The Political Determinants of Women's Descriptive Representation in Cities
In: Political research quarterly: PRQ ; official journal of the Western Political Science Association and other associations, Band 65, Heft 2, S. 315-329
ISSN: 1938-274X
Why is the descriptive (or numerical) representation of women in policy-making positions higher in some cities than in others? Despite a strong body of work on the descriptive representation of women in state government, research on the presence of women in municipal government is limited in empirical scope and theoretical development. This study is different. First, the authors employ an original data set of 239 cities with populations of 100,000 or more to update and extend the empirical reach of scholars' knowledge. Second, the authors develop and test hypotheses to explain how the urban political context affects women's descriptive representation. The analysis reveals that the election of women as council members and mayors are interdependent phenomena. The authors also find that political characteristics of local communities are consequential for predicting the presence of women as municipal policy makers—just as consequential as electoral structures and other institutional features.