Descriptive Representation of Native American Legislators in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives

Presentation Type

Oral Presentation

Keywords

State Politics, Legislative Politics, Native American Politics, Representation, Quantitative Methods

Department

Political Science

Major

Political Science

Abstract

In the theoretical literature on representation, scholars disagree if policy advocates need to belong to the social groups that they are advocating for. Although literature exists about this question for women, Latino and African Americans, no one has investigated the descriptive representation of Native Americans. This paper tests the hypothesis of descriptive representation for one of thee legislatures with the most Native American members : The Oklahoma State House of Representatives. Regression analysis of a data set I complied myself suggests that being Native American produces a statistically significant effect after controlling for other political and demographic characteristics. Native American identity seems to produce similar results to African-American and Latino data.

Faculty Mentor

Dr. Joel Fetzer

Funding Source or Research Program

Undergraduate Research Fellowship

Presentation Session

Session A

Location

Plaza Classroom 191

Start Date

24-3-2017 5:00 PM

End Date

24-3-2017 5:15 PM

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Mar 24th, 5:00 PM Mar 24th, 5:15 PM

Descriptive Representation of Native American Legislators in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives

Plaza Classroom 191

In the theoretical literature on representation, scholars disagree if policy advocates need to belong to the social groups that they are advocating for. Although literature exists about this question for women, Latino and African Americans, no one has investigated the descriptive representation of Native Americans. This paper tests the hypothesis of descriptive representation for one of thee legislatures with the most Native American members : The Oklahoma State House of Representatives. Regression analysis of a data set I complied myself suggests that being Native American produces a statistically significant effect after controlling for other political and demographic characteristics. Native American identity seems to produce similar results to African-American and Latino data.