Unequal in Office? How Discussion Rules Close Gender Gaps in Representation

Gender gaps in influence are common in group decision-making. When political decision-making is a collective endeavor, the presence of elected women thus does not guarantee that women have equal influence over outcomes. Can inclusive discussion rules reduce persistent gender gaps in influence within political groups with collective decision-making?

In this talk, Rachel Brulé discussed research she conducted with co-authors Alyssa Heinze and Simon Chauchard around this question. They experimentally evaluated the effect of an intervention in 605 Indian village councils: they nudged elected officials and bureaucrats in village councils to adopt explicit - and hence inclusive - discussion rules as part of a collective decision-making exercise about local development budgets and measured whether such changes in formal rules of discussion increased the objective influence of women officials. Results show that minor changes in formal discussion rules can alter the responsiveness of peers to the substantive input of women elected leaders, shifting the outcomes of collective decision-making.

Rachel Brulé is the 2024-2025 SAGE Sara Miller McCune Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She is also an Associate Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. She is Graduate Faculty with BU’s Department of Political Science, Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the Global Development Policy Center and affiliated faculty with the Institute for Economic Development. Her research identifies the conditions under which political, economic, and social systems rebalance gendered power. She is a political scientist who bridges development economics and feminist theory, combining careful causal identification with innovative theory building and extensive field research in South Asia. Her work points to the need to critically reckon with the dual movements of progress towards and backlash against gender equality. Understanding the complexity of gendered power and the consequences of its disruption are necessary to solve the most intractable contemporary problems, from climate change to economic inequality and conflict. Her first book, Women, Power, and Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India, won the American Political Science Association’s 2021 Luebbert Prize for the Best Book in Comparative Politics. Brulé has published articles in the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Development Economics, and the Annual Review of Political Science, among others.