The United States is in the midst of its 2018 midterm election cycle, and one of the most striking features of this year’s elections is the unusually high number of women who have elected to run for office. The U.S. falls short of many of its peers in terms of gender representation in government, but women seem poised to make gains this November. Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt discuss their new book, Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office, which argues women’s perception of a more difficult electoral landscape leads them to adopt distinct, and more constituent-oriented, legislative strategies than their male counterparts.

Elections in the US

In the United States, elections are much more candidate-centered than in many European countries. In most U.S. elections, candidates decide for themselves whether to run for office, and do not need the approval of party leaders. Candidates raise their own campaign funds (at the Congressional level candidates need a lot of money, more than $1 million U.S. at least), and are also responsible for conducting the re-election campaign itself. Additionally, U.S. candidates contest two elections in each cycle – first a primary election in which candidates within a party compete against each other for the right to be the party’s nominee, and later a general election in which the several nominees compete for the office in question. Altogether, politicians in the United States have huge electoral responsibilities which they shoulder largely on their own.

U.S. politicians therefore use the perks and powers of their office to help themselves win re-election. For members of Congress, this takes many forms. For example, members devote a lot of energy to procuring government spending which benefits their local communities, and they work to impress constituents as much as to make good national policy. Members have a formal budget for communicating with constituents and travelling back and forth between Washington and their home communities so they can attend local events and meet with local groups. Members also have staff devoted specifically to helping constituents solve problems they’re having with the federal bureaucracy.

In our book, we argue that female members of Congress are much more constituent-oriented than male members are, leading them to do all of these things more than men do. Continue reading →