are more active as voters in the electorate than men overall. the pattern of women, voting advantage accrues to every ethnic and racial grouping for which we have data. since 2004 asian american women have been more present in the electorate, don at higher rates, not hugely higher rates about higher rates than their male counterparts. black women have been out voting black men in turn out. in 1996, the data, excuse me, since 1994 that is the case for white women and since 1996, in terms of turning out to vote. when we think of political women in the united states they are very active and tend to be more active than men. i am speaking probably this is generally the case for all women but only generally so, generally across racial and ethnic groups

but there will be divergence as well. the way the differences tend to be around issues of social welfare policy and by this i mean writ large, education policy, healthcare policy, policies that have to do with children, the elderly, women are more willing to see the government as a positive force in terms of these particular issues more so than men. women, some parents might -- it is more sophisticated than that. a more positive attitude towards state involvement providing for healthcare, supporting education, supporting childcare, supporting maternal health and other health issues as well. the other arena is around issues of foreign policy and peace. these are not stereotypical differences between men and women but women are much less,

women are more reluctant to see the national government involve the united states in military conflicts abroad. women are less likely to support the use of force by the military by the us political system. women are more likely to be supportive of issues that might lead to peace. these are between 2 major arenas we can think of in terms of public opinion differences. these differences can inform political parties and also political parties in terms of elected officials and what they might do in congress or even at a lesser level by which i mean not involved with foreign-policy of the level of the state, don't have independent foreign policy, thank the u.s. constitution which give that power to congress but even at the state level there are differences in public policy. when we think about the ways in which one might run for public

office, in the united states there is not a clear, fixed path through parties nomination, there is not a requirement that you are a democratic woman, ambitious and hoping to run for the house, that you do lots of work for the party, campaign for other people, follow the rules, make your way up through the party until you reach the level of candidacy, a set of party elites nominate and support you. that might be the case with the labour party in great britain or even a third party in great britain but the pattern in the united states is one of informal practices and understanding. independent, individual choice to run, so you can walk straight into a democratic or republican party primary and if successful

you could be the nominee of the party. we have been seeing that at the presidential level in 2016. one of the findings is related to what i said about informal ways one might come to candidacy. a comparative chapter, the structure for nominating and advancing women at the electoral level very different in many countries so several political parties and some countries across all parties by legislation or constitutional fiat required gender quotas where a party hoping to nominate a candidate for office requires to nominate equal numbers of men and women for national elections. gender quotas especially in structured party and structure nomination system are the

fastest way to increase numbers of women in national legislature. a fast way to nomination and once nominated women tend to do as well as men in their own parties regardless. we don't have that in the united states, we don't have clear structures in parties that would permit it. the single number plurality nature of the electoral system creates disincentives for parties to nominate women in the sense the nomination can't be shared. the representational electoral system parties, particularly true for systems with fixed party lists that are close where voters list candidates and don't choose among them and can't move from party to party in casting votes. and single-member plurality district only one candidate can be nominated by the party and that candidate nominated gets all of the office so even if that candidate in a three way

race, 35% of the vote, that candidate gets 100% of the office and begins to get 100% of the incumbency, the candidate moving forward makes it much more competitive, the level of nomination and makes it harder for political parties to insist on sharing nominations across men and women that would increase, one of the things we found is other political systems have different structures which are intended to positively gender electoral success for women at the same time electing men as well. the question about the fact the united states has never had a female president but other political systems had female chief executives is an interesting one. we don't address it in the book but i am addressing it in research with colleagues in canada and great britain and women's access to party leadership and this has to do

with the difference between parliamentary and presidential systems. think about sharing political power, the presidency in the united states is not a position that shares power. the presidency is elected from a specific electorate and is not the same electorate that uses congress. the president is elected by voters indirectly through the mechanism of the electoral college and is at least in theory accountable only to voters the president is not accountable to congress. if congress can't work with the president, doesn't like the president, want to remove him or her congress can't do that for political reasons. congress has to get along with the president, congress may not like. this is not the case in parliamentary systems. a prime minister is the first among equals in a cabinet government and is selected not by voters but his or her party

that sits in the national legislature in the lower house. margaret thatcher was selected by the conservative party to be party leader and she led the party into elections in 1979 and having won that election she became the prime minister of great britain. she was selected party leader by her party and was removed from her position as party leader in 1990 without a national election and john major became party leader and prime minister. there are two mechanisms that make it easier for women to be selected as prime ministers, the power is shared with the cabinet, with the party can select and remove the prime minister as party leader. the nature of this combination of having to share power and being dependent upon what's party allows the party to select a woman as prime minister with the knowledge that she can be removed. there are two things if not more

we hope people will come away with an understanding from our book "political women and american democracy". the first is the extent to which we can think of ourselves as a democratic republican political system. can we think of ourselves as a democratic political system compared to other advanced wealthy democracies in the united states, to what extent can we think of ourselves as seriously democratic and inclusive when we have such a low level of representation in elected office and our judiciary as well and within state legislatures where numbers have stagnated? that is a serious question. can we position ourselves as a nation, as a leader in terms of being democratic and inclusive when women's representation is so low despite the participatory advantage women have at the mass

politics level. the other thing i want people to take away from the book is to think about women and all our diversity in terms of age, employment, in terms of race and ethnicity. we are very diverse as a large group of people. nonetheless within that diversity there are strong shared preferences and participation and that means again politically women, especially for us democratic purposes and the democratic political system have to be taken very seriously. >> for more information on book tvs recent visit to cleveland and many destinations on the city's tour go to c-span.org/citiestour. >> you are watching booktv on

c-span2, we are on location at claremont mckenna college where we are talking to professors who are also authors. joining us now is jon shields who has written this book, "passing on the right: conservative professors in the progressive university". professor shields, page 1. you and your co-author right progressives rule higher education, conservatives are so scarce that marxists outnumber them. >> they are extremely scarce, 5% of social scientists self identify as conservatives. about 18% of social scientists are marxists so they are badly outnumbered by marxists, they are that scarce. >> the you self identify? >> i one of the rare strange creatures we profile in this book. >> host: the thought is

conservative professors on liberal arts campuses are intimidated. >> guest: right. there is a sense that conservatives are moving into enemy territory but that is not what we found. we interviewed over 150 conservatives professors in the social sciences and humanities and they tell us the university is a much more tolerant place and we sometimes think at the more tolerant place than right-wing critics of the university tell us. >> host: what did you learn? what specifically did you hear from these professors? >> a lot of them felt surprisingly at home in the university. that is because large swaths of the university are not as politicized and conservatives often gravitate toward the least politicized quarters of the academy. they often become economists or

enter other disciplines that are not politicized. in art and history conservatives are more inclined to be ancient historians, military historians, areas that are not politicized. therefore they find the academy to be a tolerant place. if they do stray into more politicized fields they can have a rough time of it. we profile their experience as well. it is also the case that they make friendships across the political divide, carving out niches for themselves. >> host: what are areas where it is more troubling?

>> if they study race, or feminism, the history of the left or the right, areas that are important to the left and areas dominated by the left, some disciplines are more politicized than others, the theology for example, pretty f just disciplining. a quarter self identify as marxist so if you are a conservative and enter sociology, you need to have some thick skin and be pretty politic about how you present yourself and be cautious and a lot of conservative sociologists we interviewed qualitative themselves, you can field their politics and come out of the ivory tower when it was safe to do so. >> host: has it benefited

conservative political movements to think of college campuses is liberal and tolerant? >> guest: no. i understand the reaction of conservatives to the liberal university. their responses are utterly unprovoked and it is troubling when conservative authors are disinvited from campuses because of political views so i understand where conservatives are coming from. on the other hand they overreact, with intolerance, that is unfortunate because it may steer some young conservatives away from higher education. some decide they don't want to become professors because they see it as a more intolerant place than it is. >> host: have you had any issues

at claremont mckenna? >> guest: of you, not enough to make me not want to be a professor. on the whole i have been very happy. we don't claim that the university doesn't present challenges to conservatives because it does but we think they are manageable. we need more conservatives in higher education, in particular the social sciences. we hope to encourage more of them to become professors. >> host: have you been critiqued from the right because you say universities are not such bad places? >> guest: we have but notably by people, conservatives from outside. conservatives inside the university as we report in our book tend to have a different view of it than those

conservatives who are lobbing bombs on universities from the outside. >> host: what are some of those critiques? >> guest: they claim we understate the intolerance, that if this was some other minority like a racial minority or women, we wouldn't be understating the intolerance that exists there. i think that the right should not. >> host: have universities always been largely liberal institutions? >> guest: yes, for a very long time, that is certainly the case. we don't have good survey data prior to the 1960s but a lot of the evidence that does exist suggests university faculties

were quite liberal throughout the 20th century certainly so they have been liberal for a very long time. they do seem to have become more liberal in the 60s and 70s as the new left brought the feminists into the university in the 70s, did drift to the left but it has been a broadly liberal institution for a long time. having said that, the political makeup of the university varies a lot on discipline. it is much more conservative than the natural sciences than the social sciences, the humanities and within the social sciences, economics is a much more conservative discipline than the other social sciences. economics is the one discipline that looks like america. a rough balance between liberals, conservatives and

moderates. >> host: what do you teach? >> guest: i teach american politics. >> host: freshman course, sophomore horse? >> guest: i teach an introductory course in american politics called american cultural wars, social conflict over moral questions. i teach a course on social movement, sometimes teach courses on religion and politics as well. >> host: the student body comes in, is it pretty split? they have a predefined attitude? >> guest: they are mostly liberal, we do get some conservatives. we are a liberal arts college, we get more conservatives than lots of other colleges do partly because we do have some conservative professors. that makes us a little bit unusual compared to competitors

like amherst. >> host: jon shields and josh was on have written this book "passing on the right: conservative professors in the progressive university". is it bad the college is our overall liberal? >> guest: more conservatives would be a good thing. i don't think there needs to be a perfect balance for the academy look like america. but i think more conservative could be a good thing, especially in fields dominated by the left and this is because more conservatives would improve social science. >> host: is there an intimidation factor about teaching certain things? >> guest: what do you mean by intimidation factor? >> host: there are a couple movements in current politics,

all lives matter, black lives matter, triggers. >> guest: i think there is. it is a problem that affects the left somewhat more than the right because liberal professors tend to teach the courses, the subject that might get them in hot water, liberal professors are likely to teach courses on race or gender. largely because a lot of conservative professors avoid teaching those courses and avoid them because they are dominated by the left. that itself is a problem but it has one benefit for conservatives, they tend to teach courses that are less likely to incite those kinds of movements and energy and passion so they are somewhat shielded from those movements. >> host: have you ever steered away from a potential course?

>> host: i have not but some conservatives have steered clear. >> host: ever gotten yourself in trouble for teaching anything? >> guest: i have not. >> host: jon shields, thanks for your time. >> here is a look at the best-selling books according to the conservative book club. topping the list, former secret service officer gary burns talks about his experiences in the clinton white house in crisis of character, followed by fox news host bill o'reilly's second companion book to his legends and lies series. in wake up america, fox news host eric boling outlines 9 characteristics such as grid, manliness and dominion over the environment that he believes helped make america great and argues the country lost its way. next up on the conservative book club list of bestsellers is brad for's international spy thriller for an agent.

also in the top 10 is wall street journal columnist kimberly stross all's the intimidation game in which he argues the political left is trying to limit freedom of speech. you will see her on booktv's afterwards program in coming weeks. our look at best-selling nonfiction books according to the conservative book club continues with if you can keep it in which syndicated radio show host weighs in on the intentions of the founding fathers when they wrote the constitution and the state of liberty in america today. in killing kennedy fox news host bill o'reilly looks at the assassination of president john f. kennedy. next, former clinton campaign advisor dick morris lays out a strategy in armageddon as he thinks donald trump will lead to victory, 2016 election. republican strategist peter

schweitzer criticizes the financial dealings of the clintons in clinton cash. rounding out the list, sebastian looks at how the fight against extremism can be won in defeating jihadi. that is a look at the current bestsellers according to the conservative booklet. many of these authors have appeared or will be appearing on booktv. you can watch them every weekend on c-span2 or our website booktv.org. >> booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading. >> i am a multiple reader. i read a lot of books at the same time so sometimes i will finish a book all in one sitting but more often than not i read different parts of the book. one book i finished reading relatively a short time ago is i understand you did a segment on, the millionaire and the bard. i am a big fan of shakespeare and to know the folder library is down the street from where i

live, picked it up and it is a terrific book about folder who went to buy shakespeare's folio, a huge collection not just of the folio but enough material on shakespeare at the folder library, a fascinating story of how it ended up in washington dc. i am rereading the righteous mind, a book about communicating how we communicate in a more effective way. if you can picture an elephant and a rider on the element, all the decisions, go left, right, forward, backward, the writer explains, a lot of times you talk to the writer who is not making decisions, we should be walking -- talking to the elephant.

it is a good way to remember you should be talking -- also making the decisions, not the person explaining the decisions. in a time of a political situation arena it is important to keep in mind who we are talking to. i am also reading a book at the national gallery called the accidental masterpiece and it is about how you see art and to me because i'm a great lover of art, everyday objects everywhere you look, this was an interesting book, you see by my office i like color, i like art, i also do my own art. and keep my day job here. i want to mention the

foundational, i was not born in this country, english is not my first language. i credit a librarian, i was in elementary school, awakened my level of reading and a cadre -- sit at her feet in the library and read us mary poppins. brought on the love of reading and it is foundational. to be a good writer, you should be a reader. i am a pretty voracious reader. >> host: anything else you are reading this summer? >> guest: i also picked up h is for hock. i also read new york are compilations of short stories i have on my ipad and those are things i can read when i have

time, and on the ipad. when you think about books that changed your way of thinking when i was in college and that was the feminine mystique, literally a lightbulb went on when i read that book and i decided my life was not going to consist of getting married and having children and having the life i should be thinking about taking care of myself and expanding my horizons. i can honestly say that is one book that changed my way of thinking about myself. >> host: any nonfiction or historical that helps you do your job in the senate? >> guest: there is a lot of reading that i do on issues such

as i read about immigration in our country and immigration reform, something we need to address that is purposeful for me as an immigrant. and a lot of articles, in the supreme court, those are the informational background i do a lot of that informs my decisionmaking and that is different from the kind of books like the millionaire and the bard, those are more for pleasure but i learned a lot. >> where do you get your book suggestions? >> i usually look through the book - the new york times book section.

whenever i see books mentioned in magazines i tearout the page. i have a file of books i want to read and i do borrow books from the library of congress. i read a lot of mysteries for fun. ..