How do Women's Organizations and Their Networks Foster Greater Women's Candidacies in Minnesota?

Abstract

This study builds upon existing work on the role of campaign training programs offered by women’s organizations in the United States and is based on interviews with female state legislators and candidates in Minnesota. It examines the workings of these organizations broadly and how they foster an increasing number of women’s candidacies. Regarding nonpartisan liberal-leaning women’s organizations in the state, this project illustrates that their influence extends beyond individual-level empowerment. It suggests that these organizations nurture greater women’s candidacies not only by providing campaign training and recruiting candidates, but also by concurrently cultivating informal networks of individuals, including candidates, elected officials, and supporters, and conducting outreach and events to identify and encourage more women to run. This approach helps broaden the base of the potential candidate pool and bring more women into the political arena. This study also identifies a distinct role of relatively new nonpartisan conservative women’s organizations, which seek to address their disadvantages relative to liberal-leaning women, in contributing to candidate emergence. Partly reflecting changing demographics, interviews also reveal an emerging pathway, driven less by gender and more by candidates’ communities. Taken together, this project provides valuable insights for further research into the role of women’s organizations, particularly from a civic and political infrastructure perspective.