Women's rights and the American parties -- Of presidents and platforms -- Women's rights in the House and Senate -- Explaining party issue realignment -- Equilibrium disruption and issue redefinition -- Shifting coalitions and changing elites -- The politics of women's rights
Summary
Here Christina Wolbrecht demonstrates how the Republican and Democratic parties have helped transform, and have been transformed by, American public debate and policy on women's rights. She begins by showing the evolution of the positions of both parties on women's rights over the past five decades. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Republicans were slightly more favorable than Democrats, but by the early 1980s, the parties had polarized sharply, with Democrats supporting, and Republicans opposing, such policies as the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights. Wolbrecht not only traces the development of this shift in the parties' relative positions--focusing on party platforms, the words and actions of presidents and presidential candidates, and the behavior of the parties' delegations in Congress--but also seeks to explain the realignment. --From publisher's description
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-257) and index
