Why was Germany so much slower than the United States to outlaw sexual harassment? What role have feminist organizations, academics, women in political parties, and femocrats (governmental equality officers) played in generating this policy change? How did the European Union act to require member states to legislate given that most member states were opposed? Does it matter that German policymakers have framed the problem largely as a gender-neutral violation of dignity, rather than as an individual right not to be discriminated against on the basis of sex? Is it better to rely on individual litigants to enforce the law or work through collective bargaining agreements and labor councils? And what are the implications of the findings of sexual harassment policy for the future of this issue, feminist policy change, and the policy process more generally? Kathrin Zippel answers these questions and more in her well-researched, comprehensive, and clearly written book.

Unlike scholars such as Tom Rochon in Culture Moves (1998), Zippel, a sociologist, focuses on what she defines as the politics of sexual harassment rather than culture. Her empirical study hones in on the history and structure of social movements, the organization of industrial relations, the role of courts, the dominant discourses that frame public policy—in short, the political opportunity structure. The book's greatest contributions are to the fields of public policy and social movements, although scholars and practitioners interested in sexual harassment, comparativists, and Europeanists will find it a useful contribution to their fields.

Zippel finds very different paths to policy change in the three systems. Because judges heard the horror stories of individual victims firsthand, because sex discrimination law offered a convenient frame, because loosely organized groups could piggyback on the initiative of individual litigants more easily than mobilize a legislative campaign, and because litigation captured the attention of the media and employers, policy change happened early in the United States largely through progressive legal interpretation. Europeans recoiled at the scandals that Paula Jones's and Anita Hill's charges generated, argued that Americans were puritans who had no respect for privacy, and concluded that sexual harassment was only an American problem. Valuable ideas and expertise diffused from the United States, but carried baggage. Feminist bureaucrats (femocrats) in the European Union and Germany joined forces in a transnational advocacy network, but first had to demonstrate the prevalence of the problem, aided by the occasional scandal. More than two decades of efforts at the European level generated first “soft law” (mere recommendations to member states) and finally legal requirements, due to the fortuitous placement of individual commissioners and bureaucrats. Translated into Germany as a uniquely European vision of a violation of dignity, however, sexual harassment lost its context in sex discrimination, and the absence of sanctions makes it ineffectual. The consensual, corporatist approach to labor relations effectively shut out feminist voices and marginalized the concerns of women workers.

This thoughtful comparative account of one policy across jurisdictions offers some important insights about the future trajectory of feminist policy change. Contrary to some of the policies deriving from second-wave feminism, policy change in the future (particularly in the European Union and Germany) is likely to come from expert scholar-activists, women in political parties, supranational organizations, and women who have a toehold as equality officers in unions, public employment, and even corporations. Effective as those players may be in setting the agenda and securing policy change, feminists' inability to influence, let alone control, implementation renders significant behavioral changes a long way off. Rather than the boomerang effect that Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink find among transnational networks working to influence states and international organizations, Zippel finds a ping-pong effect in three federal systems—the United States, Germany, and the European Union—where innovation may occur at either the state or federal level. In Germany, pressure for change at the national level may come both from innovative progressive states (i.e., below) as well as the European Union (i.e., above).

Perhaps because Zippel approaches her subject as a sociologist rather than a historian, we get only tantalizing glimpses of the compelling stories of the women in the German Green Party who challenged their leader, or the debate in the German parliament where no men showed up, or the coup European Union Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou orchestrated, or the strategic brilliance of individual scholar-activists, or the litigants with harrowing tales to tell. Zippel's structural institutional account condenses the dramatic story of policy change. Given her expertise, I would also have welcomed more of her own analysis of debates over sexual harassment within feminism. Near the end (p. 222), she seems to concur with Vicky Schultz's scathing critique of Catharine MacKinnon in calling for refocusing on gender devaluation rather than on sexuality. Zippel criticizes German policy because it has eschewed the gender oppression framing in favor of the frame of dignity and a concern about bullying or “mobbing.” She insists that gender and gender stratification must be a central frame, yet never really situates herself within feminist debates.

Moreover, because the United States compares so favorably with Germany in naming the problem early, framing it as sex discrimination, and imposing penalties, Zippel risks painting too optimistic a picture of policy in the United States. She clearly recognizes its limitations. She ends the book with a call to go beyond merely creating policy to punish sexual harassers and the employers who give them their power. Instead, she calls for methods that would offer redress for victims and prevent sexual harassment. The high numbers of summary judgments granted to plaintiffs (p. 175), the changing composition of the judiciary, the increasing hostility to discrimination plaintiffs generally, the ineffectiveness of internal procedures, and the enormous economic and psychological costs of litigation make one wonder if the policy change on sexual harassment has been symbolic in the negative sense of Murray Edelman—creating the impression of justice while perpetuating injustice.

These are quibbles and hopes for future writing, however. Zippel has written an impressively comprehensive, carefully researched, thoughtful, and important book that offers insights across fields and disciplines.