The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political Participation
By Nancy Burns, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 453 pages

What does political science have to do with politics? This is not just a rhetorical question. American Political Science Review is full of articles containing not only charts and graphs, but also complicated mathematical formulas. Political scientists study empirical trends and analyze survey data, but don’t always tell the stories that interest the general public about politics, stories about relationships, deal-making, and personalities. The lay reader is left wondering why academics seem to leave the politics–and thus the fun–out of political science.

And yet political scientists do have an obligation to be scientific, or at least analytical, in their study of political dynamics. Storytelling, as entertaining as it is, does not explain broader trends, make predictions about possible outcomes, or put political activities into a theoretical framework. At its worst, political science can be dry and arcane. But at its best, political science applies analytical rigor to the questions and experiences that make the political world interesting.

The Private Roots of Public Action, by Nancy Burns, Kay Schlozman, and Sidney Verba, is political science at its best. The authors–Burns is at the University of Michigan, Schlozman at Boston College, and Verba at Harvard University–have used scientific methods to examine a question that is of particular interest here: Why do women continue to be less politically active than men? Although the authors pose the question at a mass rather than elite level (i.e., focusing on citizens rather than officeholders), their answers have immediate relevance in Massachusetts politics.

One important finding of the work is that, in states where there is at least one female running for statewide political office, women in general have more interest in and more psychological connection to politics. Here in the Bay State, with nary a woman in our congressional delegation (and only one in history), we are now led by our first female governor, and there is a real possibility that this year’s gubernatorial race could come down to two women, Democratic state Treasurer Shannon O’Brien and Republican acting Gov. Jane Swift. If Burns et al. are right, 2002 could be a banner year for women and politics, from the top of the ticket to the kitchen table.

The authors argue that the difference in political activity between men and women can be traced to their different life experiences in work, church and other nonpolitical volunteer work, and home. Men’s experiences tend to give them the skills, resources, and belief in their own abilities that are more likely to lead to political interest and political participation. Even today, the roles women play in the nonpolitical spheres of life nurture skills and sensibilities that do not directly translate to increased political activity.

Women have had the right to vote for decades, women are working outside of the home in increasing numbers, and women are breaking into fields that have traditionally been the domain of men. Yet when it comes to political participation, women lag behind. Not far behind, the authors point out, but women are still less likely than men to volunteer on a campaign, donate money to political causes, or become members of political organizations. Why is that so? Burns, Schlozman, and Verba posit several possible hypotheses. The participation gap may be due to discrimination, the patriarchical family, socialization, or, what seems most logical to the authors, lack of time. Women, especially those with young children, have so many demands on their time that participating in any kind of political activity may be too much to fit into their hectic schedules.

The authors systematically look at data gathered from surveys of women and men to determine whether their hypotheses hold up. Interestingly, the “lack of time” hypothesis simply does not. They find there is no relationship between leisure time and political activity. People who have more leisure time, whether men or women, are not any more likely to engage in political activity than those with less time on their hands. In fact, mothers who work outside the home are more likely to participate in politics than those who do not.

So, what does explain the lack of participation among women? According to the authors, socioeconomic resources, including education, income, and occupational status. Employing sophisticated statistical analysis, the authors find that both men and women of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to engage in political activities, but that women are more likely than men to be of lower socioeconomic status. Thus, it is not gender per se that impacts political activity, but gender discrepancies in social standing.

This is even true within the family itself, they argue. Women in traditional families are as likely to be politically active as women who are not, but marriage and children affect men and women differently. For men, getting married and having children are spurs to climbing the socioeconomic ladder, and as men move into higher-level jobs with more responsibility, they gain skills that are transferable to political participation. When a woman starts a family, it often leads her to stay home or curtail her work hours, sacrificing personal and professional advancement on the altar of hearth and home. The chance to acquire politic interest and skills falls by the wayside as well.

The Private Roots of Public Action is written primarily for an academic audience, but it is also has value for general readers, in both its topic and its demonstration of political science methodology. Chapter 2, “Studying Gender and Participation: A Brief Discourse on Method,” is a layman’s introduction to the statistical method of choice for many political scientists: multiple regression analysis. Such analysis uses survey research data from large numbers of individuals who have been asked questions, in this case, about work, religion, home life, and political activities and attitudes. By applying statistical techniques, political scientists can discover what variables (work, upbringing, social status) have the greatest impact on an individual’s propensity to participate in politics. You don’t need to understand statistical analysis in order to grasp the authors’ points, any more than you need to know how to make a pumpkin pie in order to enjoy eating a slice. But if you want to know how the number crunching works, Private Roots provides an excellent overview.

While we’re on the subject of methodology, the authors do something that is unique in political analysis. For years, political scientists who study gender have compared women to men. Sometimes one felt as if the academics were wringing their hands in the manner of Henry Higgins over Eliza Doolittle: “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” What Burns, Schlozman, and Verba have done is to examine not only the differences between men and women, but also the differences among women. While sex is a dichotomous variable (biologically, we are either male or female), gender is not. The attributes that make men masculine (strength, for example) and women feminine (such as compassion) exist to some degree in both sexes. Burns, Schlozman, and Verba look at the degree to which a variety of political factors affect both men and women, but differently.

The Private Roots of Public Action is destined to become a classic in the field of political science. It builds upon previous groundbreaking research by the authors. In 1972, Sidney Verba and Norman Nie published a seminal book, Participation in America, that demonstrated that socioeconomic factors are the most important predictors of political participation. In 1995, Verba, Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady expanded upon this work. In Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics, they developed a model of civic voluntarism. The model posits that higher income levels are associated with higher educational attainment, which in turn gives a person skills and experiences that encourage him or her to volunteer in civic or political activities. Persons of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to participate because they have increased political interest, knowledge, and efficacy- that is, the belief that one can have an impact on the political world.

The Private Roots of Public Action provides the next step in this progression. It illustrates how men and women differ in political life, and offers explanations for those differences. It also suggests, however subtly, ways to level the gender playing field. It appears, for instance, that when women see other women in the political arena, their interest is piqued, and they begin to see politics as something that people like them engage in. The authors conclude: “In short, the more it looks as if politics is not simply a man’s game, the more psychologically involved with politics women are.” Massachusetts may soon be a testing ground for that particular hypothesis.

Anne Marie Cammisa is an associate professor of government at Suffolk University.