Strengthening Democracy by Building Diversity and Representation in Public Leadership

Illustration by Helena Pallarés

“The personal is political.”

That sentiment, which became central to the second-wave-feminist discourse of the 1960s and ’70s, gave voice to the idea that personal experiences, particularly those of women, could no longer be isolated from broader patriarchal structures of exclusion and oppression. It highlights how our politics is deeply intertwined with who we are and why representation matters.

Today, political systems built on exclusivity need a new vision to achieve inclusive representation. Such a vision can only be meaningful if we first think innovatively about the barriers imposed by the current political systems within which we operate.

Our organizations, Vote Run Lead (United States), Futurelect (South Africa), and Mulheres Negras Decidem or Black Women Decide (Brazil), are united by a goal of fostering more inclusive and balanced public leadership. Vote Run Lead has engaged nearly 60 percent women of color since its founding in 2014, while the Black Women Decide movement’s strategy to overcome underrepresentation in institutional politics is to promote the participation of more Black women in spaces of power and decision-making. Similarly, Futurelect prioritizes training women, with 70 percent of graduates being women or non-binary persons, to address and rectify the long-standing patriarchal imbalance in political representation and discourse in South Africa.

We, the authors, are leaders of organizations dedicated to cultivating new and diverse leadership in our countries. We’ve learned that to build an evolving, inclusive, effective democracy, we must focus not only on developing leaders who are reflective of the nation-state but who can also change the conditions in which they operate. For Lindiwe Mazibuko, previously the parliamentary leader of South Africa’s then-official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, public leadership development is intensely personal. Her organization, Futurelect, offers the program she wishes she had had access to when she ran for elected office. Tainah Pereira was drawn into political activism and Black Women Decide by a belief in collective power and dismay concerning the lack of progression for the few Black women who are elected in Brazil. Erin Vilardi launched Vote Run Lead following her internship at the White House Project, inspired by that initiative’s work to move women’s political power from a victim framework to one of talent and leadership.

Valuing Difference as an Asset

Today, it is commonplace to hear calls for “reflective” democracies, where leaders and appointees proportionally mirror the demographic makeup and lived realities of the population they serve. These calls are crucial as discrepancies between leadership and the diverse realities of their citizens persist. Women, for example, comprise only 26.9 percent of parliamentarians and congresspeople globally, falling short of the basic requirements for fairness and equality of influence in policy- and political decision-making. In political systems that seem to deter diversity, intentionality is required to guarantee the presence of all types of people in spaces of power. Not just because a full democracy requires participation from all people but because electing women, Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ people is a collective benefit to the strength of a democracy. Scores of studies, from McKinsey to Harvard Business Review to a 40-year examination of the United States Congress entitled “On Average, Women in Congress are More Effective Lawmakers than Men,” demonstrate these benefits.

Sourcing leaders beyond traditional populations—most often lawyers, business owners, and middle to upper-class people—is only the starting point. Ideological diversity is crucial for innovative and dynamic policy and law-making—future leaders need to know how to work with other leaders who think and experience the world differently. This shift requires reevaluating what are “traditionally” considered leadership qualities, moving beyond people who self-identify as leaders, tapping into community or casual networks, and embracing peer-to-peer nominating processes.

Lived experience can be highly valuable both for elevating issues that traditional elites are less exposed to and improving the quality of political leadership and law-making. In Brazil, a Black transgender federal deputy, Erika Hilton, was the author of important bills such as one guaranteeing decent work for homeless people and another that created a national policy for environmentally displaced people. Both laws have a connection with the lived experiences of the congresswoman who, due to her gender identity, was marginalized and had to live on the streets for part of her life. Knowing that this is the reality of hundreds of thousands of other people in the country, this socialist deputy is working to realize a society in which social exclusion is no longer a factor that generates inequalities which, in turn, feed populism, corruption, and violence. It is important to note that in 524 years, this is the first legislative term in which the National Congress includes transgender parliamentarians (Erika Hilton and Duda Salabert). In Brazil, women constitute the majority of party-affiliated individuals and also represent the majority of voters, accounting for 53 percent in 2022. However, in the most recent congressional elections, only 35 percent of the candidates were women, with a mere 18 percent of them being elected. Among those elected, approximately 6 percent are Black women.

Changing the Environment in Which Leaders Operate

Achieving reflective representation is not radical enough. While it is a necessary and honorable foundation, a reflective democracy is a mere baseline for reinvigorating democratic and political participation. Identity and demographics alone are no guarantee of institutional and social transformation. This is why the terms “descriptive” and “substantive” representation exist, to differentiate between what merely resembles versus what acts as an agent or advocate.

Critical mass is also vital for the future success of leaders cut from a different cloth. For example, Futurelect’s leadership programs aim to develop and support a new generation of leaders who are ethical, representative, and attuned to the socio-economic realities of South Africa, where the median age is 27 and over 72 percent of young people between 15 and 34 years old are unemployed. Cognizant that systemic change can only happen through collaboration at scale, the organization seeks to support the entry of a critical mass of highly competent, ethically-minded leaders from diverse backgrounds into South Africa’s competitive, mainstream political system. Once inside, these leaders can work together – both within and across party lines – and partner with visionary elder and male leaders to create the conditions necessary to transform the system, grounding the future in serving communities that, for too long, have been excluded from the service and representation that they were promised.

Understanding and Addressing the Historical and Structural Constraints of Political Systems

Across the globe, many post-colonial democracies still cling to antiquated systems and institutional norms that are no longer fit for purpose. These systems can impose structural barriers that constrain women and other marginalised groups from pursuing and then succeeding in political office. As a first step, we must understand these systems and think innovatively about barriers that impose restrictions that we may not even realize.

South African women still face deeply rooted gender discrimination, which makes it difficult for them to develop as public leaders within their political parties and public institutions. Some of the barriers women face include traditional gender norms, exclusion from party decision-making structures, violence from within and outside the party, lack of financial resources, media bias, online harassment, and limited opportunities to develop political experience. Young women, in particular, face discrimination on the basis of age and gender. Out of 400 MPs elected in 2019, only 5 were women under the age of 30 (1.25 percent). In comparison, 14 elected MPs were men under the age of 30 (3.5 percent).

In Brazil, there have been attempts to break down the barriers faced by Black women with laws that require political parties to allocate resources accordingly. Firstly, political parties are mandated to commit at least 5 percent of the resources they receive from the public party fund towards the training and advancement of women. Additionally, electoral regulations stipulate proportional allocation of resources and media coverage for Black candidates, and the first national law addressing political violence against women, enacted in 2021, also requires political parties to amend their statutes to include the combat against gender-based political violence as a principle.

It is also crucial to note that recurrent non-compliance with electoral regulations has been granted amnesty four times by legislators in 2015, 2019, 2021, and recently through a new constitutional amendment approved by the Chamber of Deputies. This latest amendment once again shows leniency to parties that violated electoral rules in the 2022 elections and additionally reduces the percentage of resources allocated to Black candidates to 30 percent, despite the fact that the proportion of Black candidates has exceeded 50 percent for at least two electoral cycles. Only two of the 29 registered parties have complied with the gender-based violence statute requirement to date.

In this context, the organization Mulheres Negras Decidem (Black Women Decide) has dedicated itself to ensuring that women and Black individuals can compete on equal terms in electoral contests. In addition to direct advocacy with legislators in Congress, MND is a co-author of a Popular Initiative Bill proposing the reservation of 50 percent of legislative seats—half of which are designated for Black women—across municipal, state, and federal levels.

In the United States, one key barrier to diverse representation is economic. State legislative pay ranges from $100/year to $100,000+, but most salaries fall well below the country’s median income. Low pay, especially as being in session requires external child care, is essentially prohibitive of long-term tenure for women who do the majority of caregiving. Vote Run Lead is working with its community to raise awareness about the need for a livable wage for state legislators.

All of our approaches to building the pipeline for new leadership are fundamentally pragmatic and designed to win. While we strive to encourage people from underrepresented parts of society to seek public leadership roles, we must also prepare them with the skills and resilience to compete within existing outdated political systems. Together, and in our respective organizations, we have identified three crucial strategies to achieve this. We present here examples from each of our organizations’ work.

Strategy #1: Changing the Public Narrative

The extent to which many groups are still excluded or under-represented in political institutions is still not well understood. Despite the United Nations’ commitment to ensuring ‘women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life’ by 2030, as of 2024, only six countries globally have managed to elect women as 50 percent or more of their national legislators.

In the United States, a survey from Pew Research Center found that 37 percent of people believe that there is the “right amount of women” in politics, even though women comprise
one-third of state legislators and only 28 percent of Congress. Moreover, women of color make up just 11 percent of Congress and 10 percent of state legislators. In Brazil, Black women represent 28 percent of the population and just over 6 percent of legislative representatives in the states and in the National Congress. Meanwhile, in the 2024 elections in South Africa, despite there being over 15 million registered female voters, there was only one political party on the ballot with a women leader at the helm: Patricia De Lille’s GOOD Party.

The Black Women Decide movement has made shifting narratives about Black women in politics—and their significant under-representation—a major strategy of its work. The organization has brought this to the attention of media, academia, and civil society organizations. The “28 percent” figure is now a very well-known and widely used statistic about Brazilian institutional politics. Black Women Decide believes this narrative re-education campaign has inspired people to engage in offering black women candidates opportunities to evolve their skills and abilities for election campaigns. Debunking and addressing false assumptions such as “Black people don’t vote for Black candidates” or “if elected, Black women would only advocate for issues affecting Black women” is an ongoing and essential effort. It is crucial to foster a general understanding that electing Black women in all their diversity is a collective benefit.

Strategy #2: Building Local Leadership Infrastructure

While the reinvigoration of national or federal government is a goal of our organizations, we recognize the opportunity and importance of encouraging diverse leaders to run for office at the local, regional, and state levels. Not only are these nurseries for future national or federal leaders, but they are vital innovation centers for central government and, crucially, are the form of government most proximate to the lives of ordinary people and their service delivery needs.

Vote Run Lead has focused its attention on delivering a replicable model at the state level. It is delivering a data-driven, targeted strategy—RUN/51—in 12 state legislatures to see how it can accelerate women’s representation to 51 percent representation as a model for state-by-state replication. And VRL is succeeding—70 percent of women supported by the organization in the 2022 state legislature election cycle won their races, and with their newly launched non-partisan 501c4 organization Vote Run Lead Action, they are on track to exceed that win rate in 2024. Many of these women are specifically targeting the systemic barriers—like redistricting, gerrymandering, and exclusionary census practices—that prevent not only a broad range of candidates from running but also a fair articulation of voter preferences.

Strategy #3: Engaging Across Ideological Differences

Our discourse often understates just how much time political leaders—especially those serving in local, state, and national legislatures—must spend working together across party affiliations to deliver on their mandates. Political parties may caucus weekly, but multi-party committees must meet, engage with experts and stakeholders, legislate, and make decisions on a daily basis when parliaments and congresses are in session.

Good political leadership, therefore, requires negotiation, compromise, and empathy based on an equal appreciation for diverse views and experiences. There is also a prerogative to cultivate leaders from across the political spectrum who are committed to the systemic reforms needed for diverse leaders to thrive. Vote Run Lead does not align specifically by party, but by values. Women and gender-expansive individuals who align with the organization’s values of feminist, pro-democracy, and anti-racist need a safe space to represent others, regardless of party affiliation.

Similarly, Futurelect is committed to delivering non-partisan and interdisciplinary leadership development and training programs that engage diverse groups of ethical and innovative leaders. In an increasingly complex, multi-party state like South Africa, the need for fresh leadership is vital across the political and identity spectrum. It is an age of entrepreneurial politics, with new parties forming rapidly. Futurelect encourages aspiring leaders from diverse walks of life, including the private, public, and non-profit sectors, as well as academia and community leadership.

The organization is non-partisan, but its program participants hail from a range of political and ideological traditions. This ensures that Futurelect’s intensive leadership programs build participants’ capacity to engage with and learn from ethical leaders across the political spectrum, who may hold different views about macroeconomic policy and agrarian land reform but embody shared values about people-centered leadership, democratic governance, and equality. In a world of increasingly polarized political contestation, political leaders’ ability to tolerate differences and debate one another with dignity and respect is essential.

Conclusion

Across our three organizations, we follow similar approaches to preparing leaders for public office: (1) we source leaders from different, too-often overlooked, places; (2) we guide them through a process of self-examination and inquiry with expanded values and systems lenses; and (3) we equip them with the tools to drive transformative policies and to serve as the role models our communities deserve. The result of this approach is growing communities of visionary leaders who are more empathetic, with a holistic worldview rooted in their lived experiences.

Upon completion of our programs, our leaders are supported by a community of peers to enter and challenge flawed systems. As a result, when they enter public office they are contributing to a government that speaks for more people—especially for those community members who have felt unseen by the political system. Their leadership helps to build confidence in the public system and motivates higher voter turnout in diverse political contests. As more representative leaders become policymakers, the pool of ideas for new and innovative programs of action grows while nurturing a healthy skepticism of “the way things have always been done.”

We know that the transformative change we seek—better government policies, behaviors, and results that are fair and effective for all—will only come about if our systems undergo not only representative but also structural transformation. We must continue to seek systemic reforms that lower the barriers to entry for new types of leaders, allow them to thrive, and represent the interests of all groups and people.

Read more stories by Lindiwe Mazibuko, Tainah Pereira & Erin Vilardi.