Kira Sanbonmatsu

Political Parties and the Recruitment of Women to State Legislatures

This article analyzes the role of political parties in shaping womens representation across the U.S. states. Using data from 1971 to 1999, I analyze several hypotheses about how party affects womens recruitment to the lower houses of state legislatures. I argue that the incentive structure facing potential women candidates is somewhat different for Democratic and Republican women. The social eligibility pool, legislative professionalism, and partisan composition of the legislature affect womens representation differently by party. Rather than assuming a single path for women to elective office, this research implies that it is necessary to disaggregate women by party in order to understand the pattern of where women run for and hold state legislative office.

Do Gender Stereotypes Transcend Party

Voters hold stereotypes about candidate gender and candidate party. Yet little is known about the intersection of gender and party stereotypes. In this article, we investigate whether gender stereotypes transcend party. We consider whether gender stereotypes affect woman politicians differently by party and examine the effect of partisan identification on gender stereotypes. We find that the public perceives gender differences within both political parties. Thus the presence of the party cue does not preclude a role for candidate gender. However, we also find that the implications of gender stereotypes are somewhat different for Democratic and Republican women.

More women can run : gender and pathways to the state legislatures

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgments Chapter 1 Rethinking Candidate Emergence Chapter 2 Can More Women Run? Reevaluating Pathways to Office Chapter 3 Gender and the Decision to Run for Office Chapter 4 Republican Women State Legislators: Falling Behind Chapter 5 Democratic Women State Legislators: On the Rise Chapter 6 The Future of Womens Officeholding Appendix Bibliography Index

Gender Stereotypes and Attitudes Toward Gender Balance in Government

The desire to elect more women to public office is likely to affect a range of political behaviors and may explain the relatively low levels of womens descriptive representation overall. Yet, little is known about the publics view of the ideal gender composition of government. We find that the public expresses a preference for higher levels of womens representation than the country has experienced. Women are more likely than men to express a view, though men and women do not differ in their preferences on the ideal percentage of male officeholders. We examine the role of gender stereotypes and the experience of being represented by women officeholders in shaping support for womens representation.

Playing a Different Race Card: Examining the Limits of Elite Influence on Perceptions of Racism

There is much debate about the reach and seriousness of racial prejudice today. We ask: How do ordinary people come to view events as racist? Using an experiment, we investigate the effects of elite charges of racism on public perceptions of police conduct. We test several hypotheses, including discounting, expertise, and ingroup bias, pertaining to how public stereotypes moderate elite influence. We find that stereotypes matter, and that Democrats, Republicans, blacks, and whites cannot make claims about racism with equal success.

Gender Backlash in American Politics

In this essay, I start to sketch a research agenda about an electoral backlash against womens descriptive representation. Few scholars have considered the possibility of such a backlash. By “backlash,” I mean resistance to attempts to change the status quo. As Jane Mansbridge and Shauna Shames argue in this issue, when actors disadvantaged by the status quo work to enact change, they may be met by a reaction by those seeking to maintain existing power arrangements. In the following pages, I introduce the idea of a backlash against womens representation, propose several preliminary hypotheses about a backlash, and discuss ways of testing them.

Electing Women of Color: The Role of Campaign Trainings

The increasing racial diversity of women in the United States makes the underrepresentation of women of color in politics an important area for research. To better understand the reasons for the underrepresentation of women of color and how more women of color might be elected in the future, this article presents a case study of a unique campaign training program designed for women of color. The program is the Center for American Women and Politics’ (CAWP) New Jersey Ready to Run® Diversity Initiative. Campaign trainings have proliferated in recent years and seem to play a disproportionate role in women’s election to office. By examining perceptions of the barriers facing women of color and by identifying the mechanisms by which the Diversity Initiative seeks to help women, this article sheds light on the status of women candidates of color and the role of campaign trainings more generally. For political practitioners, this article suggests the utility of creating programs for women of color.

Challenging Parties, Changing Parliaments: Women and Elected Office in Contemporary Western Europe

ization is all the more impressive because that suggests that the formation of national parties has important ramifications for the number of parties competing locally, not just for the labels of those local parties. Having examined the number of parties at the district level, Chhibber and Kollman turn in subsequent Chapters to the more central theoretical claim of the book regarding the consequences of political centralization on the level of party aggregation. They begin this investigation with a truly impressive effort to identify periods of centralization and decentralization, or what they call provincialization, in each country based on their analysis of its constitutional provisions, economic development policies, the role and size of government, and threats to national integrity. The authors then demonstrate that during periods of centralization in each of the four countries, the number of parties in the national legislature declines, while during periods of provincialization, the number of national parties holding seats increases. While one might quibble with particular features of Chhibber and Kollman’s analysis, I find the evidence convincing that the strength of the national government is related to the level of party aggregation at particular moments in history. My main reservation with Chhibber and Kollman’s theory is that they treat periods of centralization and periods when governmental power is already centralized as analytically similar. This is problematic because it is possible to have, say, a centralized political system and be undergoing provincialization. In this circumstance, I would expect to observe strategic coordination by the electorate because the national government has power and resources currently at its disposal which would be worth fighting over. Chhibber and Kollman, however, argue that this should be a period of multipartism because regional parties will emerge that better appeal to voters on provincial issues. The problem with this argument is that the national parties can, presumably, adopt the policy positions of the regional parties on the provincial issues and exert greater power on the national stage than a minor party. So, while I accept the empirical claim that decentralization is associated with the breakdown of the two-party system, I am not satisfied with the micrologic explicated in this book. This reservation aside, The Formation of National Party Systems makes an important contribution to the literature on party systems, helping us to better understand the conditions that give rise to national two-party competition.

Challenging Parties, Changing Parliaments: Women and Elected Office in Contemporary Western Europe – By Miki Caul Kittilson

ization is all the more impressive because that suggests that the formation of national parties has important ramifications for the number of parties competing locally, not just for the labels of those local parties. Having examined the number of parties at the district level, Chhibber and Kollman turn in subsequent Chapters to the more central theoretical claim of the book regarding the consequences of political centralization on the level of party aggregation. They begin this investigation with a truly impressive effort to identify periods of centralization and decentralization, or what they call provincialization, in each country based on their analysis of its constitutional provisions, economic development policies, the role and size of government, and threats to national integrity. The authors then demonstrate that during periods of centralization in each of the four countries, the number of parties in the national legislature declines, while during periods of provincialization, the number of national parties holding seats increases. While one might quibble with particular features of Chhibber and Kollman’s analysis, I find the evidence convincing that the strength of the national government is related to the level of party aggregation at particular moments in history. My main reservation with Chhibber and Kollman’s theory is that they treat periods of centralization and periods when governmental power is already centralized as analytically similar. This is problematic because it is possible to have, say, a centralized political system and be undergoing provincialization. In this circumstance, I would expect to observe strategic coordination by the electorate because the national government has power and resources currently at its disposal which would be worth fighting over. Chhibber and Kollman, however, argue that this should be a period of multipartism because regional parties will emerge that better appeal to voters on provincial issues. The problem with this argument is that the national parties can, presumably, adopt the policy positions of the regional parties on the provincial issues and exert greater power on the national stage than a minor party. So, while I accept the empirical claim that decentralization is associated with the breakdown of the two-party system, I am not satisfied with the micrologic explicated in this book. This reservation aside, The Formation of National Party Systems makes an important contribution to the literature on party systems, helping us to better understand the conditions that give rise to national two-party competition.