In her article “Discarded Candidates: Waste as Metaphor in Local Government Elections in Australia (and Elsewhere),” Tanya Jakimow explores Australian electoral politics through the metaphor of waste. She focuses on candidates that were “discarded” after the election, specifically the necessity of discarded candidates to produce legitimacy of the local elections. Often, these discarded candidates are women, as they are encouraged to run in order to meet the gender quotas of candidates. Jakimow points out the discrepancy between encouragement to run and the lack of care and support when these women candidates lose an election. In this interview, Jakimow reflects on the broader political and analytical implications of her research.

Hae-Seo Kim (HK): In your article, you write, “Attention to waste and wasting in elections marks a crucial first step to transforming electoral practices into more caring democratic systems” (278). Beyond elections, what other elements of democratic governance might be transformed by attending to, or caring for, discarded candidates?

Tanya Jakimow (TJ): The election is often treated as the defining feature of democracy, and you are right to point out that it is but one element. Political scientists talk about the impossibility of achieving ‘mirror representation’ in an elected body that perfectly reflects the population: by intersections of gender, race, class, disability, and so on. Representational practices after the election are hence crucial, in which elected representatives reach out, listen to, and understand the lives of the diversity of people they represent. These practices include engaging with advisory committees, progress associations, going to community events, and so on.

Discarded candidates can be valuable resources in these practices. Most are transformed through the campaign, having interacted with a lot of different groups, often ‘touched’ by their stories, and with a greater appreciation of people’s hopes and needs. Take Bessie for example. One of her campaign strategies was to meet with many community groups, those opposing local development, those supporting it, those seeking to promote women’s sports, those actively engaged in saving the local theatre, and so on. She did not meet every group; no candidate could during the limited time of the campaign. But she likely met groups that no successful candidate met, gaining knowledge and understanding that may not be accessible to elected councillors.

Instead of valuing this knowledge and understanding, councillors seemed to be threatened by it. She was knocked back in her application to join the women’s advisory committee, and was treated as persona non-grata in community events. She lost her position on local radio—an important element of local democracy. I guess what I am saying is that caring for discarded candidates is about valuing them, and what they can contribute to other elements of democratic practice. To not value them is to squander precious resources in an age of democratic decline.

HK: Is the production of legitimacy in an electoral democracy inherently wasteful?

TJ: No. Legitimacy is necessary for a democracy, as we need to have confidence in the result of the election (in an electoral democracy), and the soundness of our institutions. So its production can be valuable, indeed necessary. Where the production of legitimacy is wasteful is when the cost of its production is too heavy, or too heavily imposed on particular people. It is particularly extravagant when the production of the appearance of legitimacy is used to cover up democratic weaknesses.

Let me give you an example from my research in Indonesia. Gender candidate quotas require that every third position on party lists on a ballot paper needs to be a woman. One of the impacts has been to increase the legitimacy of elections, as people can point to the thirty-three percent of candidates who are women to show that women are participating, are not entirely excluded. Quotas also coincided with an increase in female representation. In Kota Medan, where I do research, sixteen percent of members elected in 2024 were women, compared to only ten percent in 2019.

Their other impact, however, was to impose a heavy burden on women candidates. Party elites cajoled them to contest, made false promises, as they needed women as candidates to put together a candidate list. Many female candidates invested heavily in their campaign—time, money, energy—relative to available resources. And most, 281 out of 289 women candidates in Medan, lost, most decisively. People can point to the increase in female representation as suggesting the electoral system is legitimate, but at what cost to those women candidates. I am not saying that the women did not receive some benefits from campaigning, but that such a system is wasteful. Being attentive to waste is to draw attention to who is paying the price for incremental increases in legitimacy.

HK: You write, “Discarding well may spark alternative imaginaries of democracy” (296). What are these alternative imaginaries of democracy you have in mind?

TJ: The possibilities are endless, but a starting point would be to disrupt the “electocracy” inherent in today’s democracies—that is, a political environment defined by the vote, and in which the act of voting “is more important than the quality and quantity of citizen participation,” to quote Guinier (2008, 2). The sanctity of elections can stop questions over the quality and diversity of representation. For example, I have travelled to a local government area where 100 percent of the elected representatives are white men, yet they say, “The community voted for us,” so there is nothing to be done. An alternative democratic imaginary would acknowledge the limitations of elections to select the most appropriate political leaders, as well as point to other possibilities. Alpha Shah and David Nugent are two anthropologists among many who show that having an election to select political leaders is but one democratic system.

HK: I found the gendered aspect of discarding really interesting—encouraging women candidates to run to meet diversity quotas, and then not being accountable for the cost of running, and then no care after the election. Is there a public conversation or awareness about the issue of surface-level diversity programs? Are there steps being taken to address this? Can feminist approaches to waste and discard help rethink “diversity” and “inclusion” in the electoral process?

TJ: In Australia, and globally, there is a push to increase the number of women elected as representatives. An industry of sorts has emerged that delivers programs to increase female candidacy and their election, taking advantage of the financial resources being poured into this issue. The outcomes they use to support narratives of success are usually numerical: numbers of candidates, percentage of women representatives. There is a conflict of interest when they are asked to help women decide whether to become a candidate. If the woman becomes a candidate, they also become a positive indicator for program outcomes, but the organization does not have to bear the costs of their candidacy. So even though there are no formal quotas in Australia (only affirmative action in one party), material and non-material interests are served by getting more women to contest elections.

I do not want to paint a negative picture of these organizations. Even though they are materially dependent on this work, many started (or remain) volunteer organizations driven by a belief that we need gender parity in politics. I share this belief. Where critique is necessary is when individual women must pay the cost of (often very marginal) progress in the abstract notion of gender political equality, including women who lose elections. There is no discussion about, or acknowledgement of, the costs borne and their wasted efforts.

The excessive profligacy is especially important when considering intersecting disadvantages. “Diversity” in Australian politics usually refers not so much to gender, but to racialized minorities, people with disability, and people on lower incomes, among other underrepresented groups. The costs may be higher relative to income for many women who fall into these categories, and in many cases, they also face additional barriers—racism, ableism, for example—to getting elected. The answer is not that we shouldn’t encourage them to become candidates, but to support them better so that they bear less personal cost and have a greater chance of winning. In a research report that I delivered to “stakeholders”—i.e. the organizations I mention above—I recommend that less money is spent on programs that simply encourage a large number of women to contest elections, and instead, resources should be concentrated on women who have lived experiences grossly underrepresented in local government. In parts of Sydney, white women are overrepresented as per their size in the population. Getting more of them to contest elections arguably serves no one.

Unfortunately, I have not persuaded anyone, yet.

HK: I’m also curious about discarded male candidates. Do they have resentment about the electoral process and diversity programs?

TJ: I have not heard directly from discarded male candidates about their resentment about the electoral process or diversity programs. A small number of men I have spoken to think that programs to help candidates should be open to men and women; many women feel the same way! Some men may, however, regret their candidacy or feel that it is a waste, or in the least, there are wasteful elements.

Again, Indonesia is an interesting case. I presented my research on the experiences of women candidates in Medan to a group of academics and specialist scholars of Indonesia. I noted how how women were disappointed that due to immoral campaign practices (vote-buying and vote-stealing) they had never had a chance of winning, yet they invested so much time and money: resources that were wasted. My colleagues tell me that many male candidates feel the same way. The difference is that quotas for women essentially create a demand for female candidates, and so perhaps the waste of their candidacy is more egregious. But otherwise, the arguments to care for discarded candidates is equally applicable regardless of gender identity.

HK: The stories about candidates that were bullied and outcast from their communities were disheartening to read about. Are there any further efforts being made to address these issues, such as to stop the bullying of candidates?

TJ: There is growing awareness of the problem of bullying and gendered political violence of candidates and elected representatives. It is a problem that is widespread, and sadly, increasing, with the rise of political misogyny. While I have heard of many surveys and reports about the problem, I am not aware of any efforts to address these problems. In saying that, I am sure people are already putting their minds to how we can stop bullying of candidates and elected representatives. I am part of a team of researchers developing a project to understand the causes of political incivility in order to devise possible strategies to reduce it. We will take an ethnographic and historical approach to explore the meanings of civility/incivility, and to trace over time how it arises, is amplified, or dissipates. There are so many ways that anthropologists can advance understandings of topics in gender and politics. This field has been dominated by political scientists and theory grounded in Euro-American experiences, and I would argue that this has limited their imaginative resources to think otherwise. I encourage all anthropologists working in this area to bring their work into conversation with the field of gender and politics.

Thank you for your very insightful questions, and for prompting me to think through the implications of my work on a broader canvas.