Doctoral Dissertation Research: Women in American Politics

在过去的三十年里，妇女参与美国政治的人数一直在上升。在州和市的立法机构中，他们构成了一个很大的少数，甚至是多数。事实上，在过去的30年里，美国各地的女性代表人数增加了两倍多，如果考虑到个别州和城市，这种变化就更大了。通常，关于妇女和政治的讨论围绕着妇女在实现完全性别平等的道路上面临的障碍展开。限制妇女获得政治舞台之外的资源，以及男子气概作为政治舞台本身的组织意识形态，是妇女充分融入的主要障碍。尽管女性在政治舞台上的表现并不平等，但过去三十年的变化表明，我们有空间考虑相反的问题：女性如何从局外人的地位转变为政治舞台的一部分。本研究探讨了政治中性别关系转变所涉及的文化和结构机制，旨在建立政治舞台上的性别关系模式，以解释妇女的合法权力。该项目建立在组织理论对理解政治变革和社会运动的贡献的基础上，表明在政治实践的背景下对政治进行详细检查可以提供对性别和政治关系的更广泛理解。将性别分析与组织分析相结合，本研究考察了不同组织对妇女政治成功和妇女在一个政治舞台上权力地位制度化的贡献方式。这个项目是一个市政系统的个案研究，比较政治行动者的不同政治和组织履历，以审查促成选举成功的因素。本研究包括一个额外的探索性组成部分，考察政治组织传记对政治剧目的潜在影响。项目分三个阶段进行。第一阶段是我对选举结果的初步分析。这一阶段确定了妇女在该市政治代表性的数量趋势，并产生了政治行动者的数据库。第二阶段将讨论公民志愿协会在促进妇女政治成功方面的作用。它将使用深入详细访谈的数据来审查妇女政治生涯中涉及的组织做法。第三个探索阶段将在访谈结果的基础上，对选定的城市病房进行参与观察。这一阶段将考察女性领导的组织背景对六个选定社区的政治文化和劳动分工的影响。更广泛的影响。这个项目将扩大我们对政治过程的理解。特别是，通过详细的数据收集和分析，该项目增强了我们的理解，超越了政治舞台如何成为妇女参与的障碍，而是了解政治中性别关系的转变如何发生。这个项目有可能为从事政治活动的学者提供知识，使他们了解边缘群体不仅可以成为竞争者，而且可以成为正式政治机构中的合法行动者的策略。

SES-0526574Elisabeth ClemonsZohar LechtmanUniversity of ChicagoWomen's participation in American politics in the last three decades has been on the rise. In state and city legislatures they constitute a large minority, and even a majority. Infact, women's representation has more than tripled in the last thirty years across the United States, and the change is even greater when individual states and cities are considered. Typically, the discussion regarding women and politics revolves around the obstacle facing women in the way to full gender equality. Constraints on women's access to resources outside the political arena, and masculinity as the organizing ideology of the political arena itself are the main barriers in their full inclusion. Although women are not represented equally across the political arena, the change in the last thirty years suggests that there is room to consider the opposite question: how women move from an outsider status to become part of the political arena. The study explores the cultural and structural mechanisms involved in the transformation of gender relations in politics, aiming to generate models of gender relations in the political arena that account for a legitimized power for women. The project builds on the contribution of organizational theories to the understanding of political change and social movements, suggesting that a detailed examination of politics in the context in which it is practiced can provide a broader understanding of gender and political relations. Integrating gender analysis into organizational analysis this study examines the way different organizations contribute to women's political success and institutionalization of position of power for women in one political arena. This project is a case-study in one municipal system, comparing different political and organizational biographies of political actors to examine the factors that contribute to electoral success. This study includes an additional exploratory component, examining potential implication of political organizational biography to political repertories. The project progresses in three stages. The first stage is my preliminary analysis of election returns. This stage identified quantitative trends in women's political representation in the city and yielded a database of political actors. Stage two will address the role of civic voluntary associations in facilitating women's political success. It will use data from in-depth detailed interviews to examine the organizational practices involved in women's political careers. A third, exploratory stage will follow up with participant observation of selected city wards, on the basis of interview results. This stage will examine the effect of female leadership's organizational background on political culture and division of labor in six selected communities. Broader Impacts. The project will expand our understanding of political processes. In particular, through detailed data collection and analysis, this project enhances our understanding, beyond how the political arena serves as a barrier to women's participation, but to understand how transformation in gender relations in the political can occur. This project could potentially provide knowledge, for practicing political activists in addition to academics, on the strategies by which a marginal group can become, not only a contesting, but also a legitimate actor in formal political institutions.