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Women’s participation in parliaments, high courts, and executiveoffices worldwide has reached record high numbers, but thisglobal increase in women’s representation masks significant variationamong different democratic political systems. For example, inDecember of 2009, Rwanda’s legislature contained 56% women,while the U.S. Congress contained only about 17% and the JapaneseDiet had only 11%. Since 2000, only twenty-seven womenhave achieved executive office worldwide. Contagious Representationis a comprehensive look at women’s participation in all aspectsof public life in the main democratic political institutions—the executive,the judiciary, the legislature, and within political parties. Moving beyond studies of single countries and institutions, ContagiousRepresentation presents original data from 159 democraticcountries spanning 50 years, providing a comprehensive understandingof women in democracies worldwide. The first volume tooffer an analysis on all avenues for women’s participation for sucha lengthy time period, Contagious Representation examines notonly the causes of women’s representation in the main democraticpolitical institutions but also how women’s representation in oneinstitution affects the others. Each chapter contains case studiesand examples of the change in women’s participation over timefrom around the world. Thames and Williams definitively explainthe rise, decline, or stagnant levels of women’s political participation,considering how representation is contagious across politicalinstitutions and gaining a better understanding of what factors affectwomen’s political participation.

Contagious Divides charts the dynamic transformation of representations of Chinese immigrants from medical menace in the nineteenth century to model citizen in the mid-twentieth century. Examining the cultural politics of public health and Chinese immigration in San Francisco, this book looks at the history of racial formation in the U.S. by focusing on the development of public health bureaucracies. Nayan Shah notes how the production of Chinese difference and white, heterosexual norms in public health policy affected social lives, politics, and cultural expression. Public health authorities depicted Chinese immigrants as filthy and diseased, as the carriers of such incurable afflictions as smallpox, syphilis, and bubonic plague. This resulted in the vociferous enforcement of sanitary regulations on the Chinese community. But the authorities did more than demon-ize the Chinese; they also marshaled civic resources that promoted sewer construction, vaccination programs, and public health management. Shah shows how Chinese Americans responded to health regulations and allegations with persuasive political speeches, lawsuits, boycotts, violent protests, and poems. Chinese American activists drew upon public health strategies in their advocacy for health services and public housing. Adroitly employing discourses of race and health, these activists argued that Chinese Americans were worthy and deserving of sharing in the resources of American society.