Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer set out, in their vast study, to provide an additional explanation for a phenomenon that has been evident in the literature on political behaviours: there are gender differences in political engagement and participation. They argue that electoral institutions, such as electoral rules, and the consequences of the electoral system can promote political inclusion which affects men's and women's political behaviours differently. More inclusive electoral rules may provide incentives for citizens, and especially female citizens, to become involved in the political process. Electoral institutions can also act as symbols that may draw citizens into the political process. Since women have long been marginalized in the political system, “women may be more receptive to these signals of inclusion than men who have not historically been politically excluded or socially marginalized” (15).
Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer identify proportional representation, high district magnitude and gender quotas as inclusive electoral rules that may influence positively and in greater proportions women's level of political engagement and participation. Furthermore, they argue that electoral rules can have an indirect effect on women's political involvement through the proportionality of the translation of votes into seats, the contours of the party system they produce and the level of women's representation they generate. A better translation of votes into seats, the presence of a greater number of political parties competing in elections and the presence of a high number of women in the legislature should send a signal to women in the electorate that the political system is inclusive and open to the presence of women. Thus, gender differences in political engagement and participation should be smaller when the electoral institutions are more inclusive. Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer find that, indeed, the proportionality of the electoral system is consistently associated with smaller gender gaps. The presence of gender quotas also has an important effect on gender differences in political engagement and participation.
An important contribution of Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer's analysis is the combination of a large cross-national investigation with case studies. Cross-national analyses are lacking from the literature on gender gaps in political engagement and participation, especially since there is evidence that gaps tend vary across countries. Moreover, the presence of these variations in gender differences in political engagement and participation indicates that political institutions are an overlooked explanation for this phenomenon. Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer's work contributes to remedying this hole in the literature. The authors also complete their analysis with case study investigations of the effects of electoral reform in New Zealand and Russia and the effects of gender quotas in France and Uruguay. These case studies allow Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer to examine over time the mechanisms that relate electoral institutions to gender gaps in political engagement and participation.
This combination of large a cross-national analysis with case studies reinforces the authors' theoretical claims about the role of electoral institutions in explaining gaps in engagement and participation. It allows for a more convincing argument that address the problem of causality that arises when studying political institutions. For instance, Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer, in their case study analyses, demonstrate that a change toward a more proportional electoral system leads to smaller gender differences in political engagement and participation.
However, Kittilson and Schwidt-Bayer's investigation tends to ignore the more negative sides of electoral institutions. It seems plausible that political institutions may not only provide incentives to political engagement and participation to citizens but that they can also impose barriers to political involvement that may affect men and women differently. Contrary to their expectations, the authors find that the effective number of political parties is associated with greater gender differences in engagement and participation, with women lagging being men's levels of involvement. This finding seems to indicate that the presence of more political parties is a barrier to involvement that influence women in greater proportions than men. Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer provide no theoretical explanation for this result. More investigations are needed in assessing how political institutions can limit political involvement and how this effect is gendered.
Another puzzling finding of Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer is that, in some situations, electoral institutions affect men's levels of political involvement in greater proportions than on women. The authors hypothesize that gender differences ought to be smaller in more inclusive political systems because these systems should have a greater positive impact on women's levels of political involvement. This is not always the case; smaller gender gaps are sometimes the result of institutions having a greater influence on men's behaviours. This finding illustrates the lack of theoretical explanation for the effect of political institutions on men's levels of political engagement and participation. Since electoral institutions have a gendered effect on political involvement, mechanisms explaining this influence should also focus on how and why institutions may influence men's levels of political involvement in addition to women's.
In sum, The Gendered Effects of Electoral Institutions provides an important contribution to the literature on gender gaps in political involvement by demonstrating that political institutions are an overlooked explanation. At the same time, it illustrates that more cross-national research is needed.
