Review of Forging the Franchise: The Political Origins of the Women's Vote
- (pp. 1039-51)
Abstract
Recent years have seen several 100-year anniversaries of the women's vote, and today universal and equal suffrage is an inseparable part of democracy. Dawn Teele's book, Forging the Franchise, is an inquiry into the reasons why male politicians elected by male voters gave women the right to vote in the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. It offers a theory of the political origins that focuses on electoral expediency and mobilization of women's groups and it provides quantitative evidence from the three countries. It argues that women got the right to vote when the incumbents saw and needed an electoral advantage of expanding the right to vote to females. The book is of interest not only to those who want a deeper understanding of the historical process of women's enfranchisement or who are interested in the political economy of democratization, but to everyone with a concern about gender inequality in politics today.Citation
Aidt, Toke S. 2022. "Review of Forging the Franchise: The Political Origins of the Women's Vote." Journal of Economic Literature, 60 (3): 1039-51. DOI: 10.1257/jel.20201567Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- E16 General Aggregative Models: Social Accounting Matrix
- N30 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: General, International, or Comparative
- N40 Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: General, International, or Comparative