Gendered Patterns in Engaging in Accountability and Participation- Evidence from Italian Councilors

A large body of research suggests that female representation reduces corruption. While this negative relationship between female representation and lower levels of corruption is well established, relatively little research has investigated how and why women in public office reduce corruption. In this paper, we argue that female councilors are more likely to engage in activities that increase the local executive's accountability to the council and have stronger preferences for civil society participation in decision-making. Both accountability and participation have been argued to decrease corruption, suggesting a credible mechanism through which female representation could reduce corruption. We test our arguments using novel survey data of municipal councilors in Italy. Our findings suggest that while male councilors report engaging in accountability-holding measures more often, female councilors are stronger in favor of increasing participatory measures, indicating that women focus more strongly on indirect measures of accountability. As such, our study contributes to the understanding of female representation and corruption, by exploring gender differences in engagement of accountability and participation preferences.