Transcripts For CSPAN2 Gender Race And Politics 20170222

We have a campaign that was permeated by issues of gender and race and class. When a woman at the top of the democratic ticket for the first time. When a billionaire at the top of the republican ticket that have it discourse. Also in this campaign we sought thought differences from campaigns in the near past it enters into the discourse in new and different ways. In ways that are perpetrated in ways that we have not seen in previous campaigns. It is not to say that they didnt have sexism and racism. In part due to the campaign and the ways in which they played into that campaign we expect them to play large roles. We already see in terms of policy donald trump promising to make an executive order to build a wall along the u. S. Mexican border. We also have seen it. With regard to gender and gender equality between three and 4 Million People marching across america in response to the administration and for gender equality. We already see important dynamics and articles come into a political context that for the last eight years or more has been one of increasing production. It takes on that dynamic and interrogates the relationship between gender and race in partisan politics and what we might expect in the 41st president ial administration. Im going to introduce them altogether now. And then we will open it up to discussions. The panelists that we have associate professor of sociology. I have asked them to start off with the panel. A campaigns in particular. She is well known for her 2011 book called at this defining moment. In the new politics of race. And she has a new Research Project that looks specifically at the campaign in young peoples perception of gender and race. Our second speaker will be here in the middle of the table. They join us todays having traveled from cleveland ohio. At the reserve university. The master professor. And also chair of the department of Political Science there. She comes to us is almost complete called cabinets. It compares the process in the advanced industrialized country. And what that implication is. For the presence of women in this cabinet. She is open to questions in the dialogue about how her Research Findings inform how we understand the cabinet appointment process. As the new president ial administration. Associate professor of Political Science. Also hear from the university of minnesota. She is an expert in u. S. Congressional politics. The dynamics of gender and politics. With her most recent book being published in 2015 and the house of representatives. She will give us a background on gender and race. And then we might expect in the future as we move into this congress in this administration. Im been timed and im also want to try to tie myself here. Five days after the inauguration. Im excited to be a part of the conversation. And offer some quotes from a few responders. So do not expect a lot of analysis, trains. We dont trend yet but we have interesting. I would also like to acknowledge there are about six months of my Research Team are here right now. So thank you all for coming. [applause] and four to work on this. So im a sociologist at the university of minnesota. Ive been her about 12 years and primarily i study Race Relations and blackness in the consumer u. S. I was first drawn to look at race and gender in president ial politics during barack obama is first run for the white house. And i started to parallel studies on race, blackness, gender and a bomb in 20072008. The first was based on analysis of newspaper articles, on analysis of newspaper articles, blogs and other forms of public commentary where pendants, reporters and bloggers furiously debated the racial meaning of a bomb his candidacy and then his presidency for the u. S. And for whites in particular and for black politics, et cetera and asked what kind of black person is he can what does this mean for the u. S. . Really, really exciting. I wrote a book based on analysis of this which came out in 2011. And in the same time i also started an interviewbased study called you speak which is parallel to the work that im doing, presenting today. And rather than focusing on the news media and Online Platforms it was based on an indepth series of indepth interviews with College Students here. I found as i is doing by mediabased research on the election, i was having all these really interesting conversations with people about what the election meant to them. So i wanted to talk to individuals in their everyday life and try to capture some of that. And so the result of these interviews were present in a number of presentations, papers, some of it was articles and summit was incorporated into the book as well. So if we go forward to today, i wasnt planning to study race gender and electoral politics again in 2016. I moved on to some really interesting work on race in the body and heres a little on the slide. But issues of race and immigration and gender became more and more central to the 2016 election and to the tendencies of troll and clinton. I was drawn to write and speak about and studied his issues again. So i have become really fascinated with president to politics as a medium for at the transformation of racial discourse because of the very intense and focused manner in which elections refract conversations about race and gender and emigration and other related issues. And it seemed to me pretty early into trumps candidacy that he was running on a White Nationalist like platform, and that this was resonating really strongly with his supporters. Then when he started blowing his opponents out of the water one after the other with his rhetoric on muslims and on mexicans and terrorism and calling to build a wall, and in spite of or maybe because of his very critical comments about womens personalities and the physical characteristics, i was like okay, theres definitely something here to make sense of and to parse through. So i have been working on and thinking about in a focused way race, gender and immigration in the election since late last spring. So i did an article for a british publication and for a blog founded by the former president of the asa, joe fagan. I did a talk at the ias here at a panel looking at race and religion in september, and i was interviewed by the Washington Post for a story about the meaning of the slogan make America Great again. And then also by usa today, though a few days after the election on the proliferation of hate speech and racist graffiti in the u. S. , what were called kkk lights on saturday night live we can. So anyway, and this time i started the together the present study. Perspectives on the 2016 president ial election, and i mention that there was all this stuff coming out about race and immigration and gender, and trumps rhetoric in particular seemed to really strongly resound with his supporters and really strongly repelled those who are opposed to him, including the press in general. And it wanted to make sense of it. So how do we go from our first black president to someone who seems to be running on a White Nationalist platform collects the members of the press were developing their own views of what was happening, which, and what explains it. Some of it might be based on one indepth profile of an individual person that they sat down with four over the course of several days, or maybe they did snippets of interviews with bunch of different people at a rally but i wanted to look at this more systematically using indepth interviews with a large sample of respondents. I wanted to be able to trace how different ideas and sentiments were or were not connected in their minds and to explore points of contradiction or conflicts in the world views as well. The best way to do this is through indepth interviews. All right, so early in the fall of 2016th i begin to assemble my team of research assistants, and hello, yell. There are currently 20 of us all together come mostly sociology graduate students at advanced undergraduate students, and proposed a study of College Student views on the election. Im going, until the bit about why we chose to do College Students in the q a if we are tied for that i want to keep going. In short one of main reasons it allows the comparison of the earlier study that i did and as a matter of logistics because we wanted to did interviews and a very compressed timeframe and we knew we had ready access to university students. The Research Team is comprised of several africanamerican interviews, six usborn white interviews, for asian or asianamerican interviews, to latina and one native american interviewer. We have done race matching as much as possible because we knew that would be an important component of the study design. We solicit participation from undergraduate students here at the university of minnesota which is a mostly liberal leaning campus and at Bethel University which is a christian evangelical college that leans more conservative. Its about halfandhalf. I can tell you more about the uniqueness of doing research at bethel later as well. We were especially interested in gaining and oversample of certain student populations, including black students, firstgeneration immigrant students, first and Second Generation asianamerican students, muslim student, students and write our conservative link students and, therefore, we conducted targeted recruitment at different student groups. We conducted professors and a number of different departments around that you and at bethel and never could from 15 different courses so far. We posted fliers around campus. So as i mentioned before we are still collecting data and have not formally begun the analysis but going to tell you some things about the sample and present some quotes from a few of our interviews. How are we on time . Oh, my goodness. All right. So far with 85 interviews completed. 68 at the um and 1 17 at bethel. This table is the separate data but im just good to be getting to the combined data students at the u are generally liberal or left learning leaning where bethel is 5050 split. So far sample is just over half white overall, about 55 due to our strong oversampling of students of color. About a fourth of our student art of african descent and there are about 10 latino, 7 asian and 7 7 other races. All right, so the study questions. After we ascertained basic demographic information on the respondents including their primary political and religious affiliation, we asked questions that are broken into a number of categories and they include how do you feel about the outcome of the election . What did you can tell you about this country or the American People . What explains why trump want in your view, and can you provide us with several adjectives to describe Hillary Clinton or donald trump . There are lots of questions about race such as Trumps Campaign slogan was make America Great again, what does that mean . Do you think it is a thick specifically to do with race, gender or immigration . What do you think explains his strong support among the White Working Class and among collegeeducated whites, and why do so many white evangelicals vote for trump . Im going to skip over some of his other questions. When asked them about specific populations of color, latinas, black voters and et cetera. We also say most critiques of trump races have come from the left because the left itself have a race problem in your view or is is mostly a problem on the right . Then a third of the questions on the study are about gender. We asked do you think gender are patriotic works in childs favorite intellection . We asked a similar question about Hillary Clinton. Is the us the u. S. Ready for fee president in your view . What kind of model of masculinity or manual does trump represent . And does he present a strong model of christian manhood . Thats what we asked of the bethel students. And in closing the asked things like how do you think the country will change under the Trump Administration . What are your greatest hopes and fears for yourself or for other groups of people and what do we do next as the country, how do we move forward from here . I am very low on time but im just going to present you with some quotes from a few of the respondents. So first we have scott whos a conservative white male at the u is interviewed. What did ink of the outcome of the election . Case of a middleclass background pic happy with republican sweeping all levels of government except for trump. He was a never trumpers and he doesnt like in n i think the election was a resounding success other than the fact donald want. I did like donna. I never wanted to vote for him. I do like there is republican at the president ial so that we can get Supreme Court appointments potentially a ridiculously huge republican majority into Supreme Court for years or decades to, we asked him what did the outcome tell you about this country for the American People . He says i think more than anything it tells us that the forgotten part of america is being brought into the national spectrum, like the fly over state. I think a lot of the poor people that have been snuffed over, people didnt have a voice are now starting to have a voice again. And he says but it do think there were some racist sentiments what comes to the muscleman and then like the wall. I think the wall is like the stupidest thing people kind of got swayed by donald. Why did trump when in your view . He says the flyover states did for him, another reason i think donald want is hillary was just an awful candidate. The democrats have obama. Like a cool black eye. Is going like on social media and visiting youtube was doing all these cool things and his connecting with young people here got a think the democratic partparty made a mistake when ty replaced a cool charismatic black guy with a white old lady. If that makes any sense. It wasnt very charismatic and many people like myself would just see her as robotic. I asked him or our interviewer asked him to think theyre into groups of people that we be particularly disadvantaged under the Trump Administration . Listen. He says muslims and hispanics are deathly going to be at a disadvantage when you start to perpetuate the idea that every muscle is a terrorist and kept talking about the wall that had an impact. I think a lot of prejudices will be coming forward, but they wont be disenfranchised politically. No policies will come forward and put them at any disadvantage. Same as gave people. There will be more prejudice in the public populace but they wont be any disadvantage in terms of policy. There was a liz, a democratic socialist and a white female lesbian at the u who briefly said that she cried for two hours after the election was finalized. And here as is typical she said she was not at all a stone clinton supported which is mostly just against trump. As for what elections is about the country for her, she says it clearly shows that the country is far more racist than she even thought it wise, and that people like her must be on the more passive she thought. Now heres the really interesting thing about her from her come in terms of adjectives to describe Hillary Clinton come she says okay, shes experienced and highly intelligent but shes also not really trustworthy. Shes a 1 her and she doesnt connect with young voters. As for trump she says he is incredibly selfish, a manipulator and in 1 or. Let me go to her quotes about gender. We asked her how important was a gender in the and she says in some ways i think gender did hurt hillary but at the same time ive heard a lot of white women use that to derail other more pertinent issues. Trump is a disgusting and misogynist man. Let me get that out of the way. We have some serious antiwomen sentiment sentiment in this country but that was not the basis of his platform. Its just who he is. All the xena phobic racism, thats thats not about gender. White women should be really careful. Its all about gender. Its all about sexism. Its all misogyny. Unlike, i dont know. I think a lot of women especially straight white women which is not me, its like the white feminist tendency to reduce everything to men versus women. They dont want to look at other issues such as race. I want to give you a few quotes from todd who is a conservative evangelical at bethel. He says that make America Great again was a genius slogan that in his you had absolutely nothing to do with race, immigration or gender piggy said it was a fill in the blank kind of thing. When we asked him why didnt the access Hollywood Tape scientifically damage trumps support among white women . He says its because they really didnt trust the media. They thought it was something that was fake or made that. Trump may have said i may not its that it didnt matter because it was coming from the media. You couldnt trust the source. When we asked him does trump present a model of christian manhood, he said no, not at all. I would not cause same as a christian whatsoever. I would say that i think in a would not want trump to know to be filled with and i think most of them hindus can anyone would be appalled by trouble identifying as one of them. Now on the issue of the nature of Race Relations in the u. S. Today, he said that they were very tense. It was not the 1800s for the 1950s but things but things were still very bad. He says a lot of people are pushing for it to be equal but who youre pushing against his people who are willing to push back. He says a lot of the race problem is coming from the media. Media. The media is causing us to focus on race and that they are there for causing racial divisions by making us think that everything is racial whether or not it really is. And he says if we want to go away from race and racism we need to stop talking about race. How important was race in the recent election in your view . He says army and was nonexistent. Could have cared less. I thought trump was racist so it hurt my moral estimation of him, but as for us on a policy level, really any other characteristic, i mean no. Im white so it really didnt matter to me. For me and was a nonissue. Other than the fact he was a racist, in my mind. [laughter] you describe trump as a racist and pointed out that he espoused a lot of very racist views be decent people who voted for him or implicitly or explicitly motivated by racism as some have claimed . He says i think thats very much a false statement. Now, i could name a kind of races that voted for trump because also wanted muslims out of the country so yes, thats a true statement. However he want a lot of boats and there are just not that many races in this country. I think thats not possible. I dont think thats a valid claim. So, therefore, no, you cannot possibly say that. It has no background at all. Some self some contradictions there, right . And lastly im going to give you a few quotes from michael it was a black male, independently described himself as lowercla lowerclass. How did you feel about the outcome of the election . I wasnt surprised that a lot of people were surprised. I wouldnt say i was happy but i was not worried and i was not surprised because i understand the level of racism that exist in our country and i live in that reality. A lot of white liberals dont live in that reality so with the election happened and people were surprised, its because you were not paying attention to it you are not paying attention to what people have been telling you the whole time, that americas a very scary place to live if youre a racial minority, particularly if youre a muslim or if youre a poor racial minority. What adjectives would you use to describe Hillary Clinton . He says ajit is, oh, jesus be out of it because i dont want to be too negative. The problem is im forced to acknowledge that im sexy because i am a male at a want o steer clear of that. I think she wouldve been a great candidate, i think shes professional, business savvy, untrustworthy. I dont think thats sexist. I think thats legit. A bit untrustworthy, successful, a product of the times, and appointed trendsetter. And i said were the other interviews that you came to light that you want to use . He said evil in such a horrible person hashes portrayed in the media and he said he realized some of these characterizations were sexist and that he was going to knock off of them. But he says overall she just wasnt likable. She will say whatever she needs to say just to get a book. Its like pandering and you cant do that. Now, as adjectives to describe trump, he says hes smart, sensationalist, arrogant, full of bs, so dishonest piggies is even for his supporters hes not authentic either pick and i said so you dont think he means most of the stuff he says . Not even half of it. He knows better. And theres no way he can run a country the way he wants to run it. And its funny because he knows that an Trump Supporters know that but to get a certain feeling when he speaks and i like that, feeling a privilege. They cant tell you why they voted for him based on what issues but they like the feeling that they get. What he says come its not feasible, its not applicable but it can get you elected. Lastly i asked him why do you think trump one . He says he is restoring the narrative of the country was built on what just white supremacy. I think he won because of sexism, to be fair but trump is the perfect president because look at what this country was founded on. Which is the exploitation of other peoples bodies and brains and thats what is narrative was. Trump is perfect for what they want. Can we really be surprised that this man one . Lets go back to the white liberals because he was concerned about white liberals wasnt anyone. Not like and so it is, the whites, white liberals. He says i feel like theyre the most important factor. We havent made any progress as a nation and theyre the only ones i want to talk to. They are the worst sometimes did they are the worst because if it wants up a white friend a muslim friend but theyre not actually working to address these issues so were not making progress. Since were not making progress doldrums being president doesnt surprise me. Th. The disparities are still th. Thats what if you like the real problem is and him only interested in having a conversation with them because they think they want to help. Im done, thank you. [applause] good afternoon. Its such a pleasure to be here at humphrey school. I have to confess when i was in high school i went to Kent State University high school, and they marched us from the high school over to the gymnasium at penn State University to see Hubert Humphrey give a Campaign Speech when he was running for Vice President in 1968. Ive never ive never forgotten that. It was a really impressive experience for me. I was always interested in politics so that was actually terrific, but i was hopping mad because i was only i think at that time, i was probably still 16 and couldnt vote. And so i was infuriated that it would be of the cast the vote because i would have voted for him. His record on civil rights alone was sufficient to have persuaded me even at that young age. I want to thank christina for inviting me to come. Really wonderful to be here. I also just as a little shout out so to say to the uku. S. Fulbright commission. I was a fulbright scholar for six months in january to jun june 2014. Today is robert burns birthday, so i had to say it. [laughter] i want to talk its hostile to get about with claire, and susan Joseph University of calgary. We are interested in how this happens. Happened. How is it that overnight a new Prime Minister, liberal party candidate, Justin Trudeau cant appoint a parody, agenda. The cabinet, one more half of all members are women and half our members all men overnight instantaneously coming straight into office . Thats a large cabinet by the way so to be able to find 15 women want in a nation of what 35 Million People, that shouldnt be too difficult but here we have the lovely tony abbott also liberal party but on the right in australia when he came into office after his first election he managed to only appoint one woman, julie bishop, ms. Bishop was the only woman to enter cabinet as the foreign fon minister that was the lowest number since 1998 of women in cabinet in australia. That wasnt john howard for the liberals in 1990. She constitutes 5. 5 of the cabinet in australia. How does this happen . In 2015 read the canadian cabinet and 2013 only two years prior we had the australian cabinet. So we wanted to ask a couple of questions about the impact of gender in the process of gender that might help explain. Why does womens inclusion in cabinet varies across selectors, present and primers is very across democracies, very within the same democracy across selectric we want to know then in particular how is the process of cabinet formation gendered . That is probably a big mistake so let me take this back for a moment. We want to know why these differences exist. What we decided first to do was to set up the Research Design that we would examine, look at the inclusion of women in cabinet by doing compared case study approach, do an analysis that would feminist institutional. We would look at the rule that were involved in establishing what it meant to form a cabinet. What rules constrain both formal and informal and that we would get data and information however we could both quantitative and qualitative. We began first by identifying the rules. We want to examine the formal and informal rules at the levels of both the political system and also in the selectors Political Parties. I mean the president by the Prime Minister who does the choosing. These will determine the range of action that constrain or empower the selector and also affect the range of choices that the selector might have for people are included in cabinet engines about eligibility, or rules that say you cant buy minutes serve as a cabinet minister and also in terms of qualification. What do you need to bring to cabinet as an individual to put together a collective cabinet that make some sense . We want to ask about informal rules. Former rules are written, public and visible. Uniform and within Political Parties. It doesnt matter who employs them. There is no discretion that the selector has been these roles have clear sanction for violation and these rules sanctions are legally enforceable peer changing these rules requires formal action but informal rules are slightly different. These are not written, not public. Probably need of some of these things up where you can see them a little bit. They are not written, not public but their visible to insiders. They very across the within party in terms of substance and application to a very across time picker subject to discretion but they also sanctions for their violation, even though the sanctions cannot be imposed to legal enforcement. So we developed a model that we wanted to see how formal and informal rules interacted in terms of two sets of actors. The first are the selectors, those who make the choices, those are empowered to act, or constrained to act both by former rules and informal rules in a political system and any Political Party. We also wanted to ask who would be eligible to be a minister, who would be qualified to be administered . What is the set from which a selector would be likely to form his or her cabinet . So we collected data for seven advanced democracies, some more industrialized than others with the various political systems and party so you see the list here. We have two president ial systems. We have two continental parliamentary systems and three westminster parliamentary systems, and have a variety of Political Parties of the major Political Parties can all be aligned on a leftright dimension. By large two parties define the polls of the party system. We looked at appointments only from initial cabinets but we collected data on all cabinet appointments from the date of the appointment of the first female cabinet minister. You can see some data. The United States was an early actor in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins as the secretary of labor, a position, a post in she served for four full terms so she was avoided if initial capped it every so with the first appointment of a woman, collected it on every single cabinet member in every single cabinet for every single one of the seven countries in our data set. We also collected information about the process of cabinet appointment and we looked at pairs of elections in each of these countries that were consecutive, that evolved a change of party government. For some of these, these are new government. Barack obama coming in an office in 2009. Some are cited terms or even third terms. George w. Bush has a second term that begins for appointment for 2005, so please forgive the air. We collected that data as well at the data on the process a cabinet appointments that we collected had to do with the following. The database from two National Newspapers for every case in our sample or in our little universe. We are not making massive generalizations. This is a three building, a hypothesis testing i hypothesis project we did interviews with potential menaces, Staff Members in michigan lets the persons and country expert specialists as was never so are staffed in embassies. We turn to political biographies and memoirs. So these are the first things that we employed to collect our data. So we found some interesting things. Ill get to gender and also affect because you get to race. The first thing is former rules exist but they have very little constraining and back on the selector. Even in the United States which is a case where theres a powerful second actor for cabinet appointments. The president may nominate but if the senate says know the person may not be cabinet secretary even in these cases this formal rule does not act as a major constraint on the selector. Senate members by enlarging the senate gives the president what he wants in terms of cabinet. There are very few exceptions. As a venture across time. Its even more true with the party of the president controls the senate as we are seeing even now. Suddenly we find an informal rule are the primary shapers of the cabinet process. And finally rules about qualifying we found are the most important. We found three major rules about qualification and identified qualification as the informal role who make, which make someone eligible not eligible, that makes someone selectable, makes someone to use the term many strabo. What makes the person but interministerial material and a potential appointee. We fight it all the rules about qualifying criteria are written, excuse to come in from an unwritten and finally find that in the application of qualifying informal rules the selector puts together a cabinet not by choosing individuals but rather by choosing individuals in the context of forming a team. So a cabinet is formed as a team rather than as a set of individuals. No single individual possesses all the qualifying criteria by the cabinet collectively includes them all. What do these qualifying criteria we identified three . The first is political expense and policy knowledge. They should not be a big surprise that someone has experience in government, experience in policymaking or the political expense necessary to get things done. Secondly, we found affiliation qualifications. The rules for affiliation are this is someone whos in your network, not necessary a friend disorders in your personal network. The rule for affiliation qualification and how that is employed i selectors in the seven countries is the point primary from your own Political Party and dont appoint strangers. Appointed enemies is fine, Boris Johnson in great britain, but dont appoint strangers. Finally the representational will recall representational criteria, this is membership in a politically relevant sociodemographic group. Every country in our sample has representational criteria as qualifying for appointment to cabinet although the number of criteria and the type of representational criteria vary. Representational criteria that we found in other cases include regions, race, ethnicity, religion or language, sex and party or party faction. Its the only representational category that appears across all countries. All countries have a requirement that cabinets now cannot be allfemale, and although that category exist exist all countr, the magnitude and number varies substantially. So here we have, excuse me. This is what all the cabinets appointment looks like a cross topic you can see some lines are along zero. Thats a quick flash. You can see their trajectories primer upwards for women but not consistently and not in all countries. Australia as the flattest light is the worst case. And goodness. I am not getting further in my presentation in terms of whats on the screen. I will just talk in that case and see where i can get from here. I wont even bother about this. Let me give you some examples. Race and ethnicity are important representational criteria into other cases, the United States and candidate. Ethnicity is an emerging representational criterion in the united kingdom. Religion which have been a primary qualifying criteria in germany is declining in importance and significance. In australia, chile and spain, know the and interviews are data was mention of race, religion or ethnicity as relevant representational criteria. For candida the primary is region. You cannot have a cabinet appointment does not include representation of every single province in canada and not one that represents toronto or quebec. It is the case for a candidate and the u. S. That all White Cabinets are no longer acceptable. Lets see will so it is it because he wants sure, i wont be officially some of these things. Ill talk about some of this later in regards to press response to question by doing to say in the United States race and ethnicity become more important as has gender. Although gender, let me say to be clear, jim has been an important criterion in all of these cases because the original qualification was appointments. I was informal role that well has been change as countries have what we refer to as a concrete floor. By concrete forward mean the minimum number of women have to be appointed to captivate every country has one except austral australia. How we know theres a concrete floor for that number is that we can see that it back to back administrations parties that number is appointed for that number is increased. For the United States since 1993. Then three women in initial cabinets in every administration from clinton to george w. Bush both terms for both, for barack obama. Both clinton and bush and obama have appointed for, but in many cases special with obama is second initial cabinet, the number dropped back to three. So for is not yet confirmed. Three is 20 representation in cabinet but is still a relatively low number. We know that they can many of the countries have gender parity cabinets. Concrete floor is important and that, i know i only have like two minutes left by do what is a of things about the concrete floor and why its important. Its important for women and ill had to talk about race in little bit but which is not the focus but its important in the trade for cabinet appointments. The concrete floor is important because it establishes womens inclusion in the representational criteria are used to form cabinets. Concrete floors with established in silence arguments about quote merit. Where concrete floor has been stop his claims that sexbased representational criteria are not meritorious begin to diminish the concrete floors exist for province in canada, the provinces of selecting category, for Coalition Partner in coalition governments. These provoke little opposition but when it comes to appointed limits to cabinet, concrete floors provoke discussions of merit. Once the floors begin to rise, arguments about this person is not meritorious begin to disappear. In fact, we think about the concrete floor as recasting arguments about merit and cabinet appointments, not as about merit but rather as a form of tactics or strategies in a political struggle over political representation, and womens inclusion in government. We anticipate as numbers of women appointed increase and are confirmed as concrete floors, arguments about merit will diminish your excitedly come concrete floors for womens inclusion in cabinet shapes strategy. One of the most interesting synergies for us is that if theres a concrete floor that relatively high, you can use that floor to leverage of the next selected one of the things we found is that you can exact a promise on the Prime Minister or the president that he or she will appoint at least a higher number and in many cases just make the promise to appoint a a gender parity cabinets, selectors to that. This is the unusual interesting component about cabinet formation which is quite different than being elected to parliament. The selector is fully empowered to select, and there is a range of qualified and eligible persons from whom you do not need to choose a large number. There are virtually no veto players, certainly not formally come and are few informally. This means that a selector who promises to appoint a gender parity cabinet can do so and increasingly there is no penalty for doing so. In this regard we need to Pay Attention to the ways in which personal gender might differ, jim demint female, might differ from race being black, for example, and it also suspect the one more thing i wanted to say. Well, i have to leave at that. In any case we found a variety of interesting applications of our findings and thus far to the current appointments of a new cabinet under our new president. So thank you very much. [applause] thank you to christina and the hunted for having me. Im delighted to be with you here to talk about race, gender and partisan polarization in the 115th congress. We are a few weeks into the one at 15th congress and a few days into the trump presidency. We see considerable uncertainty so want to hedge my conversation any predictions i might make on that basis. Political Science Research sheds considerable light on the political context that we face and informs predictions about the roles of race, gender and partisan identity. I will spend a lot of time talking about partisan identity because in the context of the Current Congress where a member of congress is situated in terms of his or her party is extremely important in assessing their ability to be effective legislatively or their role in opposing the Majority Party and getting to voice out there. So first i want to take us back to Election Night 2016. Even before that, remind you that for most of the 2016 election cycle when discussing congressional elections, and was focused on the potential damage that trumps candidacy would cause the Republican House and Senate Candidates who would republicans lose control of the senate . Many predictions suggested just. What would republican losses in the house look like a republican Speaker Paul Ryan declined to campaign with then candidate trump and said explicitly that he is going to focus on getting his House Republican colleagues reelected. But trump want and Congressional Republicans avoided significant losses. In part thanks to trump not in spite of trumpet so despite their misgivings about trump some republicans at least felt some unexpected gratitude. Republicans continue the Majority Party control of both the house and the senate. Most of the membership remained constant. Democrats gained six house seats, not the 20 day wouldve needed to take over the chamber, and two senate seats. Only nine income attorney for reelection lost general elections, and 90 incumbent reelection rate in the u. S. House. We are entering the wanted 15th congress in a highly partisan and highly polarized environment, just as we experience for the last several congresses. Parties are deeply divided on many policy issues. Indeed, party unity is consistently high. We should expect it will continue to be so and that has been for the last decade at least. Here are party unity scores for the average republican member in both the house and the senate at the average democratic member in both the house and the senate. You can see on both divided to Party Members on average vote with their party and against the other party in the high 80s, low 90s consistently. I would expect to see no difference emma no difference in the congress ahead. And, in fact, electoral competition is also very important in understanding this. Its important to understand the congressional behavior. Its not just that the two parties are deeply divide on issues. They are but they also vote against one another when the issues are not deeply divisive but when issues are procedural or even nonideological researchers found. The two parties today our teams fighting Majority Party control and to understand congress is to understand this dynamic. In 1994 house, the republicans won the house for the first time in 40 years and ever since then even though sometimes its been more distant the two parties have been engaged in tulsa politics, fighting for control of the house in the next election. The dynamic has been sober for the senate which switch Majority Party control even more frequently than the house really since 1980. So again they wanted 15th Congress Just like those that preceded we expected to be partisan and polarized. This also means that Party Leaders can you need to exercise great power over the agenda and over their members lives especially in the house of representatives. House Majority Party leaders have power over the agenda. They set the agenda and it is very difficult for minority Party Members to get the items on the agenda. And in the mature tree house even if they do they are likely to lose. Additionally, Party Leaders reward loyalty. So all members regardless of sex or race have incentives to be loyal to their party. Because after all, my research has shown that Party Leaders reward members for their loyalty and roll call voting and other partisan behavior when it comes to determining what committees they are on, how much money they get, although Safety Measures will come and also whether or not their bills and a members are considered on the house floor. Minority party notice house have very little power and very little influence. Majority parties and leaders in the senate have less power than in the house in large part because it takes 60 votes to get much of anything done in the senate. So Minority Party senators have more options than minority Party Members do in the house but their power is still more limited. So turning now to the total number of women elected to congress. The number didnt change between the 2016 elections and today. The number was 104 women going in and we have 104 women serving in the Current Congress. The house and the senate numbers change slightly. The senate added one woman for a total of 21, a historic high, and house went from 8 84 women n the last congress to 83 today. But its extremely important to have descriptive representation or womens representation in the house of representatives. This is the branch closest to the people after all, and women comprise 51 of the american population. So increasing women, increasing racial and Ethnic Diversity come it brings legitimacy to the peoples house. Although women are not monolithic and are diverse in their own expenses and views, women do bring different perspectives and different used to the chamber. Women in congress have discussed their own experiences on tanf during important welfare reform debates. They discuss recovering from childbirth, dealing with Breast Cancer and many other issues that are generally specific to women. And, in fact, Research Shows again and again that women are more likely to sponsor bills that deal with issues that disproportionate affect women. Women are more likely to prioritize these issues, whether its sponsorship, cosponsorship, offering amendments. My own research has shown women in both parties are more likely to discuss the policy implications of legislation for women, and that when giving one minute speeches on any issues that members choose, women are more likely to discuss women in the context of whatever issue they are talking about. There are considerable differences between democrats and republicans in their policy positions. These differences have actually become more pronounced. I would get you that any. Its important to note that womens demonstrated focus on womens issues so the defined at a variety of ways by different scholars does not come at the expense of work on other issues. In congress after Congress Political scientists have found women sponsor more bills than men do women are better at bringing federal monies back to the district than men are. Women are more likely to be legislatively effective according to a very complicated algorithm, figured out by some political scientist. Women are also more likely to deliver speeches on the house floor. This comes as no surprise that women come to the u. S. Congress with more preparation than men do. Although men and women when at the same rate women are more likely to have previous experience, and for democrats actually raise more money. But what about partisan differences . In the 2016 election 54 of women voted for Hillary Clinton. But the gender gap between republicans and democrats when it comes to womens representation is much more pronounced. Women an in both parties may be more active legislators on issues that disproportionate affect women but today they are on opposite sides of those debates, especially in the house of representatives. In the two parties are very unequal in terms of their composition of women. 32 of the House Democratic caucus or of all House Democrats is comprised of women, and 33 of senate democrats. Compare that to just 9 of the House Republican conference, and 10 of the Senate Republican conference. Many fewer women, many fewer republican women in congress than in the electorate. The republican Party Leadership in the house and senate is almost entirely white and entirely new. Cathy Mcmorris Rodgers was renamed as House Republican conference chair so not a top leadership position but nonetheless a leadership position in the house and mimi walters was named as a sophomore representative. But thats it. Only two republican women will serve as committee chairs, Virginia Foxx and susan brooks in the house and into republican women will chair senate committees, Lisa Murkowski and susan collins. On the house, Senate Democratic side, patty murray washington was first elected in 1992 will be the democrats number three leader. This dynamic in terms of the proportion of women in each party in congress has been shifting since the 1980s. For republicans the percentage of women has remained remarkably constant but for democrats in general its got up with a slight downtick in this election. Among democrats that womens caucus is more racially diverse than ever in the 115th congress. Women of color are not better represented than ever with a recordsetting 38 women of color, 35 democrats and three republicans serving in the 115th congress. Of the 14 nonincumbent women elected, nine are women of color. The number of women of color in the center has quadrupled to four. The first asianamerican women senate in 2012 will be joined by Kathryn Cortez masto of nevada, the first Latina Center in the u. S. , and Pamela Harris of california, the first black woman to serve and you senate in your education and Tammy Duckworth of the lord will be the first time an american senator. One more note on women in partisanship in congress. Women in both parties research has found have been more likely to talk about women and more likely to prioritize issues that this martia effect one. I want to especially in the house really emphasize that women have been on opposite sides of these two issues. So, for example, during the debate on the Affordable Care act we saw wit women in both pas were disproportionately likely to speak but the rule, amendments of dealing with abortion, but in all of these speeches that women were on different sides of these issues. So again more women may be more active in democratic and republican women today are very divided on these issues. Going back to the 1990s women in the Republican Party were more likely to be on both sides of these issues by today with increased partisan polarization that dynamic has really changed so the women in both parties are very partisan. We also see this in their speeches and in the voting of women in both parties are just as likely in some cases more likely to Vote Along Party Lines and to give speeches attacking the other party. Turning briefly to raise and representation in congress. In part because election in the women i just talked about, racial and Ethnic Diversity in congress has increased to its highest point yet. People of color account for 20 of the 59 new members of the house and the senate. And over all blacks, hispanic and Asian Pacific on this and native americans together, nonwhites make up 19 of the Current Congress. But by comparison these same groups comprise 38 of the nations population. So as this figure notes were at a high point point in terms of representation in congress but the gap between the congress and the u. S. Population is actually even bigger than it was during the 1980s. Importantly in terms of power inside the house in this congress, most racial and gender diversity is concentrate in the Democratic Party. White men but not whites are a minority within the Democratic Caucus in the house. Increase racial and gender diversity enhances representation and deliberation inside the house. Justice Research Shows that women are more likely to prioritize issues that disproportionate affect women, we see the same dynamics among africanamericans, hispanics and asians in congress. In part because their efforts to sponsor legislation and in part because of the efforts of the tricaucus, the congressional black caucus, the congressional hispanic caucus, in groups where members get together to look out for the collective interest and do a better job than frankly there other democratic colleagues in looking out for the interest of their particular group. Turning to the House Republican leadership. Of course most powerful group inside the house of representatives, its a pretty white male group aside from cathy Mcmorris Rodgers. The republican conference is overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male. 2 21 women, so get only a quartr of all the women in the house are republicans and 11 people of color. Inside the House Republican leadership, a House Freedom caucus, a group of about 40 conservative republicans who differ a bit of an ideology and greatly when it comes to strategy is an all white and allmale group. When it comes to House Democrats, Minority Party leader nancy pelosi was reelected as per a stern pictures of ip challenged by tim brian from ohio, a caucus vote of 13463. And this is not quite a record but almost a record in of her longevity. Shes done this by being a fierce partisan, by bringing democrats to get and by raising record amounts of money. And so she is sort of an interesting example of gender and partisan dynamics inside the house of representatives. On the one it she goes against conventional wisdom that women perhaps do a better job reaching across the aisle. Theres really no reaching across outlet comes to Minority Party leader nancy pelosi. On the other hand, researchers shown that shes done a take a good job of building consensus within her own party across various ideological groups. It is quite clear she really embraces and celebrates the diversity inside the Democratic Caucus thats evident both in terms of the democratic Party Leadership and you never see a press conference that had nancy pelosi and if she were surrounded by a Diverse Group of democratic members. In the senate just very briefly as i mentioned record diversity and its membership but not Party Leadership. On the other hand, i can democrats have patty murray as their number three but the dynamics for republicans in the senate are different and different in terms of how they would deal with the trump presence. So just as women in the house are just as person if the no desperate more so, the setting is devastated. Collaboration is valued. Susan collins and lisa murkows murkowski, two more moderate republican women senators, have the opportunity to be key players in the 115th congress. Both because theyre among the republicans who might be most likely to affect the because theyre both legislative active. Just today the news came out senator collins is looking to a Compromise Health care bill. Cosponsored with another republican but that does suggest that because of the 60 votes senate we need 60 votes to get most everything except for budget reconciliation past, some of the more moderate senators including tukey women on the republican side and several key moderate democrats on the democratic side might play a more significant role. And with that my time is up and then some, so thank you. [applause] so we are now going to go to corrections. We have at the until 4 00. Id like to start off with the first question, but then we will have a wireless microphone so please raise your hand and get her attention. I want to start with a question with Karen Beckwith and asked her to follow up under comment at the end of her presentation and tell us more about your observations of how the Trump Administration selections and cabinet Selection Process compares to what youve seen historically as patterns in the United States and comparatively to other countries . Thank you for the question. So our new president has promised to be different, and different indeed he is at least in regard to cabinet appointments. One of the things we note if we think about these criteria for qualifications for appointments to cabinet, experiential criteria, affiliation or criteria and representational criteria, its very interesting to me that he is violating all three in terms of previous practice. Let me start an obvious quick as i can with experiential criteria. These are policy expertise and political experience of his various nominees he has to have no policy our government experience whatsoever, ben carson who will head housing and urban development. The president has his own party in the senate now and even without that it would be difficult for people to turn away. You basically learn on the job it is in being from an oilrich state for examples they probably dont experience in terms of that criteria but if the person is experienced an unqualified and by the way the top four positions that they call the in germany the big four are secretary of state, treasury, lead defense attorney general that those are very important appointments of those appointees only the nominee has a college degree. For the most important position of highest in the line of succession should something happen and are actually e under educated. So this is very different. In terms of the criteria some of the nominees that the new president has put forth are actually a his opponents throughout the campaign and i suggest you look at what de voss had to say during the campaign in those that were campaigning for him. He is only nominated to women or to people of color as well. This puts him well below the previous three president s in a that parity with jimmy carter that appointed to people of color 1970s seven. So this is also quite different. The people that are advising him the last nomination the senator from georgia the secretary of agriculture because he was the last domine in the lineup of nominations there was discussion of the open the white maledominated nature so there was some encouragement but that was decided to nominate perdue. With that qualifying criteria that is established across time is now being violated in terms of fischbach as san why couldnt the media at the same time that our sensitive to this but not enough in my own mind but paris is more people of color to which i can only say thanks a lot. [laughter] i am wondering in your research with a woman of the Prime Minister did that affect the gender of the cabinet quick. There is only two in the data set names are a britain and germany in there is no difference it isnt that they do badly that they do just as well. So many gender parity cabinets are male appointed but we didnt find much difference. Political party decimate much of a difference once it is established the electors of point did i dont have the data with me but if you segregate by party not exclusively but the same party once it comes back into office did better than it did previously. Look at the aggregate but by party it is punctuated with an increased to do a little better in its pattern. So it depends on the country but then once they jump all the parties moved the political system makes no difference. And the strategy means we should be able to leverage it isnt a promise obviously but if we can point to the task it increases the opportunities for the women in the cabinet. I am not thrilled Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of britain but it is important they are in Public Office including the military that theyre literally support and it supported as the that needs to change. Other questions . If you could speak to the changes and why we see in increase in diversity and what is taking place. Thank you for that question. Is unknown and complicated but with a big increase of growth in the same dynamic is true across the country compared to the smaller numbers of republican women and in terms of the candidacy not just in who is elected look at the level of primaries for the u. S. Congress. Doing research that goes back several decades to show with a few exceptions women and men wind their primaries but increasingly to stand slightly better chance to win their primaries with republican women and republican men are the same. Then i suspect the results would be different that republican and women face those because of stereotypes and that could be problematic for the conservative primary electorates and democratic women. Is also uh case the Democratic Party network those who tend to support democrats are more active in recruiting been republican groups there are some recruiting women but there is an emphasis of the Democratic Party to mobilize women but did is true we dont see a big increase sowed gender parity is a long way off despite the fact that they win at the same rate but that is because democrats raise more money so to do as well in politics. You mentioned the media under your presentation and i interested, the candidates was affected in with the media is reporting on across social media and totally not trusting. And with that racist rhetoric. What i have seen so far the comments from the of media and not believing that all coming from the conservatives it is a general theme reflects what you hear from the conservative points of view and also from liberal respondents how theyre influenced and then she had to step back what was perceived as sexist so that is what we try to look at not just the role of the Mainstream Media like the print media how the influences their view illegitimacy is constant and to be treated on an equal grounds the layperson whos been represented is john lewis. To those who felt trump was not a legitimate candidate. This is a dynamic of a highly confident qualified in this case being overtaken by a man that is so inexperienced and incapable to be a rumor. That issue is coming out why a trump one did he was supported by those too voted for him. The students believed they did not vote based on the issues or the policies or what he seemed to represent so the fact he was not part of washington and what could disqualify u. S. A candidate . And of those other liberals had does he do so well the doesnt know anything . And when they say clearly this will render him and illegitimate. No. It made it stronger. So the fact that he was the anticandidate candidate was the appeal about him it clearly was not a coincidence it isnt what we use as qualifications with the cabinet appointees to be under qualified but still the choice of the day. Even those persuaded to vote for the new president we have to remember the reason he was elected that was who they were and not how many they were more people voted for Hillary Clinton. And that concrete floor provides and then to say i appointed this many persons of color. That is very dramatically the starting with jimmy carter to present the first woman of color in his cabinet and chief sort the entirety of his did ministrations. So those issues of legitimacy and will be interesting to see that love will of cabinet that is finally bulk of door not. It is a different take on legitimacy but not very Many Republican electorate support trump it was no other candidate so and general the one the biggest endorsement is the one who tends to get the nomination. Jab bush initially so you could definitely argued the of breakdown as an institution but that gave them a legitimacy that was questioned during the Campaign Events nine out of 10 never went away. One mar question. I wish we had an hour for each of your presentations. We havent done the analysis yet of your research but anything standing out in particular and resonating from what you have seen so far . I might have mentioned the Hillary Clinton supporters have a lot of negative things to say about Hillary Clinton even if they were not happy. That she is untrustworthy i did not believe her. So the support was very tepid and they were voting against trump more than anything but i also understand the adjectives that describe that conservative students also have very negative adjectives to describe trump theyre not liberals but they grudgingly voted for trump and to call him a liar or a manipulator or not christian but was better than and Hillary Clinton that is what found interesting the there were very strong negatives for each jaffa candidates if they use similar terms and adjectives then it was all boils slides. We will wrap the that. It up. [applause] [inaudible conversations]. I think lot of these kids and they look at it like a seinfeld episode. And they feel that i can do this like this and it is so much harder. Della of them felt dave ended at being a waitress but i feel that tom cruise and elon musk. They didnt just have a lucky break it was with codeine and engineering and the qualifications that i cannot even imagine