ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses whether presidentas offer enhanced symbolic representation. Symbolic representation relates to emotional responses, such as whether constituencies believe their representatives credibly represent their interests. The chapter hypothesizes that women leaders positively shape the public's level of political engagement and participation as well as more general political orientations such as trust, perceptions of governmental inclusiveness, democracy, and pride in one's country. In analyzing data from representative surveys and from interviews, the chapter shows important variations among the presidentas. The large-scale data analysis suggested that Rousseff's presidency offered more consistent improvements in views though even these positive shifts proved relatively minor. Public opinion data for President Bachelet showed little significant effects overall. Yet, for both Rousseff and Bachelet, interviewees had little trouble identifying the positive influences their presidencies offer the public generally and women in particular. In contrast, both the representative surveys examining the presidencies of Chinchilla and Fernandez more consistently suggest backsliding rather than improvements.
