Party System Change and Women’s Political Representation in the United States

Do new institutions open new opportunities for political women? Evidence from a range of scholarship indicates that when new political institutions are established, women often benefit by having their presence increased, as numbers of elected women rise. New institutions may offer particular opportunities for new actors. Newly established institutions (e.g. new parliaments) and new institutional arrangements (e.g. new electoral systems) are likely to introduce unpredictability for political parties and political elites. In conditions of uncertainty, all potential contenders for political office grapple with new circumstances, and previous knowledge and position may fail to position previously established political elites for electoral advantage. Those representing new groups, or persons who have not previously held or contested for office, like women, may find themselves, in relative terms, less disadvantaged than was their experience under previously established or “old” institutions. In short, “[n]ewness is likely to require adjustment by all parliamentary actors” (Beckwith 2007, 38). What is the relationship between newly established institutions and actors new to institutions? This paper, part of a larger project, develops a framework for examining the intersection of new institutions and new actors in advanced democracies. The paper theorizes “newness,” what “new” means in the context of institutions and actors, and how “newness” can be operationalized. How does “newness” function? Which components (or combination thereof) of newness produce specific outcomes? Aspects of the new include innovation, flexibility, inexperience, openness, and freedom from convention and conventional practices. In contrast, absence of change – or continuity of institutions and actors – includes factors of experience, established structures and practices, closedness, inability to adapt to unforeseen challenges (Pierson 2004, 2000) and susceptibility to “surprise” (Kantor 1977, 969). Not all aspects of “new” are carried into newly established institutions; similarly, “old” institutions may relinquish some components of the old. The paper identifies, for selected cases, those elements of new institutions that function to open specific opportunities for new actors. Focusing on the United States, the paper examines specific institutional changes in terms of political system (major constitutional changes), electoral system, and party system, to assess the extent to which new institutions and arrangements were established. Institutional change is treated as an independent variable, first, to assess the impact of new institutional arrangements on women’s access to national legislatures and cabinet positions and, second, to identify sets of intersections of actors and institutions in terms of newness.