Doctoral Dissertation Research: Expansion of Voting Rights for Women in the United States: Institutional Openness, State-building, and Gender

博士论文研究：美国妇女投票权的扩大：制度开放、国家建设和性别

• 批准号: 0302619
• 负责人: Ann Orloff
• 金额: $ 0.78万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-05-01 至 2004-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0302619&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Expansion; Voting

This study seeks to bring a new understanding to the history of the American woman suffrage movement by examining the adoption of suffrage legislation throughout the western states prior to World War I and documenting how western suffrage successes influenced adoption nationally. In this project I address the following questions. First, why were the western states so much more successful in adopting woman suffrage at a much earlier time than other states with fewer legislative attempts? Second, why did the northeastern and Midwestern states have so much more difficulty passing woman suffrage legislation despite social movement mobilization and continuous and increasing legislative activity? And finally, why did most southern state legislatures fail to adopt woman suffrage at all? I use data that includes all legislative activity for woman suffrage in 48 states and documents regional patterns of suffrage success and failure from 1848 to 1920, and I analyze these patterns in the context of changing voting rights in the United States, variations in state governments and state legislative processes, state party politics, social movement organization, and changing gender expectations and arrangements in order to explain the variable outcomes in state full suffrage adoption prior to the ratification of the national suffrage amendment. I will use quantitative, 48-state event history analysis to test the effects of independent variables on the timing of full suffrage adoption of each state. To provide a rich contextual description of social movement as well as state institutional and political processes affecting variation of the timing of state suffrage adoption, I will conduct a qualitative, comparative analysis of eight individual state cases in order to explain patterns and outcomes that are inconsistent with the quantitative analyses. This study contributes to social science in three areas: This study contributes to understanding how historical change in the United States occurred and how we can improve the methodology we use to explain these transformations by using quantitative analysis alongside comparative case studies. This study contributes to understanding the process of state-level legislative change in the United States. The theoretical ideas and methodological approach can be applied to other contemporary state-level policy change for which groups and organizations have mobilized such as welfare reform, gay marriage legislation, and adoption of Defense of Marriage Acts.

这项研究旨在通过考察第一次世界大战前美国西部各州通过选举权立法的情况，并记录西方选举权成功对全国收养的影响，试图对美国妇女选举权运动的历史有一个新的理解。在这个项目中，我将回答以下问题。首先，为什么西部各州在采用女性选举权方面比其他立法尝试较少的州要早得多？其次，为什么东北部和中西部各州在社会运动动员和立法活动不断增加的情况下，通过妇女选举权立法的难度要大得多？最后，为什么大多数南部州的立法机构根本没有采纳女性选举权？我使用了包括48个州所有女性选举权立法活动的数据，并记录了从1848年到1920年选举权成功和失败的地区模式，我在美国投票权变化、州政府和州立法程序的变化、州政党政治、社会运动组织以及性别预期和安排变化的背景下分析了这些模式，以解释在批准全国选举权修正案之前州全面选举权采用的不同结果。我将使用量化的48个州的事件历史分析来测试独立变量对每个州全面选举权采用的时间的影响。为了对社会运动以及影响州选举权通过时间变化的国家机构和政治进程提供丰富的背景描述，我将对八个州的个别案例进行定性的比较分析，以解释与定量分析不一致的模式和结果。这项研究在三个方面对社会科学做出了贡献：这项研究有助于理解美国历史上的变化是如何发生的，以及我们如何通过使用定量分析和比较案例研究来改进我们用来解释这些变化的方法。这项研究有助于理解美国州级立法变革的过程。这些理论思想和方法可以应用于其他当代团体和组织动员起来的国家层面的政策变化，如福利改革、同性婚姻立法和通过婚姻保护法。