Civic selves: Gender, candidate training programs, and envisioning political participation

This project examines how state-based candidate training programs serve as sites in which participants clarify and define their civic identities: their personal visions of their roles as citizens in the political arena. It is motivated by the puzzle of women's underrepresentation in elected office and the implementation of candidate training programs, some of which have been formed as a direct response to this puzzle. Past studies show that factors such as capacity, motivation, and recruitment help to explain who participates actively in politics and in what ways. We know less about the process through which citizens actually negotiate these factors on an individual level and understand their roles as political actors. This project explores this perceptual process within the context of candidate training programs.;This study uses data from multiple sources, including an original fifty-state panel dataset, survey and interview data from program participants and administrators, and participant observations of eight state-based candidate training programs located throughout the country. I demonstrate how candidate training programs, in the effort to train participants to run successfully for office, provide participants with opportunities to develop their civic identities. I find that participants not only gain the necessary skills, motivation, and encouragement needed when running for office, they also have an opportunity to envision themselves as candidates through role-playing activities and interactions with others sharing the same experience.;This project advances the notion that individuals' perceptions of their roles in the political arena shape their political actions. It addresses fundamental questions of political participation, particularly women's political participation, by illustrating the perceptual process individuals undergo in their decisions to run for office in a way that goes beyond discussing the inputs---capacity, motivation, and recruitment---that can lead to participation. A better understanding of the process through which individuals develop their civic identities is intrinsically valuable to us as scholars because the ways in which we perceive of ourselves as citizens, and then choose to behave in light of the identities we have developed, is directly connected the functionality, legitimacy, and overall health of our democracy.