In this paper we seek to study whether the initiative process has a different influence on political participation and engagement among men and women. This question is motivated by previous work in which we find that the 24 American states with some form of the initiative process consistently...

The impact of legislative term limits on women's representation has developed through several stages. After term limits reforms passed but before they took affect, research suggested that women's representation would increase due to the forced retirement of - mostly-male incumbents. After term...

Many scholars have discussed the consequences of the personal vote on the behavior of legislators, yet little scholarship has been devoted to the effect of the personal vote on the success of women candidates. My paper engages this important issue, employing a comparative lens to examine how...

Previous research indicates that women candidates may more easily gain elected office by aligning themselves with issues that the public associates favorably with women, such as health care, education, and children's and women's rights. But this strategy may be more or less successful depending...

In January 2008 feminist activist Gloria Steinem published an op-ed in the New York Times to express her views on the Democratic Primary contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Although she assures readers that she is not advocating for a competition for who has it toughest, she also...

We examine the impact of a candidate's gender on electoral success in the primary and general elections, while controlling for other factors that may influence a candidate's success such as political experience, quality of the challenging candidates, and district-level demographics. The...

To date, fifteen states have implemented term limits for state legislators. Despite initial expectations that term limits would increase opportunities for female candidates by reducing the benefits associated with male incumbency advantage, the evidence indicates that term limits have not had...

In 2000, as part of Tony Blairﾒs promised devolution of British government, an election was held for a newly created political office: The Mayor of Greater London. After being denied the Party nomination, Labour MP Ken Livingstone chose to run as an independent candidate and was expelled from...

Scholars routinely use the 2-party presidential vote in a given legislative district as a proxy for the ideology of that district's constituents. Scholars also freely admit that this measure is imperfect, but works well as a proxy for the 2-party balance and is very easy to obtain. This paper...

Beginning with a discussion of the gender gap and its relevance to political campaigns, this thesis explores how presidential candidates target women voters in their political ads. I am anticipating that the candidate who includes more women's issues in his political ads will win the majority of...