Women, Politics and Power: A Global Perspective (review)

As a political scientist asked to review a book from the "Sociology for a New Century" series, it was impressive for me to see the similarities in structure, theory and topical coverage in this book compared to textbooks covered in political science. Part of this certainly comes about because of Pamela Paxton's joint interest in both fields. The similarity of basic textbooks also illustrates the maturity of "women studies" as a discipline and its transcendence of traditional disciplinary boundaries.

The observation above is not meant in any way to detract from the current offering. On the contrary, there are some excellent reasons for choosing Women, Politics and Power as the basic text for women studies courses regardless of disciplinary location. The book is particularly well organized around questions of women's representation. It is crisply written, and includes a good glossary and index. Citations to outside sources are comprehensive, but could still stand some updating. The selection of statistics for illustration and "boxed" materials is helpful. The goal of global coverage is laudable, and relatively successfully achieved.

The historical chapters on suffrage and the struggle for representation contain a wealth of information, but provide conceptual perspectives that should aid the students in absorbing the material. The three chapters "Explaining the Political Representation of Women" are also nicely organized around themes of Culture and Social Structure, Politics per se, and "Overarching Factors." The latter chapter provides an opportunity to discuss worldwide influences, globalization and the role of the United Nations, which is frequently overlooked or given short shrift in most texts. I might quibble with the relative weight the authors give war and revolution as it relates to advances in women's representation vs. the limited space they devote to the special costs that armed conflict exacts on women. As a specialist on Ireland, I was distressed that no attention was given to the role of women in the Northern Ireland peace process or to the continuing enhancement of women's leadership skills through programs such as the Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics at Queen's University in Belfast. Scholars interested in international aspects of policy representation might also be interested to know of the RNGS Dataset organized by Stetson and Mazur.

I reserve a great deal of my criticism for the coverage of international aspects of women's representation in Chapter 8, "All Regions are Not Created Equal." While I applaud the goal of reducing the Eurocentric perspective offered in most textbooks, the coverage of regions in this book is uneven. The parts on Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa are well done, but coverage of Eastern Europe and the Central Asian Republics is truncated, and that of Asia and the Pacific Islands could use much more attention as compared to India and China. It is also unfortunate that maps are included to identify some regions, but not others. This makes it difficult to quickly check in which regions some countries might be included. This chapter might particularly benefit from a For Further Reading section for students whose appetites have been whetted by the material presented. All in all, however, the international focus is a welcome respite from attention to the United States and Europe. My criticism here might best be interpreted as encouragement for expansion in future editions.

Chapter nine, the last substantive chapter in the book – "Middle of the Pack: Women and Politics in the United States" – holds particular poignancy for having been set in comparative perspective. This lengthy chapter is packed with information detailing the tedious progress of women's representation in the United States. In detailing the barriers to representation – cultural, social, political and partisan – commonly covered in such discussions, Paxton and Hughes provide some hope. Slow and steady wins the race, and the cumulative impact of women at lower levels of office may result in sustained change at the top. The discussion of federalism and the increasing representation of women is particularly helpful in detailing...