Nadia Brown - Böcker

Descriptive studies of women in office have well documented the ways in which the gender and race of legislators affects policy preferences. However, descriptive studies of female legislators tend to treat identity as constant over time and context and so fail to account for the substantive work of legislators. As Sisters in the Statehouse shows, it is not enough to disaggregate women from Blacks. While scholars have long advanced the notion that African American women as a group exhibit specificities informed by the intersection of race and gender that provide them with a unique worldview, it is necessary to further explore differences among Black women. This book addresses this gap by utilizing humanistic inquiry to examine the connection between descriptive and substantive representation in the case of Black women legislators. This link hinges on how such legislators see the effects of their own race-gender identity on their legislative work. By combining humanistic and social science techniques, including feminist life histories, elite interviews, and participant observation in conjunction with legislative case studies and bill sponsorship data, Nadia E. Brown presents a fuller description of how identity informs Black women state legislators descriptive and substantive representation. Linking personal narratives to political behavior, Brown elicits the feminist life histories of African American women legislators to understand how their experiences with racism and sexism have influenced their legislative decision-making and policy preferences. Sisters in the Statehouse is a groundbreaking inquiry into how an intersectional approach can enhance our understanding of political representation.

Me Too Political Science explores the multiple manifestations and implications of gendered biases in Political Science by "connecting the dots" between the sexual harassment described in the recent report on 2017 American Political Science Association’s Survey on Sexual Harassment at Annual Meetings and other problematic issues.Started by Tarana Burke in 2007 to stand with young women of color who survived sexual assault, the MeToo campaign was intended to let women know that they were not alone. In turn, the Women’s Caucus for Political Science used #MeTooPoliSci to bring awareness to sexual harassment, assault and misconduct in the discipline. The essays in this book and the authors’ scholarly activism, harnessed a collective power to dispel the shame, embarrassment and secrecy that surrounds these issues. They focus in particular on bullying, entitled and toxic forms of masculinity; systematic discounting of and dismissiveness and derision toward work on gender and sexuality; biases and inequities associated with hiring, teaching evaluations, service loads, and tenure and promotion; and related and often intersecting forms of harassment but not only those related to race and sexuality. The essays in this volume stem for the 2018 pre-conference held by the Women’s Caucus for Political Science at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting. Me Too Political Science is of great importance not only to scholars interested in Gender and Women’s Studies, but all those working in the Political Science discipline – and even beyond, to academia as a whole. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Women, Politics and Policy.

Me Too Political Science explores the multiple manifestations and implications of gendered biases in Political Science by "connecting the dots" between the sexual harassment described in the recent report on 2017 American Political Science Association’s Survey on Sexual Harassment at Annual Meetings and other problematic issues.Started by Tarana Burke in 2007 to stand with young women of color who survived sexual assault, the MeToo campaign was intended to let women know that they were not alone. In turn, the Women’s Caucus for Political Science used #MeTooPoliSci to bring awareness to sexual harassment, assault and misconduct in the discipline. The essays in this book and the authors’ scholarly activism, harnessed a collective power to dispel the shame, embarrassment and secrecy that surrounds these issues. They focus in particular on bullying, entitled and toxic forms of masculinity; systematic discounting of and dismissiveness and derision toward work on gender and sexuality; biases and inequities associated with hiring, teaching evaluations, service loads, and tenure and promotion; and related and often intersecting forms of harassment but not only those related to race and sexuality. The essays in this volume stem for the 2018 pre-conference held by the Women’s Caucus for Political Science at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting. Me Too Political Science is of great importance not only to scholars interested in Gender and Women’s Studies, but all those working in the Political Science discipline – and even beyond, to academia as a whole. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Women, Politics and Policy.

Democracy cannot be taken for granted, whether at home or internationally, and eternal vigilance (along with civic intelligence) is required to protect it. Approaching Democracy provides students with a framework to analyze the structure, process, and action of US government, institutions, and social movements. It also invites comparison with other countries. This globalizing perspective gives students an understanding of issues of governance and challenges to democracy here and elsewhere. At a moment of political hyper-partisanship, economic tensions, media misinformation, hyper-partisanship, and anxieties about the future of civil rights, this is the ideal time to introduce Approaching Democracy--a textbook based on Vaclav Havel’s powerful metaphor of democracy as an ideal and the American experiment as the closest approach to it--to a new generation of political science undergraduate students.NEW TO THE TENTH EDITIONUpdated to reflect the results of the 2022 midterm elections and explore the implications of Congressional redistricting, voting suppression, and voting rights legislationCovers the first two years of the Biden administration and provides a thorough retrospective on the Trump presidency—including updates on the January 6 Commission findings and the Justice department’s investigation into Trump’s alleged misappropriation of classified government documentsPresents the developments on the Supreme Court including the appointment of its two newest justices and major recent decisions including controversial rulings on reproductive health, the separation of church and state, and the environmentExplores the revival of NATO and other international alliances in the context of the Russian invasion of UkraineNew and updated material has also been provided regarding gun control, healthcare, labor rights, immigration, economic policy, COVID-19’s lingering impacts, and the ongoing struggle for social and racial justice in America

Democracy cannot be taken for granted, whether at home or internationally, and eternal vigilance (along with civic intelligence) is required to protect it. Approaching Democracy provides students with a framework to analyze the structure, process, and action of US government, institutions, and social movements. It also invites comparison with other countries. This globalizing perspective gives students an understanding of issues of governance and challenges to democracy here and elsewhere. At a moment of political hyper-partisanship, economic tensions, media misinformation, hyper-partisanship, and anxieties about the future of civil rights, this is the ideal time to introduce Approaching Democracy--a textbook based on Vaclav Havel’s powerful metaphor of democracy as an ideal and the American experiment as the closest approach to it--to a new generation of political science undergraduate students.NEW TO THE TENTH EDITIONUpdated to reflect the results of the 2022 midterm elections and explore the implications of Congressional redistricting, voting suppression, and voting rights legislationCovers the first two years of the Biden administration and provides a thorough retrospective on the Trump presidency—including updates on the January 6 Commission findings and the Justice department’s investigation into Trump’s alleged misappropriation of classified government documentsPresents the developments on the Supreme Court including the appointment of its two newest justices and major recent decisions including controversial rulings on reproductive health, the separation of church and state, and the environmentExplores the revival of NATO and other international alliances in the context of the Russian invasion of UkraineNew and updated material has also been provided regarding gun control, healthcare, labor rights, immigration, economic policy, COVID-19’s lingering impacts, and the ongoing struggle for social and racial justice in America