Women, Partisanship, and the Congress [Hardcover]

As women increasingly play a role and gain even greater prominence in congressional politics, they need to navigate the at times conflicting demands of loyalty to party culture, responsiveness to party leadership, political goals, and the need to get re-elected. Based on extensive interviews and historically informed, this book examines differences between Republican and Democratic political cultures, how these differences affect women members of congress as they pursue agendas and seek to bolster their electability, and the effectiveness of women within an institution traditionally dominated by men.It's My Party...Examining Women as Partisans in the U.S. Congress The Electoral Connection: Women's Formal Participation Within the Institution The Organizational Connection: An Analysis of Women's Participation Within the Party Organizations The Matrix: Partisan Context and Political Goals as Parameters for Women's Political Behaviour

During the past thirty years political scientists have sought to explain the behavior of members of Congress by assuming that members are rational actors guided by a set of shared motivations - to gain election and reelection, to advance policy goals, and to further career ambitions. Such explanations have tended to downplay the importance of variables such as gender or political party. Jocelyn Jones Evans now offers the most thorough study to date of the role of gender and party in shaping the behavior of members of Congress. Drawing upon both quantitative and qualitative evidence, she argues that both gender and party affect member behavior. Furthermore, she offers an explanation of how these variables relate to explain the differing experiences of female Republicans and female Democrats. Her findings will command the attention of congressional scholars and chart a direction for future research. - Ronald M. Peters, Jr., University of Oklahoma

Considering the extreme partisanship now characteristic of the HouslC%