2003 JAWS on “Women and Elective Office in Comparative Perspective”
August 24-31 / University of Delaware and Philadelphia, PA
Together with the University of Delaware, APSA organized a two-part workshop to encourage policy-relevant, collaborative research on women and elective office in Japan and the United States (see 2003 JAWS schedule). The 2003 Open Boundaries Workshop brought together 16 Japanese and American political scientists to examine the organization, funding, and management of women’s campaigns in the 2002 Japanese and American elections at all levels of government. (see 2003 JAWS participants).
The first phase was a three-day session at the University of Delaware August 24-26, 2003 hosted by the University’s Women’s Studies Program. Topically, discussion focused on (1) recruitment of women to run for office: the roles of local parties, elite groups, interest groups, and women’s political action committees; (2) women and campaign management; the professionalization of political campaigns; (3) women and funding candidates for office; (4) the problems created for women candidates by term limits at the state level; and (5) the political career ladder and the building of political capital to run for higher office. In addition to research panels, the session included public addresses by local women activists and elected officials.
In the second phase of the workshop, the Japanese and American scholars participated in the APSA Annual Meeting from August 27-31, 2003 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This phase of the exchange focused on the fit between women electoral experience and public policy in Japan and the United States. Two issues, elder care and equal employment opportunity, were the topics of formal discussions in panel and roundtable sessions and informal meetings organized in conjunction with the APSA Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession and the Women’s Caucus for Political Science
Following the workshop, participants’ revised papers were abstracted in the January 2004 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics. Full papers were published on the APSA website in a special E-Symposium.