The Choice Is Yours: Caucus Typologies and Collaboration in U.S. State Legislatures

The marginalisation of some groups in legislative bodies promotes the construction of subaltern public spaces, including caucuses. In this paper, we evaluate whether the substantive focus of women's caucuses in state legislatures matters in shaping women's collaboration with each other. We...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Representation (McDougall Trust) 2019-01, Vol.55 (1), p.47-63
Main Authors: Holman, Mirya R., Mitchell Mahoney, Anna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Collaboration
Cooperation
Legislators
Legislatures
Marginality
Primaries & caucuses
Public spaces
Social cohesion
State legislatures
States
Subaltern identities
Women
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Summary:The marginalisation of some groups in legislative bodies promotes the construction of subaltern public spaces, including caucuses. In this paper, we evaluate whether the substantive focus of women's caucuses in state legislatures matters in shaping women's collaboration with each other. We first present an evaluation of the types of women's caucuses in U.S. state legislatures, drawing on qualitative examples and evidence from founding efforts. We then evaluate whether it matters if a caucus is focused on social cohesion among women, sets policy agendas, or is has ad hoc policy focus. We theorise that the focus of the caucus should not matter, as it is the existence of the subaltern space (versus the absence of the space) that confers trust and collaboration among members. Using all co-sponsorship behaviour between women legislators in every U.S. state legislature in 2015, we find little evidence of consistent patterns of a type of caucus mattering across institutional arrangements; instead, all caucuses increase collaborative patterns. Our findings provide evidence for the importance of institutional arrangements that build trust and cooperation in increasingly polarised and divided legislative bodies.
ISSN:0034-4893
1749-4001
DOI:10.1080/00344893.2019.1581079