Replication Data for: Ignoring Women’s Performance: A Survey Experiment on Policy Implementation in Argentina

How does politician gender shape citizen responses to performance in office? Much of the existing literature suggests that voters hold higher expectations of women politicians and are therefore more likely to punish them for malfeasance. An alternative perspective suggests that voters view men politicians as more agentic and are therefore more responsive to their performance, whether good or bad. Using an online survey experiment in Argentina, we randomly assign respondents to information that the distribution of a government food program in a hypothetical city is biased or unbiased, and we also randomly assign the gender of the mayor. We find that respondents are more responsive to performance information—both positive and negative—about men mayors. We find little evidence that respondents hold different expectations of malfeasance by men versus women politicians. These results contribute to our understanding of how citizens process performance information in a context with few women politicians.

政治家的性别如何影响公民对其在职表现的回应？现有多数研究指出，选民对女性政治家抱有更高的履职期望，因此更易因女性政治家的失职行为对其实施惩罚。另有研究观点提出，选民认为男性政治家更具能动性，故而无论其表现优劣，都会对其履职表现做出更为显著的回应。本研究依托阿根廷开展的线上调查实验展开分析：我们随机向受访者告知某假想城市的政府食品项目分配存在偏袒或无偏袒的信息，同时随机设定该市长的性别。研究结果显示，受访者对男性市长的履职表现相关信息（无论正面还是负面）的回应强度更高；未发现足够证据表明受访者对男性与女性政治家的失职行为抱有差异化的期望。上述研究结果有助于我们理解在女性政治家较为稀缺的语境中，公民如何处理公职表现相关信息。