Gendered Polarization and Abortion Policymaking in the States

The Forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
Abigail A. Matthews ◽  
Rebecca J. Kreitzer ◽  
Emily U. Schilling
Keyword(s):  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Count Model ◽  
Shared Interest ◽  
Abortion Rights ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Policy Representation ◽  
The U.S

AbstractWidening, asymmetric polarization is evident in both the U.S. Congress and state legislatures. Recent work unveils a new dimension to this polarization story: newly elected Republican women are driving this polarization. Women are more likely to legislate on women’s issues than men, yet women’s shared interest in representing women doesn’t preclude their identity as partisans. In this article, we explore the effect of today’s political climate on state legislators’ policy representation of women’s issues. We ask what effect does gendered polarization have on women’s issues? To test this, we evaluate bill sponsorship in the states on the quintessential “women’s issue” of abortion. Our research design focuses on bill introductions and uses on an original dataset of pro- and anti-abortion rights bill introductions, which we analyze using an event count model. We find that overall polarization leads to the introduction of fewer restrictive abortion bills, but as polarization between women lawmakers grows, legislators are more likely to introduce anti-abortion rights legislation. Gender polarization has consequences on the types of bills legislators introduce and for how scholars should study polarization.

Growing Tea With Subnational Roots: Tea Party Affiliation, Factionalism, and GOP Politics in State Legislatures

2021 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2110411
Author(s):  
Stella M. Rouse ◽  
Charles Hunt ◽  
Kristen Essel
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Level ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Original Dataset

Most research has examined the influence of the Tea Party as a social movement or loose organization, but less is known about its influence within legislative party politics, especially at the state level. In this paper, we argue that in this context the Tea Party is primarily an intraparty faction that has caused significant divisions inside the Republican Party. Using an original dataset of legislators across 13 states for the years 2010 to 2013, we examine legislator and district-level characteristics that predict state legislators’ affiliation with the Tea Party. Our results reveal that in some respects legislators affiliated with the Tea Party are a far-right wing of the Republican Party. However, by other measures that capture anti-establishment political sentiment, Tea Party affiliated legislators comprise a factional group attempting to transform the Party in ways that go beyond ideology. These findings have important implications for the future prospects of the GOP.

Role Models or Partisan Models? The Effect of Prominent Women Officeholders

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Cory Manento ◽  
Marie Schenk
Keyword(s):  
Role Models ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
The Political ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Prominence Effect ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Office

Abstract Women remain underrepresented in electoral politics compared to their share of the population. Using an original dataset spanning 1975–2019, we examine whether the presence of women in prominent political office leads to an increase in the number of women serving in state legislatures. We define prominence in two ways: the total number of women elected to statewide office and the length of a state’s history of electing women. We find that the prominence effect diverges by party. The election of prominent Democratic women leads to an increase in the proportion of Democratic women state legislators, while the election of Republican women leads to a decrease in the proportion of Republican women state legislators. Rather than serving as role models for women of both parties to enter the political pipeline, electing more women to prominent office is contributing to a greater representational gap between the parties in state legislatures.

Introduction to Faith in State Legislatures

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Front Line ◽  
United State ◽  
Party Control ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Change State

This chapter introduces the complex history of the relationships among faith, politics and culture in state legislatures. Each of these concepts is explored by organizing them into three themes: separation, demography and polarization. The direction and content of public policies across the United State are influenced by these elements contributing to either the support or opposition to social change. State legislators are on the front line of these ideological divides. These variations by region contribute to the increase in single party control and have generated pronounced policy differences.

The Changing Political Context

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Aszkielowicz
Keyword(s):  
War Crimes ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Japanese Economy ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Australian Government ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The U.S

During the early years of the Australian trials, the international political context was favourable. The U.S. led Occupation of Japan was focused on reforming or punishing Japan. The threat of communism to regional security and the hopes of a democratic Japan, however, was never far from the minds of key U.S. thinkers, in both Japan and Washington. Gradually the Occupation entered a second phase, the Reverse Course. The U.S. began to take steps to rehabilitate the Japanese economy and support Japan’s recovery from the war, in an effort to strengthen Japanese institutions against communist influence. In this new political climate, war crimes prosecutions quickly became unfashionable. The Australian government remained suspicious of Japan throughout the Reverse Course, and found it hard to accept the U.S. line that communism was now a greater threat to the Pacific than Japan.

Who Is Community Engagement For?: The Endless Loop of Democratic Transparency

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (11) ◽  
pp. 1565-1587
Author(s):  
Caroline W. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Professional Associations ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
College And University ◽  
American Academia ◽  
Assessment Strategies ◽  
The U.S

This article approaches college and university community engagement as a publicity practice responding to complex pressures in the U.S. higher education field. Democracy initiatives in American academia encompass a range of civic activities in communities near and far, but the forces driving their production are decidedly nonlocal and top-down. Good intentions are no longer enough for colleges and universities facing crises on a number of fronts. Today’s community collaborations must be intensive, reciprocal, deliberative, and appreciative. This mission of democratic transparency pursued by institutions involves extensive efforts to certify civic empowerment for public audiences and funders, trade and professional associations, state legislatures, and federal regulators. A promotional perspective on community engagement in higher education shifts attention from the authentic grassroots transformations that are its putative focus to the larger processes driving this activity and its outcomes: not least, the pursuit of legitimacy through increasingly elaborate self-assessment strategies. This endless loop—and its demands that engagement be ever more democratic and transparent, in its practice and in its evaluation—demonstrates not only the reach of promotional transparency, but its characteristic shape and reflexive organizational routines.

Disclosure Two Ways

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin B. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Assisted Reproduction ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The State ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
The Past ◽  
Abortion Rights ◽  
State Statutes ◽  
Psychological Risks

In the past two decades, courts and scholars have grappled with the appropriateness of pre-abortion disclosures mandated by the state. Statutes requiring physicians to recite a specific script, often detailing potential psychological “risks” of choosing to terminate a pregnancy, have proliferated nationwide over the past decade. Opponents of such laws have sometimes characterized the requirement of a procedurespecific disclosure as unnecessary and unique to the abortion context. In recent years, however, state legislatures supportive of abortion rights have legislated procedure-specific mandatory disclosures in the context of assisted reproduction and other health care procedures with reproductive health impacts.

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