chile’s Gender Quota: Will It Work?
    (2015) Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie; James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
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    Does the Presence of Women in Politics Reduce Corruption in Latin America?
    (2016) Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie; James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
    Corruption has become one of the most important political challenges for Latin American governments in recent years. Is the presence of women in politics a solution to corruption problems? Research from the early 2000s on women’s representation in parliaments and corruption levels from countries around the world suggests that the answer to this question is “yes.” However, analysis of the relationship between women in government and corruption in Latin America shows that the answer is “not yet.” Greater presence of women in Latin American governments has the potential to reduce corruption but only when combined with institutional improvements to the quality of democracy and electoral accountability in the region.
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    Electoral Incentives and Political Support for Anticorruption Reform: Evidence from Latin American Legislatures
    (2025-04-21) Guajardo, Gustavo; Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie
    This dissertation examines the conditions under which politicians advance anticorruption policies. Anticorruption policies rarely receive widespread political support because they can be costly and risky for politicians. Yet, politicians still propose and advocate for these reforms. Why? In my three-paper dissertation, I argue (and show) that legislators are strategic when it comes to anticorruption, seeking to sponsor policies that will get them votes without jeopardizing their careers and rents. I leverage original data on anticorruption bills introduced to Latin American legislatures, natural experiments, survey experiments, and interviews with politicians and activists to document the role of electoral incentives. Overall, results show that 1) anticorruption reform is possible under the right conditions, 2) legislators are responsive to electoral incentives but will seek to minimize the potential consequences of anticorruption policies, and 3) voters evaluate anticorruption efforts favorably, but certain contextual features make some appeals more credible. Legislators are more likely to sponsor anticorruption initiatives after high-profile corruption scandals, when they are members of the opposition and when they are up for reelection. Furthermore, legislators are more likely to sponsor punitive policies, which they believe are more popular and less likely to become law than non-punitive policies. Finally, evidence from a survey experiment in Mexico suggests that there is a mismatch between what politicians believe will get them votes and what voters prefer. While voters are more likely to view opposition party legislators sponsoring anticorruption bills more favorably than incumbents, they are not more likely to prefer punitive over non-punitive action, and they evaluate anticorruption policies more highly if they are sponsored in the absence of a scandal. Together, these papers contribute to our understanding of anticorruption policies, politicians' incentives to advance them, and voters' evaluations of these efforts.
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    Gender Stereotypes and Candidate Evaluation
    (2020-12-04) Mayes, Carly; Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie
    The 2018 midterm elections proved to be a banner year for female candidates. The record-setting number of women on the ballot translated into a new high-water mark for the descriptive representation of women in Congress. While it is clear that female candidates were more successful in getting on the ballot during this election cycle than ever before, what remains unclear is how voters perceived the diverse traits these candidates brought to their campaigns and how those traits impacted voter evaluations. In this dissertation, I build on the existing literature on gender stereotypes and white female candidates to explore this question.
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    Increasing the Number of Women in Latin American Politics
    (2018) Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie; James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
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    Women in Legislative Studies: Improving Gender Equality
    (Cambridge University Press, 2023) Powell, Eleanor Neff; Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie; Sin, Gisela; Political Science
    Representation of women in the field of legislative politics is remarkably small and the absence of women has wide-ranging ramifications. In Fall 2019, we surveyed 361 women that we identified as studying legislative politics within political science to understand why women’s representation in legislative studies is so low and what we can do about it. We found that many women study legislatures, but they do not always identify as scholars of legislative studies, often do not join the Legislative Studies Section, and tend to prioritize other journals over Legislative Studies Quarterly, the official journal of the section. In this article, we discuss several solutions to the problem of women’s underrepresentation in legislative studies, including the new Women in Legislative Studies initiative.