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- Title
Cities Where Women Rule: Female Political Incorporation and the Allocation of Community Development Block Grant Funding.
- Authors
Smith, Adrienne R.
- Abstract
While individual women representatives in government have been found to behave differently than men, the causal connection between the increased presence of women in elected offices and the production of women-friendly policies is tenuous at best. This study leverages the variation in women's office holding, government structures, and policy outputs found in American cities to address that puzzle. It argues that when women obtain leadership positions in municipal government and when the positions they hold have greater power relative to other municipal positions, cities will be more likely to produce policy outputs that are often associated with women's interests and needs. Utilizing an original city-level dataset and modeling women's presence as mayors and policy outputs endogenously, the results reveal that empowered female executives in municipal governments influence expenditure decisions made as part of the federal Community Development Block Grant program. The findings suggest that political scientists should consider not only the presence of an underrepresented group, but also the relative amount of power that group has when assessing the effects on substantive representation.
- Subjects
UNITED States; AMERICAN women in politics; WOMEN politicians; BLOCK grants; COMMUNITY Development Block Grant Program (U.S.); FINANCING of community development; POLITICAL scientists
- Publication
Politics & Gender, 2014, Vol 10, Issue 3, p313
- ISSN
1743-923X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/S1743923X14000208