Rural Women's Leadership in Atlantic Canada: Firsthand Perspectives on Local Public Life and Participation in Electoral Politics, Louise Carbert, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006, pp. 177, index.

In her latest work, Louise Carbert peers beneath the surface of formal electoral processes to explore how rural, female community leaders in Atlantic Canada view politics. She focuses on this group to explain a curious pattern: rural women are much less likely to secure public office than women located in urban areas, and this holds true at all three levels of government. Through interviewing women representing the typical recruitment pool from which political parties draw candidates, the author aims to identify the presence of barriers to female electoral participation specifically salient to rural women. This is no easy task in part because such an objective necessitates sifting through the inconsequential details of grassroots politics to locate and interpret underlying patterns of power. Carbert's approach is innovative and provocative, and many scholars will appreciate this work's inductive method and rich anecdotal basis. At the same time, readers scouting for clear answers may be left frustrated by the work's complex set of conclusions concerning exactly why few rural women successfully navigate the “slushy intersections” of politics, family life and the economic environment in pursuit of a political career.