The Influence of Women's Political Power on Bureaucratic Output: The Case of Child Support Enforcement

Abstract

Who gets what, when and how is affected by the power of different groups in society to affect the political process. Many feminists see increasing women's political representation, via elected office or interest-group involvement, as a necessary condition for improving the status of women. Many studies have examined whether the numerical representation of women translates into legislation or legislative behaviour that seeks to improve the status of women. Although we have evidence that women's legislative representation matters, the passage of legislation is only half of the story in public policy making. After policies are enacted, the bureaucracy must implement them and little research has examined the impact of women's political representation on policy outputs. The question of women's influence on bureaucracies is especially important, because bureaucracies deliver services that have a direct bearing on the status of women. It is an important issue for representative democracy whether women have an influence on the bureaucracies that affect them.Beth Reingold, ‘Concepts of Representation among Female and Male State Legislators’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 17 (1992), 509–37; Michelle A. Saint-Germaine, ‘Does Their Difference Make a Difference? The Impact of Women on Public Policy in the Arizona Legislature’, Social Science Quarterly, 70 (1989), 956–68; Sue Thomas, ‘The Impact of Gender on Activities and Priorities of State Legislatures,’ Western Political Quarterly, 44 (1990), 445–56.