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9780691211763

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Winner of the Luebbert Best Book Award, Comparative Politics Section of the American Political Science Association The book presents a compelling strategic explanation for the recognition of women's voting rights. However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of this work is that it analyses the development of women's enfranchisement in the general framework of the democratization process. The book helps to fill that gap and is a significant contribution toward a holistic understanding of the emergence and consolidation of democratic regimes. ---Arantxa Elizondo, Democratization

This book examines the circumstances under which governments gave the right to vote to women in the United States, France, and England. Focusing on the strategic interactions between suffrage activists and elected politicians that led male legislators to approve suffrage bills, Teele's account challenges the conventional wisdom that usually highlights increasing militancy among suffragettes and changing cultural norms and public opinion about women. A pleasure to read. --Lisa Baldez, Dartmouth College Teele's profound, provocative book brings fresh insights to the question of why women won the vote at certain times in some countries but not others. Through analysis of the battles over suffrage in the United Kingdom, United States, and France, she shows that male-dominated parties supported reform when they needed votes that suffragist strategies promised to deliver. This is essential reading for scholars, students, and advocates of equal rights. --Mala Htun, University of New Mexico Teele investigates the conditions under which democratic governments extended the franchise to women. In spite of the importance of the topic, the question of when and why suffrage was extended to women has often been ignored by scholars in comparative politics and political economy. I cannot think of an existing book that treats this question in as comprehensive a fashion. --David Stasavage, New York University I was in for a real surprise on reading this book, and you will be too if the existing literature on male enfranchisement has been your guide so far. Teele's explanation shows that making women visible in the process of democratization requires abandoning longstanding assumptions embedded in work on this area. This book has fundamentally changed the ways I will think about the intersection of elite politics and suffrage movements going forward. --James Mahoney, Northwestern University Finally, an analysis of the biggest lacuna in comparative politics--female enfranchisement. This is a work of fundamental importance. --James Robinson, University of Chicago Why did women get the vote when and where they did? This brilliant book places women's suffrage where it belongs: as central to the historical processes of democratization, and as a critical consequence of women's mobilization, political competition, and the shifting interests of previously skeptical politicians and political parties. For scholars of regime change, electoral realignment, and party competition, Forging the Franchise is a must-read. --Anna Grzymala-Busse, Stanford University

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Dawn Langan Teele is the Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the editor of Field Experiments and Their Critics.

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