Women, politics and place: Spatial patterns of representation in New Jersey

Council Size Matters: Filling Blanks in Women’s Municipal Representation in New Jersey

“…Focusing the analyses on New Jersey provides a unique opportunity to take a first look into this question because a previous study on women's municipal representation has been conducted. Regulska, Fried, and Tiefenbacher (1991) tried to explain the variation in women's representation at the local level using 1988 data from the municipalities in New Jersey. 6 Their final model, which has the absolute number of women on the council as the dependent variable, achieves an R 2 of 0.247 with the following three statistically significant explanatory variables: female mayor (negative), percentage of female-headed households (positive), and per capita income (positive).…”

“…Developing hypotheses about why these differences in women’s representation on local councils in NJ can be observed has relied upon the general women and politics literature as a point of departure. The analysis is specifically informed by three studies which have had local politics as their empirical focus, namely those done by Regulska, Fried, and Tiefenbacher (1991), Trounstine and Valdini (2008), and Smith, Reingold, and Owens (2012). Based on these literatures, three possible explanations are identified which might help to explain the variation in the presence of women across NJ’s local councils.…”

“…It is also hypothesized that there will be a positive relationship between women’s council representation and the prominence of female-headed households in a municipality. Regulska, Fried, and Triefenbacher (1991) argue that a higher percentage of female-headed households has a positive effect on women’s election to local office. They note how this measure “captures several aspects of the transformation of American society and the changing position of women” and to “expect that the places with a greater number of women and female-headed households might not only have women who are willing to run for office, but also are more likely to elect a woman candidate” (Regulska, Fried, and Tiefenbacher 1991, 207).…”

“…These layers of variation within the state in municipal size and characteristics allow for testing multiple potential predictors of women's levels of local representation, from social (demographic or population) characteristics to structural differences. An additional benefit to selecting New Jersey as a state for in-depth analysis is the investigative precedence offered by Regulska, Fried, and Tiefenbacher (1991), who examined gender differences in New Jersey's local political representation a quarter of a century ago. While New Jersey presents distinct characteristics that benefit this analysis, its levels of women's local representation appear average in comparison to other existing data.…”

Political geography: closer encounters with the state, contemporary political economy, and social theory

“…Regulska et al (1991) investigate the characteristics of places in New Jersey that have elected women to positions in municipal government and explore the spatial connections between the success of women candidates and recent economic transformations of localities. They find that suburban, middle-income places in or near the new economic growth corridors of the state were those in which women candidates were most successful in the 1980s.…”