This book is a must-read for anyone interested in gender and the executive branch, and indeed for students of executive politics more generally. Focusing on seven democracies, the authors identify the rules and norms that govern ministerial selection in each country. They identify the experiential, affiliational, and representational criteria that shape access to power. Importantly, they convincingly demonstrate that the strongest predictor of women's presence in cabinets is the establishment of gendered representational criteria that demand women's inclusion. Their conceptual framework, paired with their rich qualitative data, has resulted in a book that is not only an important scholarly contribution, but also a pleasure to read.

Diana O'Brien, Rice University

Women presidents and women legislators have been extensively studied, buttressed by sophisticated theoretical frameworks that explain their pathways to power. Nonetheless, up until now, how, when, and why women become cabinet ministers have been questions largely left unanswered. Annesley, Beckwith, and Franceschet provide a path-breaking and conceptually sophisticated analysis of women cabinet ministers. In what promises to become a seminal book, this cross-national, cross-time study employs a sophisticated qualitative methodology to account for the forces that bring women cabinet ministers to power.

Peter M. Siavelis, Professor and Chair, Department of Politics and International Affairs, Wake Forest University

This meticulously researched book significantly extends our analyses of cabinet formation and how its associated processes are gendered. Through the comparative analysis of seven cases, spanning presidential and parliamentary systems in Europe, the Americas, and Australia, the authors develop a rigorous new analytical framework that furthers our understanding, particularly in the use of their new conceptual tool, the 'concrete floor'. This book deserves to be widely read

Georgina Waylen, Professor of Politics, University of Manchester