Gendering Legislative Behavior
Institutional Constraints and Collaboration

Using interview evidence and archival data from Argentina, the book examines why and when women collaborate in Congress.

Tiffany D. Barnes (Author)

9781316507650, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 June 2016

310 pages, 39 b/w illus. 1 map 4 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.41 kg

'Tiffany Barnes documents in extraordinary detail what are the incentives of women legislators to cross the party line and collaborate with each other on the drafting and approval of legislation. In doing so, this book provides a blueprint for future research that explains legislative cooperation on gender, ethnicity, race, or religion dimensions, as they interact with partisan incentives in democratic politics. This is the best book on legislative politics and gender that I have read.' Ernesto Calvo, University of Maryland

In democracies, power is obtained via competition. Yet, as women gain access to parliaments in record numbers, worldwide collaboration appears to be on the rise. This is puzzling: why, if politicians can secure power through competition, would we observe collaboration in Congress? Using evidence from 200 interviews with politicians from Argentina and a novel dataset from 23 Argentine legislative chambers over an 18-year period, Gendering Legislative Behavior reexamines traditional notions of competitive democracy by evaluating patterns of collaboration among legislators. Although only the majority can secure power via competition, all legislators - particularly those who do not have power - can influence the policy-making process through collaboration. Tiffany D. Barnes argues that as women have limited access to formal and informal political power, they collaborate more than men to influence policy-making. Despite the benefits of collaboration, patterns of collaboration vary among women because different legislative contexts either facilitate or constrain women's collaboration.

1. Introduction
2. A theory of legislative collaboration
3. Can democracy be collaborative? Examining patterns of collaboration
4. Why do women collaborate? Evidence of women's marginalization
5. When do women collaborate? Explaining between chamber variation
6. When do women collaborate? Explaining within chamber variation
7. Collaboration in a cross-national context
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]