| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 104.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 104.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Anna L. Harvey. Votes Without Leverage: Women in American Electoral Politics, 1920–1970. (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998. Pp. xiii, 253. Cloth $59.95, paper $18.95.

Anna L. Harvey's book answers a nagging question that has recurred perennially since 1920: why did women fail to use their votes effectively? Why didn't they develop a distinctive political voice? Harvey, a political scientist, develops an answer from the perspective of the 1990s, broadening the scope of inquiry to analyze women's political influence in the decades following the Nineteenth Amendment's ratification. Her deft mix of theory and evidence produces a compelling explanation. 1

Harvey's thesis, briefly put, is that women's exclusion from the vote prior to 1920 had "significant downstream consequences" for the type of electoral representation they later attained. In other words, history matters. It is a reassuring message to our profession and should predispose us to welcome the methodological insights this book provides. Harvey constructs a model for "a case of one" and uses it to "predict" the past; if an explanation meets the demands of the model, we may increase our confidence in its validity. Built into her model are recent theoretical constructs from political scientists about voter motivation and from economic historian Douglass C. North regarding constraints imposed by institutional structures. Her explanations of these are clear, concise, and fascinating. . . .

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