Diversity and Innovation: An Analysis of Policy Reinvention

Abstract

This study explores a diversity-innovation relationship in state legislatures. The research includes three measures of diversity: occupational, gender, and racial diversity. The author uses two measures to capture diversity: a USA Today Diversity Index formula and the proportion of legislators that do not belong to the majority subgroup. To explore innovation, the author exploits the policy reinvention stage of the policy innovation and diffusion process. Innovation in policy reinvention is measured with cosine similarity, arguing that greater originality in policy reinvention represents a greater display of innovation. The study finds that as the gender diversity of a state legislature increases, the legislature displays greater innovation through an increased use of original language in policy reinvention. These findings add to our current understanding of descriptive representation, indicating that symbolic representation provides greater substantive benefits than previously thought. Additionally, these findings expand our understanding of policy reinvention, by demonstrating legislature diversity has an impact on a legislature's ability to innovate on behalf of constituents.