How does the threat of terrorism affect evaluations of female (vs. male) political leaders, and do these effects vary by the politician's partisanship? Using two national surveys, we document a propensity for the U.S. public to prefer male Republican leadership the most in times of security threat, and female Democratic leadership the least. We theorize a causal process by which terrorist threat influences the effect of stereotypes on candidate evaluations conditional on politician partisanship. We test this framework with an original expérimenta nationally representative sample was presented with a mock election that varied the threat context and the gender and partisanship of the candidates. We find that masculine stereotypes have a negative influence on both male and female Democratic candidates in good times (thus reaffirming the primacy of party stereotypes). but only on the female Democratic candidate when terror threat is primed. Republican candidates—both male and female—are unaffected by masculine stereotypes, regardless of the threat environment.
Political Research Quarterly (PRQ) is a refereed scholarly journal publishing original research in all areas of political science. PRQ is published by the University of Utah and is the official journal of the Western Political Science Association. Most issues also feature field essays integrating and summarizing current knowledge in particular research areas. PRQ is published in March, June, September, and December.
Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE is a leading international provider of innovative, high-quality content publishing more than 900 journals and over 800 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. A growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence. Principal offices are located in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne. www.sagepublishing.com
This item is part of JSTOR collection
For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions
Political Research Quarterly
© 2016 University of Utah
Request Permissions
