Political Ambition and Women in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1916-2000

• Author: Barbara Palmer,Dennis Simon
• Published date: 01 June 2003
• DOI: 10.1177/106591290305600202
• Date: 01 June 2003
• Subject Matter: Articles

Within the field of electoral studies, there is a rich

l i t e r a t u re devoted to understanding political

ambition and how electoral incentives influence

the behavior of office seekers and office holders. The classic

work in this area is Ambition and Politic s by Joseph

Schlesinger (1966). His analysis, based upon extensive

c a reer data, showed that advancing in electoral politics was

a product of ambition, party competition, and the stru c t u r e

of political opportunities. David Rohde (1979) later re f i n e d

this understanding of ambition and office seeking. His analy-

sis demonstrated that the decisions of House members to

seek higher office were the product of an explicit calculus

that weighed risks, the probability of success, and the re l a-

tive benefits of service in House compared to a higher off i c e .

R e s e a rch that incorporates this ambition-driven perspective

is extensive, including studies of careerism and the pro f e s-

sionalization of legislatures (see for example Price 1975;

Francis and Kenny 2000). Other work demonstrates how the

d e s i re for election influences not only the behavior of legis-

lators, but also the rules and institutional stru c t u r e of legis-

l a t u res (Mayhew 1974; Ornstein 1975; Fiorina 1989, 2001).

This framework has also been used to examine the form a -

tion, evolution, and change in national p olitical parties (see

for example Schlesinger 1985, 1991; Aldrich 1995).

The appeal of ambition theory is its scope and general-

ity. However, women as office seekers and office holders

have received little attention in these works. This is largely

because the incidence of females seeking and holding office,

until recently, was relatively low.1Rohde’s analysis (1979),

for example, was almost exclusively male given the time

frame he used. The intent of our analysis is to demonstrate

how this “ambition driven” perspective can be applied to

female members of the U.S. House of Representatives and

used to understand the career choices made by these

women. Specifically, this study is designed to address two

questions that arise from Schlesinger’s typology of ambition.

First, why do some “congressional widows” choose to seek

a career for themselves in the House while others simply

serve out the term of their deceased husbands? We focus

upon congressional widows because this group constitutes

an almost ideal natural experiment for examining the differ-

ences between discrete and static ambition. Our second

question focuses upon the distinction between static and

progressive ambition. Accordingly, we ask what prompts

some female members of the U.S. House to run for the

Senate while others elect not to pursue the opportunity for

higher office.

Our analysis first shows that a meaningful distinction

can be made between women who exhibit discrete and

static ambition, a distinction that has been overlooked in

the ambition theory literature. In fact, among congressional

widows, there are measurable differences between those

who seek reelection and those who step down, with inde-

pendent political experience and political partnerships with

husbands being especially important. Consequently, under-

stood within the context of ambition theory, congressional

widows are not a monolithic group. In addition, our analy-

sis highlights the distinction between static and progressive

ambition. We provide evidence that careerist women in the

House are strategic when deciding whether to take advan-

tage of an opportunity to run for the Senate. This decision

to run for higher office incorporates the probability of win-

ning, the value of the office, and the costs of running. As

such, we are able to identify the distinct factors that influ-

ence whether women will exhibit discrete, static or progres-

sive ambition.

127

Political Ambition and Women in the

U.S. House of Representatives, 1916-2000

BARBARA PALMER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

DENNIS SIMON, SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY

This analysis demonstrates how political ambition theory can be applied to women who have ser ved in the

U.S. House of Representatives: under what conditions do political women manifest discrete, static, and pro-

gressive ambition? Our database includes all women elected to the House between 1916 and 2000. In differ-

entiating between discrete and static ambition, we find that among congressional widows, there are measura-

ble differences between those who seek reelection and those that step down, with independent political

experience and working partnerships in their husband’s political careers being especially important. In addi-

tion, we show that women in the House are strategic when deciding whether to run for the Senate. Progres-

sive ambition—the decision to run for higher office—flows from a calculus that incorporates the probability

of winning, the value of the office, and the costs of running. As such, it appears that the women of the House

respond to the same strategic forces as their male counterparts.

1For example, Schlesinger’s work covers the period from 1914 to 1958.

During this time, 58 women were elected to the U.S. House of Repre-

sentatives. Similarly, the data utilized by Rohde spans the period from

1954 to 1974; during this time only 37 women were elected to the U.S.

House.

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 2 (June 2003): pp. 127-138