| Description |
Existing research shows that the election of members of previously underrepresented groups can have significant consequences for policymaking. Yet, the use of quotas, reserved seats, communal rolls, and race-conscious districting makes it difficult to distinguish whether it is group membership, electoral incentives, or a combination of the two that matters. We argue that lawmakers who are members of underrepresented groups will stand out as defenders of their group's interests only when electoral rules incentivize them to do so. We demonstrate this empirically using data from New Zealand. We show that Maori members of parliament systematically vary in the extent to which they represent their ethnic group as a function of the three different sets of rules under which they were elected.
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ICAR Research Data Repository for Knowledge Management