Women and Legislative Representation Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Sex Quotas

This book studies the proportion of women in national parliaments. More precisely, it seeks to identify the factors that influence the percentage of female parliamentarians, paying particular attention to the electoral system. The author seeks to understand a profound political movement, that of the third wave of democratization of political systems, through the particular perspective of female representation in parliaments. Although several books have been published on women in politics, none have focused on electoral systems as an explanation for the proportion of women in national parliaments.

Manon Tremblay is a professor at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She has extensively published in academics journals, notably Australian Journal of Political Science, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Democratization, International Political Science Review, and Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. Her most recent publication is Representing Women in Parliament: A Comparative Study (co-edited with M. Sawer and L. Trimble, 2006). She has been the French coeditor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science (2003-2006). Dr. Tremblay was honored with the Wilma Rule Award for the best paper on gender and politics at the 2006 International Political Science Association.