Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-02T15:46:03.579Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Multimember Districts and the Substantive Representation of Women: An Analysis of Legislative Cosponsorship Networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2013

Jennifer Hayes Clark  and
Veronica Caro
Jennifer Hayes Clark
Affiliation:
University of Houston
Veronica Caro
Affiliation:
University of Houston
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Women's representation in elected and appointed positions is often seen as a matter of justice and equity (Burrell 1997). Beyond symbolic representation, many believe that a greater presence of women in institutions that have traditionally been controlled by men can facilitate the attention to issues that disproportionately affect women (Dahlerup 1988; Dodson and Carroll 1991; Kanter 1977). As the election of women has grown in the past decade, researchers have shown a renewed interest in understanding under what conditions women's descriptive representation can produce more effective substantive representation of women's interests. A number of feminist scholars argue that increasing the descriptive representation of women in legislatures is essential to remedy existing inequalities suffered by women (Mansbridge 1999). But electoral practices aimed at increasing women and minorities in office, such as majority-minority districts or gender quotas throughout European and Latin American countries, have produced varied results concerning the substantive representation of women and minority interests. Understanding the electoral and institutional features that strengthen or attenuate women's representation, therefore, merits further study.

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 1 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, James. 1996. “Multiparty Spatial Competition and the Behavioral Model of the Vote.” Presented at the American Political Science Association Conference, 1996.Google Scholar
Alvarez, R. Michael, and Sinclair, Betsy. 2012. “Electoral Institutions and Legislative Behavior: The Effects of the Primary Processes.” Political Research Quarterly 65 (3): 544–57.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, Kevin. 2001. “The Gender Gap in State Legislative Representation: New Data to Tackle an Old Question.” Political Research Quarterly 54 (1): 143–160.Google Scholar
Balla, Steven J., and Nemacheck, Christine L.. 2000. “Position Taking, Legislative Signaling, and Non-Expert Extremism: Cosponsorship of Managed Care Legislation in the 105th House of Representatives.” Congress and the Presidency 27 (2): 163–88.Google Scholar
Barnello, Michelle A. 1999. “Gender and Roll Call Voting in the New York State Assembly.” Women & Politics 20 (4): 77–94.Google Scholar
Barnello, Michelle, and Bratton, Kathleen A.. 2007. “Bridging the Gender Gap in Bill Sponsorship.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 32 (3): 449–74.Google Scholar
Bonacich, Phillip. 1987. “Power and Centrality: A Family of Measures.” American Journal of Sociology 92 (5): 1170–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M., DeBoef, Suzanna, and Lin, Tse-Min. 2004. “The Dynamics of the Partisan Gender Gap.” American Political Science Review 98 (3): 515–28.Google Scholar
Bratton, Kathleen A. 2005. “Critical Mass Theory Revisited: The Behavior and Success of Token Women in State Legislatures.” Politics & Gender 1 (1): 97–125.Google Scholar
Bratton, Kathleen A., and Haynie, Kerry L.. 1999. “Agenda Setting and Legislative Success in State Legislatures: The Effect of Gender and Race.” Journal of Politics 61 (3): 658–79.Google Scholar
Bratton, Kathleen A., and Rouse, Stella M.. 2011. “Networks in the Legislative Arena: How Group Dynamics Affect Cosponsorship.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 36 (3): 423–60.Google Scholar
Burrell, Barbara. 1997. “The Political Leadership of Women and Public Policy Making.” Political Studies Journal 25 (4): 565–68.Google Scholar
Carey, John M., and Shugart, Matthew. 1995. “Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: A Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas.” Electoral Studies 14 (4): 417–39.Google Scholar
Carroll, Susan. 1994. Women as Candidates in American Politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Carroll, Susan J. 2001. The Impact of Women in Public Office. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Childs, Sarah, and Krook, Mona Lena. 2008. “Critical Mass Theory and Women's Political Representation.” Political Studies 56 (3): 725–35.Google Scholar
Cho, Wendy Tam, and Fowler, James H.. 2010. “Legislative Success in a Small World: Social Network Analysis and the Dynamics of Congressional Legislation.” Journal of Politics 72 (1): 124–35.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W. 1990. “Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems.” American Journal of Political Science 34 (4): 903–35.Google Scholar
Cranmer, Skylar, and Desmarais, Bruce A.. 2011. “Inferential Network Analysis with Exponential Random Graph Models.” Political Analysis 19 (1): 66–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlerup, Drude. 1988. “From a Small to a Large Minority: Women in Scandinavian Politics.” Scandinavian Political Studies 11 (4): 275–97.Google Scholar
Darcy, Robert, Welch, Susan, and Clark, Janet. 1985. “Women Candidates in Single and Multi-Member Districts: American Legislative Races.” Social Science Quarterly 66 (4): 945–53.Google Scholar
Desmarais, Bruce A., and Cranmer, Skyler J.. 2012. “Statistical Mechanics of Networks: Estimation and Uncertainty.” Physica A 391 (4): 1865–76.Google Scholar
Dodson, Debra L., and Carroll, Susan J.. 1991. Reshaping the Agenda: Women in State Legislatures. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for the American Woman and Politics.Google Scholar
Efron, Bradley. 1981. “Nonparametric Estimates of Standard Error: The Jackknife, the Bootstrap and Other Methods.” Biometrika 68 (3): 589–99.Google Scholar
Fowler, James H. 2006a. “Legislative Cosponsorship Networks in the US House and Senate.” Social Networks 28 (4): 454–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, James H.. 2006b. “Connecting the Congress: A Study of Cosponsorship Networks.” Political Analysis 14 (4): 456–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frederick, Brian. 2009. “Are Female House Members Still More Liberal in a Polarized Era? The Conditional Nature of the Relationship between Descriptive and Substantive Representation.” Congress and the Presidency 36 (2): 181–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, Linton C. 1979. “Centrality in Social Networks: I. Conceptual Clarification.” Social Networks 1 (3): 215–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodreau, Steven M., Kitts, James A., and Morris, Martina. 2009. “Birds of a Feather, or Friend of a Friend? Using Exponential Random Graph Models to Investigate Adolescence Social Networks.” Demography 46 (1): 103–105.Google Scholar
Gross, Justin A. 2009. “Cosponsorship in the U.S. Senate: A Multilevel Approach to Detecting the Subtle Influence of Social Relational Factors in Legislative Behavior.” University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Working paper.Google Scholar
Hanneke, Steve, and Xing, Eric P.. 2007. “Discrete Temporal Models of Social Networks in Statistical Network Analysis: Models, Issues, and New Directions.” vol. 4503 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Germany: Springer, 115–25.Google Scholar
Hawkesworth, Mary. 2003. “Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions.” American Political Science Review 97 (4): 529–50.Google Scholar
Hogan, Robert E. 2008. “Sex and the Statehouse: The Effects of Gender on Legislative Roll-Call Voting.” Social Science Quarterly 89 (4): 955–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, David R. 2007. “Curved Exponential Family Models for Social Networks.” Social Networks 29 (2007): 216–230.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hunter, David R., and S. Handcock, Mark. 2006. “Inference in Curved Exponential Family Models for Networks.” Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 15 (3): 565–583.Google Scholar
Jones, Mark. 1997. “Legislator Gender and Legislator Policy Priorities in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and the United States House of Representatives.” Policy Studies Journal 25 (4): 613–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanter, Rosabeth M. 1977. “Some Effects of Proportions of Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women.” American Journal of Sociology 82 (5): 965–91.Google Scholar
Kanthak, Kristin, and Krause, George. 2012. The Diversity Paradox: Political Parties, Legislatures, and the Organizational Foundations of Representation in America. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Karen M., and Petrocik, John R.. 1999. “The Changing Politics of American Men: Understanding the Sources of the Gender Gap.” American Journal of Political Science 43 (3): 864–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krutz, Glen S. 2005. “Issues and Institutions: ‘Winnowing’ in the U.S. Congress.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (2): 313–26.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1999. “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent ‘Yes’.” Journal of Politics 61 (3): 628–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, James, and Olsen, Johan P.. 1989. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Matland, Richard E., and Brown, Deborah D.. 1992. “District Magnitude's Effect on Female Representation in State Legislatures.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 17 (4): 469–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matland, Richard E., and Studlar, Donley T.. 1996. “The Contagion of Women Candidates in Single-Member District and Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Canada and Norway.” The Journal of Politics 58 (3): 707–33.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa. 1985. “Women in European Legislative Elites.” West European Politics 8 (4): 90–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborn, Tracy L. 2012. How Women Represent Women: Political Parties, Gender, and Representation in the State Legislatures. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poggione, Sarah. 2004. “Exploring Gender Differences in State Legislators' Policy Preferences.” Political Research Quarterly 57 (2): 305–14.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 1997. Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Porter, Mason A., Mucha, Peter J., Newman, Mark E.J., and Friend, Andrew J.. 2007. “Community Structure in the United States House of Representatives.” Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 386 (1): 414–38.Google Scholar
Reingold, Beth. 2000. Representing Women: Sex, Gender, and Legislative Behavior in Arizona and California. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Richardson, Lilliard E., Russell, Brian, and Cooper, Christopher A.. 2004. “Legislative Representation in a Single-Member versus a Multi-Member System: The Arizona State Legislature.” Political Research Quarterly 57 (2): 337–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothenberg, Richard B., Potterat, John J., Woodhouse, Donald E., Darrow, William W., Muth, Stephen Q., and Klovdahl, Alden S.. 1995. “Choosing a Centrality Measure: Epidemiologic Correlates in the Colorado Springs Study of Social Networks.” Social Networks: Special Edition on Social Networks and Infectious Disease: HIV/AIDS 17 (3–4): 273–97.Google Scholar
Rule, Wilma. 1987. “Electoral Systems, Contextual Factors, and Women's Opportunity for Election to Parliament in Twenty-three Democracies.” Western Political Quarterly 40 (3): 477–98.Google Scholar
Saint-Germain, Michelle A. 1989. “Does Their Difference Make A Difference? The Impact of Women on Public Policy in the Arizona Legislature.” Social Science Quarterly 70 (4): 956–68.Google Scholar
Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2002. “Political Parties and the Recruitment of Women to State Legislatures.” Journal of Politics 64 (3): 791–809.Google Scholar
Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie A., and Corbetta, Renato. 2004. “Gender Turnover and Roll-Call Voting in the U.S. House of Representation.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 29 (2): 215–29.Google Scholar
Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie A., and Mishler, William. 2005. “An Integrated Model of Women's Representation.” Journal of Politics 67 (2): 407–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seltzer, Richard A., Newman, Jody, and Leighton, Melissa Vorhees. 1997. Sex as a Political Variable. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Snijders, Tom A.B., Pattison, Philippa E., Robins, Garry L., and Handcock, Mark S.. 2006. “New Specifications for Exponential Random Graph Models.” Sociological Methodology 36 (1): 99–153.Google Scholar
Squire, Peverill, and Hamm, Keith E.. 2005. 101 Chambers: Congress, State Legislatures, and the Future of Legislative Studies. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Swers, Michele L. 1998. “Are Women More Likely to Vote for Women's Issue Bills than their Male Colleagues?” Legislative Studies Quarterly 23 (3): 435–48.Google Scholar
Swers, Michele L.. 2002. The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Sue. 1991. “The Impact of Women on State Legislative Policies.” Journal of Politics 53 (4): 958–76.Google Scholar
Thomas, Sue. 1994. How Women Legislate. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vega, Arturo, and Firestone, Juanita M.. 1995. “The Effects of Gender on Congressional Behavior and the Substantive Representation of Women.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 20 (2): 213–22.Google Scholar
Victor, Jennifer Nicoll, and Ringe, Nils. 2009. “The Social Utility of Informal Institutions: Caucuses as Networks in the 110th U.S. House of Representatives.” American Politics Research 37 (5): 742–66.Google Scholar
Welch, Susan, and Studlar, Donald T.. 1990. “Multimember Districts and the Representation of Women.” Journal of Politics 52 (2): 391–412.Google Scholar