Race, Gender, and Political Representation

It is well established that the race and gender of elected representatives influence the ways in which they legislate, but surprisingly little research exists on how race and gender interact to affect who is elected and how they behave once in office. How do race and gender affect who gets elected, as well as who is represented? What issues do elected representatives prioritize? Does diversity in representation make a difference?Race, Gender, and Political Representation takes up the call to think about representation in the United States as intersectional, and it measures the extent to which political representation is simultaneously gendered and raced. Specifically, the book examines how race and gender interact to affect the election, behavior, and impact of all individuals. By putting women of color at the center of their analysis and re-evaluating traditional, "single-axis" approaches to studying thepolitics of race or gender, the authors demonstrate what an intersectional approach to identity politics can reveal. Drawing on original data on the presence, policy leadership, and policy impact of Black women and men, Latinas and Latinos, and White women and men in state legislative office in the late twentiethand early twenty-first centuries, each chapter shows how the politics of race, gender, and representation are far more complex than recurring "Year of the Woman" frameworks suggest. An array of race-gender similarities and differences are evident in the experiences, activities, and accomplishments of these state legislators. Yet one thing is clear: the representation of those marginalized by multiple, intersecting systems of power and inequality is intricately bound to the representation ofwomen of color.

Race, Gender, and Political Representation is a powerful piece of scholarship that would be a valuable addition to any course on political representation, gender and politics, race and ethnicity politics, and legislative politics. The book makes a compelling case for why a more intersectional approach to the study of representation is not only a worthwhile pursuit, but an essential one. In many respects, the book is a call to action for future scholars to grapple with the political consequences of intersectionality, to consider its implications for their own work, to answer old questions in new ways, and to ask new questions., How do gender and race interact to affect the representational behavior of all policymakers? In Race, Gender, and Political Representation, the authors answer this most timely, and intriguing question with enormous clarity and invaluable insight gleaned from intersectionality studies., This book advances scholarship by taking seriously the assumptions that scholars (un)willingly hold when they employ epistemological and empirical techniques that are rooted in exclusionary practices., [This book] is a treasure trove of substance, strategies, and approaches for scholars looking toward applying a quantitative-positivist approach to intersectionality in the sub-field of representation. Reingold, Haynie, and Widner provide a masterclass on how to reexamine the body of knowledge that considers the role of identity politics in studies of political representation. This scholarship will open a path for others that seek strategies to implement a more intersectional framework in quantitative analysis in political science., The book addresses questions that have long been of interest to the social sciences regarding identity, power, and how different groups perceive and act on their interests. While the authors are political scientists, the book adds a lot to sociological conceptualizations of identity politics as well as the role of identity in politics.

Beth Reingold is Associate Professor of Political Science and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University.Kerry L. Haynie is Associate Professor of Political Science and African and African American Studies at Duke University.Kirsten Widner is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee.