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Legislative Entrepreneurship and Women's Issues: An Analysis of Members' Bill Sponsorship and Cosponsorship Agendas
Unformatted Document Text:  Legislative Entrepreneurship and Women's Issues: An Analysis of Members’ Bill Sponsorship and Cosponsorship Agendas Michele L. Swers Assistant Professor of Political Science Georgetown University 37 th and O Streets, ICC 681 Washington, D.C. 20057 ## email not listed ## Prepared for Delivery at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2-5, 2004. Copyright by the American Political Science Association. Abstract This study engages the debate over descriptive representation by attempting to isolate the conditions in which the presence of a descriptive representative will influence the policy process and the factors that contribute to variation in that influence. By examining the agenda-setting activities of bill sponsorship and cosponsorship to determine if female representatives are more likely to act as legislative entrepreneurs on women’s issues than are their male colleagues, I find that congresswomen devote a larger proportion of their overall legislative agenda to sponsorship and cosponsorship of women’s issue initiatives, particularly feminist proposals. The differences in legislative behavior were greater in the area of bill sponsorship than cosponsorship demonstrating that the impact of descriptive representation is most significant in those areas that require the greatest expenditures of resources and incur larger opportunity costs for participation in other areas. Finally, I illustrate how changes in the institutional and political contexts impact members’ decisions concerning whether to pursue women’s issue initiatives.

Authors: Swers, Michele.
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Legislative Entrepreneurship and Women's Issues: An Analysis of Members’ Bill
Sponsorship and Cosponsorship Agendas
Michele L. Swers
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Georgetown University
37
th
and O Streets, ICC 681
Washington, D.C. 20057
## email not listed ##
Prepared for Delivery at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science
Association, September 2-5, 2004.
Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
Abstract
This study engages the debate over descriptive representation by attempting to isolate the
conditions in which the presence of a descriptive representative will influence the policy
process and the factors that contribute to variation in that influence. By examining the
agenda-setting activities of bill sponsorship and cosponsorship to determine if female
representatives are more likely to act as legislative entrepreneurs on women’s issues than
are their male colleagues, I find that congresswomen devote a larger proportion of their
overall legislative agenda to sponsorship and cosponsorship of women’s issue initiatives,
particularly feminist proposals. The differences in legislative behavior were greater in
the area of bill sponsorship than cosponsorship demonstrating that the impact of
descriptive representation is most significant in those areas that require the greatest
expenditures of resources and incur larger opportunity costs for participation in other
areas. Finally, I illustrate how changes in the institutional and political contexts impact
members’ decisions concerning whether to pursue women’s issue initiatives.


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