Synopses & Reviews
Using recent theoretical developments in the political economy of institutions and electoral behavior, this book attempts to solve an enduring puzzle in women's electoral politics, namely why the increasing importance of women's votes in the 1920s did not imply increasing success for the lobbying efforts of women's organizations. The book argues that women's exclusion from the suffrage created terms that led to distinctive patterns of post-suffrage female electoral politics. These electoral dynamics in turn are responsible for the decline in the political influence of women's organizations by the mid-1920s.
Review
"Harvey combines theoretical and emperical tools from economics, political science, and history in a well-written and forcefully argued book..." Journal of Interdisciplinary History"...Harvey's work serves as an exemplary model of social science research, with theory conciously shaping the questions that guide the research. Perhaps more important, it explains the long absence of women's political influence in a manner at once sensible and satisfying." Patricia G. Zelman, American Historical Review
Synopsis
This book explains why the increasing importance of women's votes throughout the 1920s did not imply increasing success for the lobbying efforts of women's organisations.
Synopsis
This book attempts to solve an enduring puzzle in women's electoral politics. Namely why the increasing importance of women's votes in the 1920s did not imply increasing success for the lobbying efforts of women's organizations.
Table of Contents
1. The legacy of female disenfranchisement; 2. The logic of policy change: voters, organizations, and institutions; 3. Testing competing hypotheses: pre- and post- suffrage in New York State, 1909-1920; 4. The national race to mobilize women, 1917-1932; 5. One step forward, two steps back: women in the parties, 1917-1932; 6. The re-emergence of policy and party benefits for women, 1970-present; References.