Collaborative Research: Representation and the Intersections of Gender, Race, and Ethnicity

这项合作研究通过汇集和整合种族、民族和性别的观点，在政治代表性的研究中开辟了新天地。在过去的几十年里，美国的种族、民族和性别政治发生了巨大的变化，其中最重要的是担任公职的妇女和少数族裔人数同时增加。本研究考察了这些女性和/或少数族裔立法者成功或失败地提高妇女、有色人种妇女和种族/少数族裔妇女的实质性政策利益的复杂和有条件的过程。它不仅探讨了种族、民族和性别的代表既相似又不同的方式；而且，代表妇女和各种种族和少数民族的政策利益的努力是相互联系的。因此，推动这项研究的主要问题是：妇女和种族和少数民族的代表性如何联系起来，这些联系如何受到发生或不发生这种联系的政治和体制背景的影响？为了解决这些问题，本研究对几十年来各州所有种族和民族的州议员的政策制定活动进行了非常仔细和广泛的研究。首先，它审查了由黑人女性和拉丁裔州议员提出和赞助的立法（与其同事的提案进行比较），以阐明可能认同多个群体并将自己视为代表多个群体利益的立法者如何参与政策制定过程的议程设定阶段。接下来，它通过检查和解释共同赞助法案的模式，探讨了跨性别、种族和民族的立法联盟的形成。最后，本研究探讨了妇女和少数民族立法者的存在和活动如何影响国家政策结果。特别令人关切的是，与性别和种族有关的政策的命运是否与有色人种妇女的努力或与这些立法机构内的妇女和/或种族少数民族联盟的努力联系在一起。为了对美国各州的种族、民族和性别的代表性和政治进行研究，首席调查员创建了三个相互关联的数据库：一个是关于个别州议员及其选区的数据库，一个是关于这些议员提出的法案的数据库，还有一个是关于每个州和州立法机构的政治、社会经济和制度特征的数据库。为了建立这些数据库，从1981年到2005年，每四年从25个州收集信息。总的来说，这些州在几个重要方面代表了所有50个州，包括：州议会中妇女、非洲裔美国人和拉丁裔美国人的比例；政党控制（民主党或共和党）；思想风气（自由的、温和的或保守的）；还有选举竞争。这些数据库对更广泛的学术界的可用性应该会刺激更多关于种族、民族、性别和政治代表性的研究，因为它们在各种历史和制度背景下的整个政策制定过程中都很明显。

This collaborative research breaks new ground in the study of the political representation by bringing together and integrating perspectives on race, ethnicity, and gender. The past few decades have witnessed tremendous changes in the politics of race, ethnicity, and gender in the U.S., not the least of which is the simultaneous growth in the numbers of women and of racial and ethnic minorities in public office. This study examines the complex and conditional processes by which these female and/or minority lawmakers succeed or fail to enhance the substantive policy interests of women, women of color, and racial/ethnic minorities. It explores not only the ways in which the representation of race, the representation of ethnicity, and the representation of gender are both similar and different; but also the ways in which efforts to represent the policy interests of women and of various racial and ethnic minorities are linked. Thus, the primary questions motivating this research are: how might the representation of women and of racial and ethnic minorities be linked and how might those linkages be affected by the political and institutional contexts in which they do or do not take place?To address these questions, this study takes a very close and extensive look at the policymaking activities of state legislators male and female, of all races and ethnicities, across multiple states, and over multiple decades. First, it examines the legislation proposed and sponsored by Black female and Latina state legislators (in comparison to their colleagues proposals) to shed light on how lawmakers who may identify with multiple groups, and see themselves as representing multiple group interests, participate in the agenda-setting stages of the policy making process. Next, it explores the formation of legislative coalitions across gender, racial, and ethnic lines by examining and explaining patterns in the co-sponsorship of bills. Finally, this study investigates how state policy outcomes are affected by the presence and activities of women and minority legislators. Of special concern is whether the fates of gender and race-related policies are linked by the efforts of women of color or by coalitions of women and/or racial-ethnic minorities within these lawmaking bodies.To conduct this research on representation and the politics of race, ethnicity, and gender in the American states, the Principal Investigators created three inter-related databases: one on individual state legislators and their districts, one on bills introduced by those legislators, and one on the political, socioeconomic, and institutional characteristics of each state and state legislature. To construct these databases, information was gathered from 25 states, at four-year intervals starting with 1981 and continuing up to 2005. Collectively, these states are representative of all fifty states on several important dimensions including: proportions of women, African Americans, and Latinos in the state legislature; party control (Democrat or Republican); ideological climate (liberal, moderate, or conservative); and electoral competition. The availability of these databases to the wider scholarly community should spur a great deal more research on race, ethnicity, gender, and political representation as they are manifest throughout the policy making process, within and across various historical and institutional contexts.