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
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.