How are masculine‐looking politicians perceived by voters? Are these judgments accurate? We asked Australian survey participants to rate images of unknown‐to‐them Swiss politicians. We find that politicians with prominent markers of masculinity (including facial hair, baldness, and higher facial width‐to‐height ratio) are perceived as less honest and competent. To determine whether these perceptions correlate with political behavior, we exploit two unique features of Swiss politics. First, to check for politician–voter congruence, we match each politician's voting record to that of their constituents on identically worded legislative proposals. We find that bearded politicians are less likely to behave according to constituents' preferences. Second, by exploiting the mandatory disclosure of lobby group affiliations, we show that bearded politicians are less likely to be captured by interest groups. Our results suggest that more masculine‐looking politicians are recognized by both voters and lobby groups as less amenable to being controlled.

中文翻译：

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男性气概，对政客属性的理解以及政治行为*

选民如何看待男性化的政治人物？这些判断是否正确？我们要求澳大利亚的调查参与者对不知名的瑞士政客的图片进行评分。我们发现政治人物具有明显的男性气质（包括面部毛发，秃头和较高的面部宽高比），他们被认为不那么诚实和称职。为了确定这些看法是否与政治行为有关，我们利用了瑞士政治的两个独特特征。首先，为了检查政客与选民的一致性，我们将每位政客的投票记录与其选民的投票记录进行相同的匹配措词的立法建议。我们发现有胡子的政治家不太可能根据选民的偏好行事。其次，通过利用游说团体隶属关系的强制性披露，我们表明，有胡子的政治人物不太可能被利益集团俘获。我们的研究结果表明，选民和游说团体都认为男性化的政治家较不容易受到控制。