Candidate Recruitment

  • More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislatures

    by Susan Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu
    Oxford University Press, September 2013, 176 pages

    Analyzing nationwide surveys of state legislators conducted by CAWP, More Women Can Run challenges assumptions of a single model of candidate emergence with a relationally embedded model of candidacy. It reorients research on women's election to office and offers strategies for political practitioners concerned about women's political equality. Video of a book talk given by Carroll and Sanbonmatsu available here

    Book
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Candidates and Campaigns
    Candidate Recruitment
    State Legislature
  • Preparedness Meets Opportunity: Women's Increased Representation in the New Jersey Legislature

    by Susan Carroll and Kelly Dittmar
    Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 
    July 2012, 40 pages

    This paper examines the factors that account for the rapid rise in the number of women legislators in New Jersey, focusing primarily on the time period from 2004 through 2011. Central to the analysis is the question of what it would take to bring about enduring change in a political system characterized by a strong, male-dominated party system like that found in New Jersey.

    Report
    New Jersey
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Political Parties
    Candidate Recruitment
    State Legislature
  • Women’s Pathways to America’s State Legislatures

    by Kira Sanbonmatsu
    Scholars Strategy Network Key Findings

    Analysis of results from an unprecedented nationwide survey of state legislators conducted in 2008 by the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

    Article
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Candidate Recruitment
    State Legislature
  • Can More Women Run? Reevaluating Women’s Election to the State Legislatures

    by Susan J. Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu
    Paper presented at the 2010 American Political Science Association annual meeting

    Do men and women take similar or different paths to public office? This paper examines the occupational and educational backgrounds, family situations, and prior political experiences of women state legislators and their male counterparts. 

    Conference Paper
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Candidates and Campaigns
    Candidate Recruitment
    State Legislature
  • Life's A Party: Do Political Parties Help or Hinder Women?

    by Kira Sanbonmatsu
    Harvard International Review, 2010

    Sanbonmatsu evaluates the role of political parties in electing women to office. She argues that the history of U.S. parties indicates that women’s organizations and movements, women leaders, and women voters are the keys to making political parties a help rather than a hindrance to women’s representation.

    Article
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Political Parties
    Candidates and Campaigns
    Candidate Recruitment
  • Entering the Mayor’s Office: Women’s Decisions to Run for Municipal Office

    by Susan J. Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu
    Paper presented at the 2010 Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting

    This paper investigates the routes that women take to the mayor’s office in big cities (with populations of 30,000 and above) using the 2008 CAWP Mayoral Recruitment Study. The authors investigate the backgrounds of women mayors and their decisions to seek municipal office for the first time.

    Conference Paper
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Candidates and Campaigns
    Candidate Recruitment
    Local
  • Poised to Run: Women's Pathways to the State Legislatures

    by Kira Sanbonmatsu, Susan J. Carroll, and Debbie Walsh
    Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2009, 31 pages

    Poised to Run presents the initial findings of a 2008 CAWP study that asked women and men in state legislatures about their routes to elective office.

    Report
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Candidate Recruitment
    Candidates and Campaigns
    State Legislature
  • Gender and Election to the State Legislatures: Then and Now

    by Susan J. Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu
    Paper presented at the Ninth Annual State Politics and Policy Conference, 2009

    Carroll and Sanbonmatsu compare the background characteristics and experiences of women and men state legislators over time using data from the 2008 and 1981 CAWP Recruitment Studies. 

    Conference Paper
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Candidates and Campaigns
    Candidate Recruitment
    State Legislature
  • Gender and the Decision to Run for the State Legislature

    by Susan J. Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu
    Paper presented at the 2009 Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting

    Carroll and Sanbonmatsu find important gender differences in the initial decision to seek state legislative office. They find that women are more likely than men to seek office because they were encouraged to run and that family and organizational support play a larger role in women’s candidacy decisions than in men’s. 

    Conference Paper
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Candidates and Campaigns
    Candidate Recruitment
    State Legislature
  • CAWP Recruitment Studies Datasets

    The 2008 Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) Recruitment Studies are studies of United States state legislators' and mayors' pathways to office that were conducted by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Data about state legislators and mayors of big cities were gathered through survey instruments that consisted primarily of questions concerning the decision to seek office, previous political experience, and personal background. The studies, which were conducted by mail, web, and phone, were designed to replicate a 1981 CAWP study about gender and pathways to

    File
    Research
    CAWP Scholar
    Candidate Recruitment
    State Legislature
    Local