Why Aren't They There?: The Political Representation of Women, Ethnic Groups and Issue Positions in Legislatures

Table of Contents:
contents List of Figures and Tables vii List of Abbreviations ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 Chapter One: Political Representation: A Framework 9 Chapter Two: The Representation of Women 43 Chapter Three: The Representation of Ethnic Groups 61 Chapter Four: The Representation of Issue Positions 79 Chapter Five: The Relationship Between Different Forms of Representation 93 Chapter Six: Political Representation Between Institutions and Cultural Attitudes 115 Appendix 135 Bibliography 147 Index 173

About the Author :
Didier Ruedin (DPhil, Oxford) is a researcher at the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. He works on various aspects on political representation, including the political representation of women and ethnic groups in national legislatures. His 2009 article on the political representation of ethnic groups in a cross-national perspective won the SNIS International Geneva Award 2010. In 2012, Didier Ruedin was a visiting fellow at the University of Vienna. Other areas of research include the politicization of immigration, and attitudes toward foreigners.

Review :
"Why Aren't They There? Women, Ethnic Groups and Issue Positions in Legislatures is an excellent piece of work that jointly discusses two dimensions and two groups that have been studied too often apart from one another: descriptive and substantive representation, and women and ethnic groups. It uses new and rich data, the hypotheses are well embedded in the existing theories and empirical research and the research design and methods are intelligent. It is furthermore well written and comprehensive. In short: a must-read for scholars interested in representation and representativeness of today's legislatures." Karen Celis Research Professor Department of Political Science Vrije Universiteit Brussel and co-convenor of the ECPR Standing Group on Gender and Politics. "Ruedin adds to our understanding of political representation with an impressive comparative study of the gender and ethnic composition of national legislatures. two largely separate research fields; the representation of women and of ethnic groups. Alongside this he assembles relevant material from literature on parties, electoral studies, feminist research and political theory; using it to develop a single integrated theoretical framework and to develop hypotheses, which he tests on multiple data sources (including new data and the World Values Survey). 'Why aren't they there' is a comprehensive and significant addition to the literature on this topic and should be compulsory reading for all students of political representation." Dr Rosie Campbell Senior Lecturer in Politics Birkbeck, University of London