Research

Book Project

Women’s wings are a stable feature of political parties, with nearly 40 percent of parties including them in their institutional structure as a way to encourage women’s ascent to political power. Yet, there exists no correlation between the presence of a women’s wing and women’s electoral candidacy within these parties. Why do gender-inclusive political institutions fail to advance women’s political careers in practice? In my dissertation and book project, I introduce the concept of the “political glass wall’’ to explain how women’s wings condition women’s political entry and stymie their mobility and candidacy in the party. I argue that women’s wings function as a sorting mechanism. Women without elite political networks enter through the women’s wing, while networked women bypass it entirely. Once in the wing, women face stymied lateral mobility into the main party organization and limited vertical advancement. Moreover, elites prioritize sociopolitical capital in promotion decisions that women’s wing members do not possess and cannot accumulate within wings relegated to mobilization tasks rather than strategic decision-making. I draw on over 56 elite interviews and an original survey of 1,054 party elites from two of India’s largest political parties – Bharatiya Janata Party and Aam Aadmi Party – to substantiate these claims. The book project underscores that ostensibly gender-egalitarian institutions can institutionalize discrimination by creating parallel, unequal career tracks that exclude women from centers of power.

Survey Instrument | Pre-Analysis Plan

Peer Reviewed Articles

Siwakoti, Samikshya, Yadav, Kamya, Bariletto, Nicola, Zanotti, Luca, Erdoğdu, Ulaş, and Jacob N. Shapiro. 2021. How COVID drove the evolution of fact-checking. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-69

Book Chapter

Yadav, Kamya, Wanless, Alicia, and Samantha Lai. 2025. Multilateral Efforts on Information Integrity: Why Greater Definition is Needed. Springer Handbook on Disinformation: A Multidisciplinary Analysis.