ABSTRACT
This interview and archival research case study of the successful movement to adopt state laws to require gender balance on Iowa state boards and commissions (adopted in the late 1980s) and to extend the law to local boards and commissions (adopted in 2009) provides an empirical challenge to two prominent theories of ideology—interest theory, in which the powerful impose ideology, and strain theory, in which people find ideology to cope with their experiences. My study suggests that traditional ideologies are not always the most powerful. While people tend to believe in ideologies they perceive as functional for themselves, ideology is better understood through a navigation theory in which people simultaneously hold multiple complementary and contradictory ideologies, and where particular contexts and people’s interpretations of those contexts impact how different ideologies are activated, understood, prioritized, negotiated, and applied.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Cliff Brown, Kabria Baumgartner, Jen Borda, Nicky Fox, and Heather Turner for their guidance and feedback on this project.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Ezra Temko
Dr. Ezra Temko is an applied political sociologist and associate professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. They conduct equity-oriented research with a focus on the change making world of cultural politics, specifically with practical implications for changing symbolic politics, addressing structural power, and realizing social justice.