PS 199

Comments and Suggestions for 2015-00631

On the argument/s

1. The main argument is interesting but the addition of the difference between substantive

and descriptive representation makes it unnecessarily convoluted.

a. How will the study identify whether the elected female politician promotes

substantive or descriptive representation?

On the Variables

2. Your main dependent variable is just electoral success – consider it a hit or miss, either

the candidate wins or loses the election. Try Rocamora (1998) or even Heywood (2011)

for refences on the definition.

a. Your definition of electoral success accounts for the vote margin already – this is

your follow-up argument. For your study, If I understood it correctly, you are

concern with just success which is either a win or lose in an election. Try to check

the literature on electoral systems to find a definition for electoral success that

suits your study – i.e. the local executives get elected through plurality vote so

success can mean that one candidate gets the most votes among all candidates.

3. The definition you provided for political dynasties are mostly operational. Try to look

deeper into the literature since it is one of your most important controls. Try Asako

(2014), Magno (1989), Rivera (2015), Smith (2012), Fiva and Smith (2016), Trajano and

Yoes (2013), and Kenawas (2015) for possible sources of both conceptual and

operational definition/s.
 a. If you will measure/define dynasty using consanguinity and affinity, check how

different studies accounted for them. Check where Panao (2019) got the data –

you may also check Panao (2016) on dynastic persistence and mine their

references to look for suitable definitions.

4. If you will insist on accounting for descriptive and substantive representation, please

define them accordingly with sufficient evidence. We cannot assume that the readers

know that those concepts are.

5. If you will use educational attainment as a control, you can measure it by using a) highest

educational attainment (i.e. elem grad, hs grad, college grad, post grad degree holder) or

b) number of schooling years.

6. Reconstruct the concept map to make it clear and simple.

7. Limit your measure for years of experience on local executive positions only –

accounting for ANY position can make unaccounted results on your data. You are only

looking at success at local executive elections, try to avoid external factors that may

affect the accuracy of your results.

8. Limit your definition of gender to male and female so it’s easy to determine. Check

Schwindt-Bayer et al. (2010), Fulton (2012), and Kukolowicz (2013).