Quasi-Experimental Design, Constituency, and Advancing Women’s Interest: Reexamining the Influence of Gender on Substantive Representation." Political Research Quarterly 64

Research investigating whether female legislators provide more effective substantive representation on women’s issues than their male colleagues faces a significant methodological hurdle. Models used to estimate the effect of gender on representation inevitably omit constituency variables that affect the character of legislators ’ decisions and are also correlated with gender, potentially biasing the estimates of the effect of gender. Employing a quasi-experimental research design as an alternative strategy, the authors remove this hurdle and estimate the influence of gender on representation free from this potential bias. The authors find that gender does affect representation and observe critical mass effects. Keywords Congress, descriptive representation, substantive representation, women and politics, agenda setting Do female members of Congress provide more effective representation of women’s interests than their male col-leagues? Prior research generally indicates “yes ” with debate as to whether having a substantial number of women in the legislative body, or a “critical mass,” encourages congresswomen to devote their scarce time and legislative resources to enhancing the quality of rep-resentation that they provide women (e.g., Bratton 2005; Grey 2006; Reingold 1992, 2000; Saint-Germain 1989; Thomas 1994). Scholars observe this benefit of descrip-tive female representation across a host of issues (Barrett 1995; Carey, Niemi, and Powell 1998) but especially with respect to women’s and feminist issues (e.g., Burrel