The Impact of Women in Congress. By Debra L. Dodson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 295p. $95.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.

This book provides an important contribution to the emerging literature on the impact of women legislators, particularly women in Congress. Following in the tradition of Sue Thomas (How Women Legislate, 1994), Cindy Simon Rosenthal (Women Transforming Congress, 2002), and Michelle Swers (The Difference Women Make, 2002), Debra Dodson explores the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of women. Using a modified garbage can model (Michael Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olson, “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice,” Administrative Science Quarterly 17 [1972]: 1–25) as her theoretical framework (p 32–33), Dodson argues that this relationship will be probabilistic rather than deterministic. Her study asks the question: What factors mediate the relationship between the presence of more women in Congress and enactment of policies supporting women's issues?