The Palgrave Handbook of Womens Political Rights

This Palgrave Handbook provides a definitive account of womens political rights across all major regions of the world, focusing both on womens right to vote and womens right to run for political office. This dual focus makes this the first book to combine historical overviews of debates about enfranchising women alongside analyses of more contemporary efforts to increase womens political representation around the globe. Chapter authors map and assess the impact of these groundbreaking reforms, providing insight into these dynamics in a wide array of countries where womens suffrage and representation have taken different paths and led to varying degrees of transformation. On the eve of many countries celebrating a century of womens suffrage, as well as record numbers of women elected and appointed to political office, this timely volume offers an important introduction to ongoing developments related to womens political empowerment worldwide. It will be of interest to studentsand scholars across the fields of gender and politics, womens studies, history and sociology.