When women lead: local political representation and pro-women institutions

Whether women in office govern differently from men is well documented; whether they govern differently for women is not. The latter is the crux of active representation theory, which expects representatives to act for those they mirror: does electing women change what governments do for women? We investigate the relationship between electing female mayors and councilors and the existence of Pro-Women Institutions across all 5,565 cities of Brazil during four election cycles (2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020). Our results partially support the active representation relationship. While female mayors’ presence increases the likelihood of pro-women institutions, local councilors either do not or are negatively linked to them. Robustness checks through a regression discontinuity design corroborate these findings, and heterogeneous treatment effects on race paint a wider picture about intersectionality. Our findings highlight how female elected representatives might achieve substantial change for their female constituents in local government.