The Election, Incorporation, and Policy Impact of Women in City Government Público
Smith, Adrienne Rachel (2010)
Published
Abstract
This dissertation examines women's pathways to powerful positions in municipal government and whether cities respond to women's interests in policymaking. In recent years, a growing number of women have been elected to city government. In light of this trend, the project addresses several questions: Why is the presence and power of women in municipal government greater in some U.S. cities than others? Does the increasing numerical representation of women in city government make any difference? Do cities where women hold positions of authority have more women-friendly policies?
Part I examines how variation in the political contexts of cities affects women's election as council members and mayors and their ascendance to prominent positions in municipal government. In Chapter 2, I analyze an original dataset of large American cities to extend the reach of our knowledge about women's presence as mayors and council members. In Chapter 3, I trace the process whereby women have gained increasingly prominent positions in the governments of Atlanta, Georgia and Houston, Texas since the 1970s.
Part II investigates the policy impact of women's presence and power in municipal government. In Chapters 4 and 5, I employ statistical analyses to examine whether women's presence and power of women in government influences how cities allocate funding in the federal Community Development Block Grant program and also whether they adopt a symbolic platform to strengthen families and improve neighborhoods. Throughout Part II, I draw on original fieldwork in Houston and Atlanta, including close to 50 interviews with municipal officials and civic leaders, to probe the findings from the statistical analyses and explore outstanding puzzles.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction 1
Part I. The Determinants of Women's Presence and Power in City
Government
Chapter 2. The Political Determinants of Women's Descriptive
Representation in Cities 17
Chapter 3. Tracing Women's Ascendance in The Municipal Governments
of Houston and Atlanta 47
Part II. The Policy Impact of Women's Presence and Power in City
Government
Chapter 4. Cities Where Women Rule: Female Political Incorporation
and the Allocation of Community Development Block Grant Funding
137
Chapter 5. Female Political Incorporation and Symbolic Policymaking
in Cities 184
Chapter 6. Beyond Political Incorporation: Addressing the Puzzle of
Women's Substantive Representation in Cities 211
Chapter 7. Conclusion: Towards an Entrepreneurial Model of Women's
Substantive Representation in Cities 271
Appendix A. Quantitative Analysis of Women's Descriptive
Representation in Cities 291
Appendix B. Quantitative Analysis of Women's Substantive
Representation in Cities 297
Appendix C. Quantitative Analysis of Women's Descriptive
Representation, Political Incorporation, and Substantive
Representation in Cities 323
References 339
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