Michele L Swers
Biographic Data
| ID | 4194015 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michele L Swers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michele L |
| FAMILY NAME | Swers |
| SIGNATURE | SWERS M L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6457-9662 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 736 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Understanding the Policy Priorities of Republican Women in the US House of Representatives
We take a deep dive into the sponsorship and cosponsorship activity of Republicans in the US House of Representatives from 1993–2014 to examine how ideology and gender influence the policy priorities of Republican legislators on issues associated with women, as well as on the party-owned issue of tax policy. We expect that Republican women are cross-pressured since assumptions about their policy expertise as women conflict with the policy reputat…
Understanding the Gender and Partisan Dynamics of Abortion Voting in the House of Representatives
Analyzing votes on abortion-related legislation from the 103rd (1993–94) to the 115th (2017–18) Congresses, we find that both gender and party influence members’ voting behavior. Among Republicans, women are more likely than men to oppose pro-life initiatives, although the impact of gender attenuates over time. Among Democrats, apparent gender differences in voting behavior are explained by the nature of the districts they represent. We also find…
When Women Run, Voters Will Follow (Sometimes): Examining the Mobilizing Effect of Female Candidates in the 2014 and 2018 Midterm Elections
Anti-abortion Policymaking and Women’s Representation
To what extent and under what conditions do women in elective office lead the way on conservative women’s interests? The few existing studies find that, contrary to most research on women’s descriptive and substantive representation, legislative activity on conservative women’s issues in the United States is driven primarily by Republican men. This article takes a new look at the heart of conservative policymaking by analyzing the sponsorship of …
How Do We Get More Women to Study Legislative Politics
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder To Stay in Office
Which Women Can Run? Gender, Partisanship, and Candidate Donor Networks
Recent scholarship rejects campaign finance as a cause of women’s underrepresentation in Congress because women raise as much money as men running in similar races. We argue that campaign finance still impacts which women can make a run for office because candidates have to build their own donor networks. Using a unique dataset that includes primary and general election candidates for the U.S. House in 2010 and 2012, we examine the gender composi…
Women & Legislative Leadership in the U.S. Congress: Representing Women's Interests in Partisan Times
Women are drastically underrepresented in American political institutions. This has prompted speculation about the impact of electing more women on policy and the functioning of government. Examining the growing presence of women in Congress, I demonstrate that women do exhibit unique policy priorities, focusing more on the needs of various groups of women. However, the incentive structure of the American electoral system, which rewards ideologic…
Pursuing Women’s Interests in Partisan Times: Explaining Gender Differences in Legislative Activity on Health, Education, and Women’s Health Issues
How can we explain why gender differences in policy activity emerge on some issues and not others? I use senators' broad reach as policy generalists to examine the impact of gender on policy entrepreneurship on health care, education, and women's health. I find that female senators act on gender preferences as members of partisan teams. Because social welfare and women's rights are seen as owned by the Democratic Party, gender preferences, voter …
Why Aren't There More Republican Women in Congress? Gender, Partisanship, and Fundraising Support in the 2010 and 2012 Elections
Research indicates that fundraising is not an impediment to women candidates because women raise just as much money as men after accounting for seat status. However, previous research focuses solely on general election candidates. By examining both primary and general election candidates, we find both gender and partisan differences in fundraising. While incumbency, competitiveness, and candidate quality predict fundraising in the general electio…
Ideological Warriors and Constituent Servants: Understanding the Determinants of Participation on Health Care Legislation in the Polarized Senate
Recent scholarship on the Senate indicates that partisanship and polarization have fundamentally changed the dynamics and the nature of policy making in the institution. To understand how senators balance their roles as constituent servants and partisan warriors, we examine senators’ participation in floor amending on major health legislation over a 10-year period (2000–2010). Health care is central to the ideological divide over the nature of th…
Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate
Replacing Sandra Day O'Connor: Gender and the Politics of Supreme Court Nominations
The politics of Supreme Court nominations present a case in which gender issues from abortion to diversity are highly salient on the bench. However, confirmation politics are also tightly constrained by institutional pressure for party loyalty. In the battle to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, we find that gender had a limited impact on senators' votes on the Roberts and Alito nominations. Republicans uniformly supported the president's nominees and …
Descriptive Representation: Understanding the Impact of Identity on Substantive Representation of Group Interests
An Endogenous Approach to Women's Interests: When Interests Are Interesting in and of Themselves
As Sapiro (1981) pointed out many years ago, recognizing that women's interests are interesting is the vital first step in establishing the significance of women's political representation (or the lack thereof)—both in the “real” world and in the scholarly world. Indeed, the assumption that women's interests exist, that women have political interests that can be defined and measured, is central to much of the subsequent research and discussion of…
Building a Reputation on National Security: The Impact of Stereotypes Related To Gender and Military Experience
In a post‐9/11 world, all senators must establish their national security credentials with voters. Yet senators do not compete for leadership on an equal basis. Through an analysis of bill sponsorship, Sunday talk show appearances, and interviews with Senate staff, I demonstrate that defense policy is made in a partisan and gendered context. Gender stereotypes favoring male defense leadership create an additional hurdle for women, particularly De…
Connecting Descriptive and Substantive Representation: An Analysis of Sex Differences in Cosponsorship Activity
Women-and-politics research emphasizes the importance of social identity as a determinant of legislative behavior, yet congressional scholars largely ignore identity and focus on the impact of constituency, party, and institutional factors. To examine the link between descriptive and substantive representation, I utilize an original database of cosponsorship activity in the 103d and 104th Congresses that encompasses five social welfare issues tha…
Whatever Happened to the Year of the Woman: Lessons from the 1992 and 2002 Elections
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Political Science in a Different Voice: Women Faculty Perspectives on the Status of Women in Political Science Departments in the South
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress
What if there were more women in Congress? Providing the first comprehensive study of the policy activity of male and female legislators at the federal level, Michele L. Swers persuasively demonstrates that, even though representatives often vote a party line, their gender is politicallly significant and does indeed influence policy making. Swers combines quantitative analyses of bills with interviews with legislators and their staff to compare l…
Research on Women in Legislatures: What Have We Learned Where Are We Going
Media commentators, political activists, and feminist scholars all express the belief that the election of more women to public office will result in greater attention to the needs of women, children, and families and will change the very process by which public policy is made. This review essay examines the progress made by scholars towards answering these questions. I evaluate the major findings in three significant areas of research: the exper…
Research on women in legislatures: What have we learned, Where are we going
Understanding the Policy Impact of Electing Women: Evidence from Research on Congress and State Legislatures
In the 2000 elections, women continued their slow advance into the halls of political power. Today women constitute 13.6% of the House of Representatives, 13% of the Senate, and 22.3% of state legislatures (Center for American Women and Politics 2000). The underrepresentation of women in politics has provoked concern from media commentators, political activists, and feminist scholars who believe that there is a connection between descriptive repr…
Are Women More Likely to Vote for Women's Issue Bills than Their Male Colleagues
votes indicate that gender exerts a significant and independent effect on voting for women's issues in the face of controls for other major influences on congressional voting. These influences include constituency factors, party, personal characteristics, and ideology. Interaction terms for gender by party indicate that much of the impact of gender is due to the influence of Republican women. Logit analysis of the individual votes demonstrates th…
Are Women More Likely to Vote for Women's Issue Bills than Their Male Colleagues
votes indicate that gender exerts a significant and independent effect on voting for women's issues in the face of controls for other major influences on congressional voting. These influences include constituency factors, party, personal characteristics, and ideology. Interaction terms for gender by party indicate that much of the impact of gender is due to the influence of Republican women. Logit analysis of the individual votes demonstrates th…
Connecting Descriptive and Substantive Representation: An Analysis of Sex Differences in Cosponsorship Activity
Women-and-politics research emphasizes the importance of social identity as a determinant of legislative behavior, yet congressional scholars largely ignore identity and focus on the impact of constituency, party, and institutional factors. To examine the link between descriptive and substantive representation, I utilize an original database of cosponsorship activity in the 103d and 104th Congresses that encompasses five social welfare issues tha…
Which Women Can Run? Gender, Partisanship, and Candidate Donor Networks
Recent scholarship rejects campaign finance as a cause of women’s underrepresentation in Congress because women raise as much money as men running in similar races. We argue that campaign finance still impacts which women can make a run for office because candidates have to build their own donor networks. Using a unique dataset that includes primary and general election candidates for the U.S. House in 2010 and 2012, we examine the gender composi…
Descriptive Representation: Understanding the Impact of Identity on Substantive Representation of Group Interests
Building a Reputation on National Security: The Impact of Stereotypes Related To Gender and Military Experience
In a post‐9/11 world, all senators must establish their national security credentials with voters. Yet senators do not compete for leadership on an equal basis. Through an analysis of bill sponsorship, Sunday talk show appearances, and interviews with Senate staff, I demonstrate that defense policy is made in a partisan and gendered context. Gender stereotypes favoring male defense leadership create an additional hurdle for women, particularly De…
Why Aren't There More Republican Women in Congress? Gender, Partisanship, and Fundraising Support in the 2010 and 2012 Elections
Research indicates that fundraising is not an impediment to women candidates because women raise just as much money as men after accounting for seat status. However, previous research focuses solely on general election candidates. By examining both primary and general election candidates, we find both gender and partisan differences in fundraising. While incumbency, competitiveness, and candidate quality predict fundraising in the general electio…
An Endogenous Approach to Women's Interests: When Interests Are Interesting in and of Themselves
As Sapiro (1981) pointed out many years ago, recognizing that women's interests are interesting is the vital first step in establishing the significance of women's political representation (or the lack thereof)—both in the “real” world and in the scholarly world. Indeed, the assumption that women's interests exist, that women have political interests that can be defined and measured, is central to much of the subsequent research and discussion of…
Understanding the Policy Impact of Electing Women: Evidence from Research on Congress and State Legislatures
In the 2000 elections, women continued their slow advance into the halls of political power. Today women constitute 13.6% of the House of Representatives, 13% of the Senate, and 22.3% of state legislatures (Center for American Women and Politics 2000). The underrepresentation of women in politics has provoked concern from media commentators, political activists, and feminist scholars who believe that there is a connection between descriptive repr…
Anti-abortion Policymaking and Women’s Representation
To what extent and under what conditions do women in elective office lead the way on conservative women’s interests? The few existing studies find that, contrary to most research on women’s descriptive and substantive representation, legislative activity on conservative women’s issues in the United States is driven primarily by Republican men. This article takes a new look at the heart of conservative policymaking by analyzing the sponsorship of …
Pursuing Women’s Interests in Partisan Times: Explaining Gender Differences in Legislative Activity on Health, Education, and Women’s Health Issues
How can we explain why gender differences in policy activity emerge on some issues and not others? I use senators' broad reach as policy generalists to examine the impact of gender on policy entrepreneurship on health care, education, and women's health. I find that female senators act on gender preferences as members of partisan teams. Because social welfare and women's rights are seen as owned by the Democratic Party, gender preferences, voter …
Understanding the Gender and Partisan Dynamics of Abortion Voting in the House of Representatives
Analyzing votes on abortion-related legislation from the 103rd (1993–94) to the 115th (2017–18) Congresses, we find that both gender and party influence members’ voting behavior. Among Republicans, women are more likely than men to oppose pro-life initiatives, although the impact of gender attenuates over time. Among Democrats, apparent gender differences in voting behavior are explained by the nature of the districts they represent. We also find…
Research on Women in Legislatures: What Have We Learned Where Are We Going
Media commentators, political activists, and feminist scholars all express the belief that the election of more women to public office will result in greater attention to the needs of women, children, and families and will change the very process by which public policy is made. This review essay examines the progress made by scholars towards answering these questions. I evaluate the major findings in three significant areas of research: the exper…
Research on women in legislatures: What have we learned, Where are we going
When Women Run, Voters Will Follow (Sometimes): Examining the Mobilizing Effect of Female Candidates in the 2014 and 2018 Midterm Elections
Women & Legislative Leadership in the U.S. Congress: Representing Women's Interests in Partisan Times
Women are drastically underrepresented in American political institutions. This has prompted speculation about the impact of electing more women on policy and the functioning of government. Examining the growing presence of women in Congress, I demonstrate that women do exhibit unique policy priorities, focusing more on the needs of various groups of women. However, the incentive structure of the American electoral system, which rewards ideologic…
Ideological Warriors and Constituent Servants: Understanding the Determinants of Participation on Health Care Legislation in the Polarized Senate
Recent scholarship on the Senate indicates that partisanship and polarization have fundamentally changed the dynamics and the nature of policy making in the institution. To understand how senators balance their roles as constituent servants and partisan warriors, we examine senators’ participation in floor amending on major health legislation over a 10-year period (2000–2010). Health care is central to the ideological divide over the nature of th…
Replacing Sandra Day O'Connor: Gender and the Politics of Supreme Court Nominations
The politics of Supreme Court nominations present a case in which gender issues from abortion to diversity are highly salient on the bench. However, confirmation politics are also tightly constrained by institutional pressure for party loyalty. In the battle to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, we find that gender had a limited impact on senators' votes on the Roberts and Alito nominations. Republicans uniformly supported the president's nominees and …
Political Science in a Different Voice: Women Faculty Perspectives on the Status of Women in Political Science Departments in the South
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Understanding the Policy Priorities of Republican Women in the US House of Representatives
We take a deep dive into the sponsorship and cosponsorship activity of Republicans in the US House of Representatives from 1993–2014 to examine how ideology and gender influence the policy priorities of Republican legislators on issues associated with women, as well as on the party-owned issue of tax policy. We expect that Republican women are cross-pressured since assumptions about their policy expertise as women conflict with the policy reputat…
How Do We Get More Women to Study Legislative Politics
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder To Stay in Office
Are Women More Likely to Vote for Women's Issue Bills than Their Male Colleagues
votes indicate that gender exerts a significant and independent effect on voting for women's issues in the face of controls for other major influences on congressional voting. These influences include constituency factors, party, personal characteristics, and ideology. Interaction terms for gender by party indicate that much of the impact of gender is due to the influence of Republican women. Logit analysis of the individual votes demonstrates th…
Research on Women in Legislatures: What Have We Learned Where Are We Going
Media commentators, political activists, and feminist scholars all express the belief that the election of more women to public office will result in greater attention to the needs of women, children, and families and will change the very process by which public policy is made. This review essay examines the progress made by scholars towards answering these questions. I evaluate the major findings in three significant areas of research: the exper…
Research on women in legislatures: What have we learned, Where are we going
Understanding the Policy Impact of Electing Women: Evidence from Research on Congress and State Legislatures
In the 2000 elections, women continued their slow advance into the halls of political power. Today women constitute 13.6% of the House of Representatives, 13% of the Senate, and 22.3% of state legislatures (Center for American Women and Politics 2000). The underrepresentation of women in politics has provoked concern from media commentators, political activists, and feminist scholars who believe that there is a connection between descriptive repr…
The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress
What if there were more women in Congress? Providing the first comprehensive study of the policy activity of male and female legislators at the federal level, Michele L. Swers persuasively demonstrates that, even though representatives often vote a party line, their gender is politicallly significant and does indeed influence policy making. Swers combines quantitative analyses of bills with interviews with legislators and their staff to compare l…
Political Science in a Different Voice: Women Faculty Perspectives on the Status of Women in Political Science Departments in the South
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Whatever Happened to the Year of the Woman: Lessons from the 1992 and 2002 Elections
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Connecting Descriptive and Substantive Representation: An Analysis of Sex Differences in Cosponsorship Activity
Women-and-politics research emphasizes the importance of social identity as a determinant of legislative behavior, yet congressional scholars largely ignore identity and focus on the impact of constituency, party, and institutional factors. To examine the link between descriptive and substantive representation, I utilize an original database of cosponsorship activity in the 103d and 104th Congresses that encompasses five social welfare issues tha…
Building a Reputation on National Security: The Impact of Stereotypes Related To Gender and Military Experience
In a post‐9/11 world, all senators must establish their national security credentials with voters. Yet senators do not compete for leadership on an equal basis. Through an analysis of bill sponsorship, Sunday talk show appearances, and interviews with Senate staff, I demonstrate that defense policy is made in a partisan and gendered context. Gender stereotypes favoring male defense leadership create an additional hurdle for women, particularly De…
Descriptive Representation: Understanding the Impact of Identity on Substantive Representation of Group Interests
An Endogenous Approach to Women's Interests: When Interests Are Interesting in and of Themselves
As Sapiro (1981) pointed out many years ago, recognizing that women's interests are interesting is the vital first step in establishing the significance of women's political representation (or the lack thereof)—both in the “real” world and in the scholarly world. Indeed, the assumption that women's interests exist, that women have political interests that can be defined and measured, is central to much of the subsequent research and discussion of…
Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate
Replacing Sandra Day O'Connor: Gender and the Politics of Supreme Court Nominations
The politics of Supreme Court nominations present a case in which gender issues from abortion to diversity are highly salient on the bench. However, confirmation politics are also tightly constrained by institutional pressure for party loyalty. In the battle to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, we find that gender had a limited impact on senators' votes on the Roberts and Alito nominations. Republicans uniformly supported the president's nominees and …
Ideological Warriors and Constituent Servants: Understanding the Determinants of Participation on Health Care Legislation in the Polarized Senate
Recent scholarship on the Senate indicates that partisanship and polarization have fundamentally changed the dynamics and the nature of policy making in the institution. To understand how senators balance their roles as constituent servants and partisan warriors, we examine senators’ participation in floor amending on major health legislation over a 10-year period (2000–2010). Health care is central to the ideological divide over the nature of th…
Women & Legislative Leadership in the U.S. Congress: Representing Women's Interests in Partisan Times
Women are drastically underrepresented in American political institutions. This has prompted speculation about the impact of electing more women on policy and the functioning of government. Examining the growing presence of women in Congress, I demonstrate that women do exhibit unique policy priorities, focusing more on the needs of various groups of women. However, the incentive structure of the American electoral system, which rewards ideologic…
Pursuing Women’s Interests in Partisan Times: Explaining Gender Differences in Legislative Activity on Health, Education, and Women’s Health Issues
How can we explain why gender differences in policy activity emerge on some issues and not others? I use senators' broad reach as policy generalists to examine the impact of gender on policy entrepreneurship on health care, education, and women's health. I find that female senators act on gender preferences as members of partisan teams. Because social welfare and women's rights are seen as owned by the Democratic Party, gender preferences, voter …
Why Aren't There More Republican Women in Congress? Gender, Partisanship, and Fundraising Support in the 2010 and 2012 Elections
Research indicates that fundraising is not an impediment to women candidates because women raise just as much money as men after accounting for seat status. However, previous research focuses solely on general election candidates. By examining both primary and general election candidates, we find both gender and partisan differences in fundraising. While incumbency, competitiveness, and candidate quality predict fundraising in the general electio…
Which Women Can Run? Gender, Partisanship, and Candidate Donor Networks
Recent scholarship rejects campaign finance as a cause of women’s underrepresentation in Congress because women raise as much money as men running in similar races. We argue that campaign finance still impacts which women can make a run for office because candidates have to build their own donor networks. Using a unique dataset that includes primary and general election candidates for the U.S. House in 2010 and 2012, we examine the gender composi…
Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder To Stay in Office
How Do We Get More Women to Study Legislative Politics
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Anti-abortion Policymaking and Women’s Representation
To what extent and under what conditions do women in elective office lead the way on conservative women’s interests? The few existing studies find that, contrary to most research on women’s descriptive and substantive representation, legislative activity on conservative women’s issues in the United States is driven primarily by Republican men. This article takes a new look at the heart of conservative policymaking by analyzing the sponsorship of …
Understanding the Gender and Partisan Dynamics of Abortion Voting in the House of Representatives
Analyzing votes on abortion-related legislation from the 103rd (1993–94) to the 115th (2017–18) Congresses, we find that both gender and party influence members’ voting behavior. Among Republicans, women are more likely than men to oppose pro-life initiatives, although the impact of gender attenuates over time. Among Democrats, apparent gender differences in voting behavior are explained by the nature of the districts they represent. We also find…
When Women Run, Voters Will Follow (Sometimes): Examining the Mobilizing Effect of Female Candidates in the 2014 and 2018 Midterm Elections
Understanding the Policy Priorities of Republican Women in the US House of Representatives
We take a deep dive into the sponsorship and cosponsorship activity of Republicans in the US House of Representatives from 1993–2014 to examine how ideology and gender influence the policy priorities of Republican legislators on issues associated with women, as well as on the party-owned issue of tax policy. We expect that Republican women are cross-pressured since assumptions about their policy expertise as women conflict with the policy reputat…
Gender Politics and Representation (23 works) · Political science (23 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (14 works) · Public Administration (12 works) · Public Administration (10 works) · Legislature (9 works)