Description: It Takes More Than a Candidate remains the only systematic account of the gender gap in political ambition. Based on national surveys of more than 10,000 potential candidates in 2001, 2011, and 2021, the book shows that women, even in the highest tiers of professional accomplishment, are substantially less likely than men to demonstrate ambition to seek elective office. The gender gap in persists across generations and over time, despite society's changing attitudes toward women in politics. Women remain less likely to be recruited to run for office, less likely to think they are qualified to run, and less likely to express a willingness to run for office in the future. In the twenty years since It Takes a Candidate was first published, the book remains timely and eye-opening, highlighting the challenges women face navigating the candidate emergence process and providing insight into the persistent gender gap in political ambition.
Brief description: Jennifer L. Lawless is Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. She has written or co-authored nine books, including News Hole: The Demise of Journalism and Political Engagement (2021), which won the 2023 Goldsmith Book Prize. Her research, which has appeared in numerous academic journals, is regularly cited in the popular press. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Political Science.
Review Quotes: 'This latest work by Lawless and Fox is an all-to-rare thing in social sciences - authors returning again and again to important questions and examining those questions over time, in different contexts, and during different political periods. The three waves of the Citizen Political Ambition Study examine a fundamental political question - how can women enter politics at higher levels when our gendered society remains a drag on ambition? Their identification of the forces still facing women provides both reasons to be pessimistic and a clear sense of the roots of the problem.' Kathy Dolan, distinguished professor at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and author of When Does Gender Matter?