American women of color and rational non-candidacy: when silent citizenship makes politics look like old white men shouting

Abstract

Candidate emergence research emphasizes the importance of political ambition in determining who runs and, therefore, who governs. Political scientists tend to assume that there is a sufficient quantity of people of sufficient quality and diversity to form good, representative governments. Yet my research finds strong ‘candidate deterrent effects’ for women of color – effectively silencing people who would be strong candidates and representatives. I draw on data from an original survey and interviews with a unique group of young eligible candidates. These data suggest that women of color lack faith in politics’ ability to solve problems and perceive it as a discriminatory space. Their aversion to running is fully rational, based on perceptions of high costs and low rewards involved in candidacies. But their rational decisions lead to a system-level irrationality of continuing unrepresentative government that silences the ‘different voice’ emerging from race and gender diversity.

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