Representing All Women

• Date: 01 March 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912916675737
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

2017, Vol. 70(1) 98 –110

© 2016 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912916675737

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Article

As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I want no country.

As a woman, my country is the whole world.

—Virginia Woolf ([1938] 1966, 197)

Representation is a fundamental tenet of any democratic

nation. Surrogate representation, as defined by Jane

Mansbridge (2003, 522), is the “representation by a rep-

resentative with whom one has no electoral connection—

that is, a representative in another district.” Surrogate

representation is particularly important for historically

marginalized groups, such as women and racial minori-

ties (Mansbridge 1999, 2003), where these groups may

“lose” representation in their own district. Research

shows that the addition of women and racial minority

members of Congress has expanded the U.S. legislative

agenda to better address the interests of women and racial

minorities in U.S. domestic policy (Swers 2002; Tate

2003; Wallace 2014; Wolbrecht 2002).

Surrogate representation is most often examined

within a specific polity. If we expand our conceptual defi-

nition of surrogate representation as potentially occurring

outside of nation-state borders, will we find evidence of

legislators acting as global surrogate representatives?

Scholars exploring the transnational affective ties of race

show that surrogate representation can transcend national

borders by analyzing congressional foreign policy entre-

preneurship (Tillery 2011; Wilson and Ellis 2014). Can

surrogate representation beyond state borders also apply

to gender, when women technically have no “mother

country” and are a large, diverse constituency? Prior

studies illustrate that U.S. congresswomen act as surro-

gate representatives for the interests of American women

(Carroll 2002; Dodson 2006; Swers 2002, 2013). In

recent years, women and girls in foreign countries are

specified targets of American foreign policy legislation.

To explore if congresswomen are acting as global surro-

gates, I test if congresswomen are more likely to intro-

duce American foreign policy legislation that specifies

foreign women and/or girls as policy targets, what I refer

to as women’s foreign policy (WFP).

675737PRQXXX10.1177/1065912916675737Political Research QuarterlyAngevine

research-article2016

1Whittier College, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sara Angevine, Department of Political Science, Whittier College.

Email: sangevine@whittier.edu

Representing All Women: An Analysis

of Congress, Foreign Policy, and the

Boundaries of Women’s Surrogate

Representation

Sara Angevine1

Abstract

Is sisterhood global? This study investigates if women in Congress are representing women worldwide by extending

their surrogate representation of American women to women in foreign countries. Congressional research shows that

race affects surrogate representation across borders via transnationalism. I test whether this also applies to gender

when no shared “mother country” unites women, there are divisions over how to represent women, and American

foreign policy is considered a stereotypically masculine policy domain. With an original dataset of three Congresses

(2005–2010), I test if female House Representatives are more likely to introduce foreign policy legislation that targets

foreign women and girls by applying regression analysis. Controlling for likely individual, electoral, and institutional

incentives, I find that gender matters and that women in Congress are more likely to introduce legislation on behalf

of women worldwide, acting as global surrogates. These findings offer new insights into the boundaries of surrogate

representation, congressional foreign policy decision making, the influence of gender on international relations, and

the impact of women in Congress.

Keywords

U.S. Congress, foreign policy, impact of women, representation, gender, global surrogate representation