Leslie Schwindt-Bayer's book will be of great interest to gender and politics scholars, especially those seeking to understand the broader effects of women's growing political presence. The book's main strengths are its comprehensive view of women's political representation and its original empirical investigation of each of its four interrelated facets: formal, descriptive, substantive and symbolic representation. Schwindt-Bayer supports her main argument that each of the four facets of representation is linked to the others with extensive original data from Latin American democracies.

The book is firmly grounded in the vast literature on women's representation in legislative institutions. Yet Schwindt-Bayer's approach constitutes an original and welcome advance. Rather than treating as separate the various aspects of representation that commonly drive research – Why do women get elected? How do women behave in office? What are the broader consequences of women's presence? – Schwindt-Bayer shows how these questions are in fact deeply interconnected. Schwindt-Bayer draws on Hanna Pitkin's classic categorisation of political representation, but adapts it to analyse women's representation. In the study, formal representation refers to two dimensions of electoral rules: proportionality and gender quotas. Substantive representation is defined as representatives acting for and responding to their constituents and is gauged through an examination of legislators’ stated policy priorities, patterns of bill introduction and co-sponsorship, service on parliamentary committees, and home style (that is, how representatives serve their districts). The concept of symbolic representation captures the attitudes and feelings of citizens toward their representatives and the institutions they occupy. Schwindt-Bayer studies symbolic representation with public opinion data that report levels of citizen satisfaction with democracy, perceptions of corruption, and trust in the institutions of government. More important, she breaks down her findings by sex, exploring the impact of women's presence in parliaments on two audiences: all citizens and all women.

Schindt-Bayer's findings give cause for optimism yet also indicate why increases in women's parliamentary presence do not produce automatic gains in women's rights policies. In chapter 2, she uses electoral data from all Latin American countries to show that proportional electoral rules and the adoption of gender quotas play a decisive role in women's descriptive representation: women's presence in legislatures is higher in countries with proportional representation and gender quotas. Chapters 3–7 test the impact of women's descriptive representation on the promotion of women's interests (substantive representation) and on attitudes toward politics and political institutions (symbolic representation).

A key strength of the study is its appreciation of the complexity of the substantive representation of women. While many scholars focus on one stage of the policy process or select a small number of issues that count as promoting women's interests, Schwindt-Bayer explores four different activities through which legislators substantively represent their constituents. These include the policy issues legislators prioritise, the bills they sponsor and co-sponsor, the parliamentary committees on which they serve and their activities in their districts. Because she operationalises women's substantive representation broadly, she focuses on three case studies – Argentina, Colombia and Costa Rica – rather than on all countries in the region. Importantly, though, these cases vary in terms of their electoral formulas, the presence of quotas and the nature of their party systems (pp. 36–7). The data to test her theory come from original surveys, interviews and congressional records. The findings strongly support the book's central argument about the links between the facets of representation. Women's presence does enhance the substantive representation of women, yet the formal rules of representation constitute an important intervening variable. Perhaps most important, Schwindt-Bayer demonstrates the myriad ways in which women's continued marginalisation in legislative institutions undercuts their ability to amass political power (pp. 117, 128, 189). This produces a dilemma: representing women substantively implies prioritising women's rights and social issues, including committee service in those areas, yet these same activities are markers of women's continued marginalised status in parliament. Schwindt-Bayer concludes her examination of women's legislative behaviour on an ambivalent note, observing that the ‘descriptive representation of women in Latin America is a double-edged sword’ (p. 130).

Schwindt-Bayer's exploration of symbolic representation is equally illuminating and somewhat more encouraging. The data show that citizen trust in one political institution – Congress – is clearly linked to women's descriptive representation (p. 180). Trust in government, however, is not affected by women's presence. What is more, Schwindt-Bayer shows a link between women's substantive representation and citizen trust in Congress and satisfaction with democracy. When women are present in greater numbers and when their presence leads to the adoption of women-friendly public policies, both male and female citizens exhibit more positive attitudes toward democracy and political institutions.

In sum, Leslie Schwindt-Bayer's book is a welcome addition to the growing scholarship on the impact of women in politics. Her close and rigorous study of women's political representation in Latin America provides empirical support to advocates of gender quotas and more women-friendly electoral rules. These measures not only increase the number of women in office, but are also linked to the promotion of women's rights policies and to feelings of inclusion and trust in political institutions by both men and women. Yet the book also shows that quotas alone will not dislodge patterns of inequality inside legislative institutions. Indeed, Schwindt-Bayer notes that quotas may provoke a backlash among male politicians, exacerbating rather than mitigating women's marginalisation. Evidence from committee assignments in Argentina, where legal quotas were adopted in 1991, supports this concern (p. 129). These findings invite future researchers to explore the longer-term effects of women's presence, especially where women's descriptive representation grows because of gender quotas. Are additional reforms necessary to counter-act backlash? Is the tension between engaging in substantive representation (promoting women's policy issues) and amassing power and influence in legislative institutions irreconcilable? Schwindt-Bayer's book offers a sophisticated theoretical framework along with a solid empirical basis to continue exploring the complexities of women's political representation.