What do we know about women, politics, and democracy in the United States?The past thirty years have witnessed a dramatic increase in women’s participationin American politics and an explosion of research on women, and the transformationseffected by them, during the same period. Political Women and AmericanDemocracy provides a critical synthesis of scholarly research by leading expertsin the field. The collected chapters examine women as citizens, voters, participants,movement activists, partisans, candidates, and legislators. They provideframeworks for understanding and organizing existing scholarship; focus on theoretical,methodological, and empirical debates; and map out productive directionsfor future research. As the only book to focus specifically on women andgender in U.S. politics, Political Women and American Democracy will be aninvaluable resource for scholars and students studying and conducting womenand politics research.