Council Size Matters: Filling Blanks in Women’s Municipal Representation in New Jersey

Council Size Matters Filling Blanks in Women’s Municipal Representation in New Jersey

This article “goes local” to investigate the representation of women on city councils, seeking explanations for the variation in women’s descriptive representation at the municipal level. Using the State of New Jersey (NJ) as a case, it is asked: what explains why women fare electorally better in so...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:State & local government review Vol. 50; no. 4; pp. 215 - 229
Main Authors: Kjaer, Ulrik, Dittmar, Kelly, Carroll, Susan J.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles, CA Sage Publications, Inc 01-12-2018
SAGE Publications
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:
Councils
General Interest
Local government
Local politics
Representation
Women
Women and politics
United States > US
New Jersey
women and politics
representation
council
New Jersey
local government
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Summary:This article “goes local” to investigate the representation of women on city councils, seeking explanations for the variation in women’s descriptive representation at the municipal level. Using the State of New Jersey (NJ) as a case, it is asked: what explains why women fare electorally better in some NJ municipalities than in others? More specifically, what explains “blanks”—or councils on which women are absent—in women’s representation in local politics? It is demonstrated that council size is a significant predictor of women’s presence or absence, but not percentage representation, on city councils.
ISSN:0160-323X
1943-3409
DOI:10.1177/0160323X18824387