Political Power and Women's Representation in Latin America

The number of women elected to national legislatures has grown significantly over the past thirty years. Although this increase is due to gender-friendly electoral rules such as gender quotas and proportional electoral systems, it has, in turn, fostered constituent support for representative democracy. Still, although women are gaining political voice and bringing women's issues to state agendas, they are not gaining political power. Using a comparative study of recent trends in women's representation in Latin America, this book develops an integrated theory of women's representation that analyzes and connects trends in relation to four facets of political representation: formal, descriptive, substantive and symbolic.