ABSTRACT
Two main approaches have been developed in studies on women and public office (Lovenduski and Norris 2003). One focuses on social or descriptive representation and has concerned itself with mapping the proportion of women in elected bodies and discussed the reasons for the low, or in some cases higher, levels of women's representation. Questions that have been addressed in this approach include how the political integration of women, apart from resources and motivation, is affected by varying historical traditions and different contexts concerning structural, cultural and political factors. A second approach, substantive representation, asks whether, if elected, women make a difference, i.e. if they are acting on behalf of women, or more generally contributing to political decisions different from those that would have been taken by a body of male representatives only?
