The Roles of Congress (ANSWERED)

QUESTION

Required Resources

Read/review the following resources for this activity:

• Textbook: Chapters 4 and 10
• Lesson: Read this Week’s Lesson which is located in the Modules tab
• Initial Post: minimum of 2 scholarly sources (must include your textbook for one of the sources). Follow-Up Post: minimum of 1 scholarly source for your Follow-Up Post.

Initial Post Instructions

For the initial post, respond to one of the following options, and label the beginning of your post indicating either Option 1 or Option 2:

• Option 1: Political scientists disagree on the exact causes of low representation of women in Congress. Why do you think there are so few women in Congress in comparison to men? How likely is it that these patterns of representation will dramatically change over your lifetime? For this discussion question, you will have to do some research online.
• Option 2: What characteristics do you think voters look for when choosing a president? Do you think voters choose the characteristics they are looking for depending on the socioeconomic and political environment – lack of jobs, riots, COVID-19, environmental concerns and other issues etc.? Explain your answer.

Be sure to make connections between your ideas and conclusions and the research, concepts, terms, and theory we are discussing this week.

ANSWER

The Roles of Congress and the Presidency

Option 1

I believe women are underrepresented in Congress because of structural barriers in the electoral environment. Structural barriers refer to factors that disproportionately affect a particular group and maintain blatant disparities. These structural barriers can be practices, social norms, or even policies that collectively affect a given group disproportionately. An example of the structural obstacles that prevent women’s ascension in politics is the incumbency advantage. Currently, the majority of Congress incumbents are men. Many studies have linked this high incumbency level to the small proportion of women in Congress ((Lawless & Fox, 2012; Schwindt-Bayer, 2005). Incumbents are more likely to be reelected for office, explaining why high incumbency levels reduce the pace at which women move into elective office. Schwindt-Bayer (2005) controlled for gender quotas, electoral rules, and socioeconomic factors but still found that high retention rates reduced women’s presence in elective positions.

Another structural factor is societal norms and role socialization, which make women less politically ambitious than men and voters more inclined to choose males than female candidates. Even though there are socioeconomic differences between men and women, many highly qualified and well-connected women are equally eligible for elective positions as men. However, despite being qualified and well-connected, these women are still not elected for office, demonstrating structural barriers could be the primary reason for the underrepresentation.

The number of women in political offers will grow in the coming years, but they will not achieve parity unless the structural barriers are addressed. According to Lawless and Fox (2012), the number of women in political offices has dramatically increased in the last fifty years, yet gender disparity in Congress continues to persist. This study demonstrates that the patterns of representation in Congress can remain the same even when women’s numbers increase. Therefore, it is highly likely that representation patterns in Congress might persist into the future unless structural changes are undertaken.

Option 2

1. What characteristics do you think voters look for when choosing a president

A presidential candidate’s characteristics might influence voters’ behavior or preferences. Ohr and Oscarsson (2011) indicate that voters look for attributes such as the candidate’s integrity (morality, honesty, and trustworthiness), competence, and leadership ability when selecting the ideal candidate. For example, in the 2004 presidential election, Republicans attacked Kerry for being inconsistent on various issues, while democrats claimed Bush was dishonest about America’s activities in Iraq. Heixweg (1979) also indicated that the ideal political candidate is sociable, high in character, slightly extroverted, extremely competent, and has similar attitudes and beliefs as the voters. These studies demonstrate that voters also look at the candidate’s personal characteristics while choosing the ideal presidential candidate.

2. Do you think voters choose the characteristics they are looking for depending on the socioeconomic and political environment – lack of jobs, riots, COVID-19, environmental concerns and other issues etc.?

I think the answer to these questions depends on the socioeconomic status of the voters. Kurtbaş (2015) questioned “whether the political human is a rational, consistent and informed person who is affected by fixed choices and values and is sensitive to external realities, or; an uninformed, irrational and inconsistent person who has nothing to do with today’s realities and is easily affected by prejudices and anachronical preferences” The author found that depending on socioeconomic characteristics, some voters will choose a candidate based on collective and emotional links developed since childhood. In contrast, others make rational decisions by examining the candidate’s policy position and providing services in line with their interests (Kurtbaş, 2015).

For example, the likelihood of researching parties/candidates before elections increased with age, education, and income levels. High-income and highly educated individuals’ political choice value the candidates’ past projects and past activities, low-income individuals value their long-standing support of the candidate, unemployed voters value the candidate’s political ideology, the retired value the candidates’ knowledge of local problems, while the employed value the party’s projects and cadre. This study shows that voters’ socioeconomic characteristics, including education level, income level, employment status, etc., determine whether the voter will look at the socioeconomic and political factors when choosing candidate characteristics.

References

Heixweg, S. (1979). An examination of voter conceptualizations of the ideal political candidate. Southern Journal of Communication, 44(4), 373-385.

Kurtbaş, İ. (2015). The factors influencing voting preferences in local elections “an empirical study”. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 5(1), 197-210. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295095195_The_Factors_Influencing_Voting_Preferences_in_Local_Elections_An_Empirical_Study

Lawless, J. L., & Fox, R. L. (2012). Men Rule. https://www.american.edu/spa/wpi/upload/2012-men-rule-report-web.pdf

Ohr, D., & Oscarsson, H. (2011). Leader traits, leader image and vote choice. Political leaders and democratic elections, 187-219.

Schwindt-Bayer, L. A. (2005). The incumbency disadvantage and women’s election to legislative office. Electoral Studies, 24(2), 227–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2004.05.001

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