Training the next generation of political leaders

HKS students in Oval Office training session.

Here at the Women and Public Policy Program, we are dedicated to closing gender gaps in economic opportunity, health, education and political participation. Research shows us that women are far less likely to run for office than equally qualified men, even though when they run, they win just as often and change social norms around gender. That’s why WAPPP, supported by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, offers the “From Harvard Square to the Oval Office” program every year targeted to female graduate students aspiring to hold political office.

Refinery 29, in partnership with We Are the XX, created a video that explains how women are changing the political scene – and public policy priorities – in the City of Boston. It features Boston City Councilor and Oval Office Alumna Michelle Wu as well as Councilor-Elect Andrea Campbell. Both women discuss the unlikely paths that brought them to politics and share advice for young women considering public office. Adrienne Kimmell, Executive Director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, is also interviewed in the video about the barriers for women in Massachusetts politics.

For more on how women in political leadership help to narrow the gender gap, visit the Political Representation section of WAPPP's Gender Action Portal. 

Do Female Leaders Mitigate Negative Effects of Diversity? The Case of National Leaders

Many of us are familiar with this scene: the boardroom is transformed from a place of suits and reports to one with mellon balls, cheese plates, colorful paper napkins, and mingling coworkers. Yes, this is your average company party. No, the intention is not to keep you in the office longer or find out who has the strangest sense of humor. Rather, these parties are part of a technique utilized by many organizations to overcome what Columbia Business School professor Katherine Phillips calls "the negative effects of Diversity 1.0."

Professor Phillips spoke yesterday about reframing our understanding of the challenges diverse groups face, and the leadership styles that could offer more opportunities for group cohesion and success. Diversity 1.0 represents the interpersonal dynamics that sometimes challenge these groups - often experienced as increased emotional conflict, explained in part by similarity attraction. Diversity 2.0 is the effort to understand what is causing the challenges in 1.0 - what are the underlying structural issues, and how can these be ameliorated?

Let's use some buzz words to frame Diversity 2.0: structural inequality, power differentials, status, disenfranchisement, lack of an empowered voice, and, on the national level, "ethnic fractionalization." With all that these words bring up, can you imagine that company parties would meet the level of challenge highly diverse groups face?

Professor Phillips presented her hypothesis that on the national level, female leaders are particularly fit to confront the challenges of Diversity 2.0.  Working with Susan Perkins and Nicholas Pearce, Phillips conducted a nation-wide experiment. The subjects were presented with two different scenarios describing the fictional country Elmoa. Elmoa is either highly diverse, with many different ethnic groups making up the constituency, or has low diversity, with one dominant group making up the significant majority of the population. With very little other information, who do you think should be the next leader: David or Marsha? Who would be the most effective leader? Who will help improve ethnic inequalities?

How do you think the test subjects answered? Interestingly, they chose Marsha as the next leader, who would be the most effective and also improve ethnic inequalities.  This was true for both the highly diverse Elmoa, and the low diversity Elmoa. The key finding is the difference between the two candidates: Marsha would be the most effective leader in either scenario, but only by 10 percentage points in the low diversity Elmoa, and by nearly 60 percentage points in high diversity Elmoa.

Okay, great. So now we know something about how test subjects would vote for and rank hypothetical nondescript candidates in a fictional country; how does this translate into real life?

Professor Phillips and her team did not stop their analysis here. They took their hypothesis to real-world data collected on national female leaders who served from 1950-2004. The good news? The number of female leaders has quadrupled in the last fifty years. The bad news? Female leaders were only 5% of all leaders during this time, and some of these were queens. Phillips removed those with royal regalia from the analysis.

How did these female leaders perform, especially in countries with high diversity and high levels of political and social difficulty? Pretty well, it seems. One way to measure performance is growth in GDP. Running statistical tests, Phillips and her team found that women leaders did indeed have a measurable effect in positively improving GDP growth in highly diverse, difficult-to-manage countries.

Does this mean that you should boycott company parties, believing in their futility, until you get a female CEO? Probably not. Does it mean that highly diverse nations with many social and economic difficulties are destined to struggle more if their leader is a man? Certainly not. These findings offer a beam of light onto the questions of gendered leadership style - actual and perceived - and outcomes. They offer information, and questions to keep the conversation alive and moving.


Valerie Kane is an MPP Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Young Women in Congress: Kyrsten Sinema

As soon as she walked into the Newly Elected Members of Congress Conference at Harvard, Congresswoman-elect Kyrsten Sinema lit up the room with her personality – exchanging greetings with her colleagues like they were old friends, meeting Kennedy School staff and students with genuine interest. It was refreshing to see this dynamic young woman, stylish and hip, in a room dominated by suits, grays,  khakis and blues. Her personal style reflected and amplified this energy – a splash of color rivaled only by Congressman-elect Joe Kennedy’s bright red hair.

Before I get in trouble with fellow feminist bloggers for focusing on looks – I was impressed above all by Congresswoman Sinema’s seriousness of purpose and sharp political sense. Her relentless commitment to her constituents was evident and her energy contagious.

Below is a recreation of our conversation based on my notes.

When did you know you would run for office?

I was a social worker, and I saw that the system was not set up for these kids to succeed. So I figured if I just go down to the state legislature and tell them what needs to be done to fix it, they would fix it. So I did that, and they all thought it was so cute…and they didn’t do anything. That’s when I said, ‘you know what, I will take your job and do it better’. That’s when I decided to run.

What was most challenging about the congressional campaign?

Everything! It was a tight race that turned nasty with lots of outside money. The worst was hearing terrible things said about me on TV, knowing they weren’t true, but not having any recourse. I just had to keep on telling my story.

What (if anything) was easier than you expected?

I am lucky – I grew up in Arizona and I had been a community organizer for years, so I know the people in my district. What was amazing is that when I asked people for help, they came out in droves and helped. It was inspiring.

Did your community organizing experience translate into your campaign?

Oh, it’s the same thing! Community organizing is all about getting people to come together and be part of solving a problem, which is what campaigns are supposed to be, right? When people truly are invested and feel that they are part of the solution, that’s very powerful.

Advice to young women thinking about running for office?

If someone tells you that you can’t do something – ignore them. Look, I’m young, a woman, openly bisexual, not a member of a faith community, so yes, some people were telling me I shouldn’t run, that I couldn’t win, but I did. 

Anya Malkov is an MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, a WAPPP Cultural Bridge Fellow, and an alumna of From Harvard Square to the Oval Office.

Winning Without the War on Women

The euphoric post-election story goes something like this – women rocked the vote, both as voters and as candidates. There are now 20 women in the U.S. Senate – a historic number. Our very own Massachusetts elected its first woman to the Senate. New Hampshire became the first state to have an all-female Congressional delegation and a female governor.

As we celebrate this historic moment, however, we should not fool ourselves into thinking that women are on some kind of irreversible trajectory to reaching political parity. The current advances are a product of targeted efforts by political parties. Unless female politicians and aspiring candidates want to remain dependent on the salience of ‘rape’ and ‘abortions’ in the next election cycle, they must use this moment to push beyond the so-called “women’s issues.”

It is tempting to say that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee recruited record numbers of female candidates simply because its chair, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), is a women’s champion. She is, of course, but she is also an astute political operator, as is her counterpart at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), who recruited a record number of female candidates for the House. Political parties are not altruistic actors.

Parties can play a major role in bringing about gender parity, but the goal of party establishments is to win a majority. Parties do not recruit a certain type of candidate because it would build a more representative Congress. Parties recruit candidates who can win. It is not difficult to surmise that in the context of a “Republican war on women,” the best Democratic candidates would be women.   

The success of Democratic recruitment efforts is evident. Of the 20 women in the Senate, 16 are Democrats and 4 are Republicans. The House, with 58 Democratic and 20 Republican women, beats previous records, and white men are no longer the majority of the House Democratic Caucus. Clearly, when parties decide to recruit and elect women, they are able to do so.   

So what happens in the next election when there is no more “war on women”? The political establishment will search for candidates who can win on whatever issue dominates the discourse. If women want to be in the game, then they have to use the current wave to assert their leadership and demonstrate the value of a female perspective on all issues.

Yes, it is unfair – men as a group are never required to prove their fitness to govern – but if any group of women could change the game, it is the newly elected class. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), has big banks shaking in their boots. Wall Street lobbyists are working overtime to prevent her from getting on the Senate banking committee, and she has not even been sworn in yet. Enemies foreign and domestic should be likewise terrified of Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL). Both have served in combat with distinction, and Duckworth has the prosthetic legs and the Purple Star to show for it.

These are just a few examples. Let’s hope that the women in Congress can show their parties, their constituents and the country that they are not to be confined to a narrow set of issues. Until this happens, progress toward parity will remain slow, uneven and reactionary.

*****
For more information:

Center for American Women and Politics, Election Watch Fact Sheet

Time, "Four Ways Women Won the 2012 Election"

Forbes, "Did America Just Elect its First Woman President?"

Washington Post, "Women Make Historic Gains in the US Senate"

The Telegraph, "US Election: Here come the girls as women make historic gains"

*****

Anya Malkov is an MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, a WAPPP Cultural Bridge Fellow, and an alumna of From Harvard Square to the Oval Office.

Oval Office alums win big!

We are proud to report that four of WAPPP's Oval Office alumnae won their elections last night: Lori Ehrlich (Oval '05) was re-elected to the MA Legislature, Stefani Carter (Oval '05) also was re-elected to the Texas Legislature, and Marjorie Decker (Oval '06) won her first MA State Rep race. To their ranks, they welcome Michelle Fay who won her election to the Vermont State House.

Congratulations to all!!

Lori Ehrlich 

D-Massachusetts State Representative (Eighth Essex District)

MPA '05 and Oval Office '05

 

 

 

Stefani Carter

R-Texas House District 102

MPP/JD '05 and Oval Office '05

A spotlight on Texas districts seeing heated battles

Republican incumbent Stefani Carter won a second term after taking a large lead over Rich Hancock during early voting. Carter, who was often at Richardson City Hall during early voting, credited her Democratic opponent for running a good campaign.

Marjorie Decker 

D-MA State Representative (25th Middlesex District)
MPA '06 and Oval Office '06

Democrats take ticket top to bottom in Cambridge

In the state representative races, Democrats dominated the ticket. New comers David Rogers and Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker joined the Cambridge caucus in the State House.

Michelle Fay

D-VT House of Representatives (St. Johnsbury)

MPA '11 and Oval Office '11

Gender Equality in Elected Office: Applying the Six Step Action Plan to the Egyptian Case

“A genuine academic with a real impact on practice” is how Hannah Riley-Bowles introduced Pippa Norris, the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. Professor Norris certainly lived up to this introduction, presenting the audience with a research-based framework and then making us to dig into the practice of applying it to the Egyptian case. 

The research question behind the framework is “What promotes gender equality in elected office?” The country-level data clearly shows that it is not gender-related development and not democratization, and that culture change is too slow to measure or to be an effective tool. It is institutional reforms that have impact.  The “Six Step Action Plan” hones in on the institutions and leverage points in question:

• Constitutions
• Electoral systems
• Legal quotas
• Party selection rules and procedures
•  Capacity development
• Gender-sensitive procedures in elected office

In a purely theoretical world it would be easy to insert women at each of these levels, to make all the rules women-friendly – guarantee constitutional protections, mandate quotas, provide trainings, etc. But the reality is messy and much more interesting. 

The Egyptian case study presented us with the historic, political and cultural context of a country in the midst of a constitutional debate. It forced us to think strategically and to get specific about the types of interventions (if any) we would pursue at each of the six steps. 

Egyptian Women MP's Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

Lively discussion sprung forth from all corners of the room. An Egyptian student insisted that it matters more that the right women are in office, not just more women, explaining how highly conservative women can set back the cause. Groups argued about the best level on which to focus the advocacy. Debate ensued over the timing of intervention and the key actors to engage, and there was no agreement on quotas versus reserved seats as the optimal legal structure. We ran out of time.

“So what is the solution?” I asked half kidding and half frustrated. Of course, there is no solution that we can simply think up here in Cambridge. Still, the exercise demonstrated that the Six Step Action Plan – a conceptual framework grounded in research – can be a powerful tool for advocates shaping the debate on gender equality. And with requests pouring in from all corners of the world to translate and to adapt this framework, it is no wonder that Pippa Norris is an academic with a real impact on practice.