NTRODUCTION Since devolution, Scotland has been one of the world leaders in terms of levels of women’s representation: substantial proportions of female parliamentarians were returned in both the 1999 and 2003 elections. The ‘female face’ of the Scottish parliament was widely regarded as one of the ‘success stories’ of devolution and as evidence of a new kind of politics (Brown 2001, Burnside et al. 2003, Mackay et al. 2003). However the 2007 elections have resulted in the first drop in the number of female MSPs since the creation of the parliament. In the third elections, women took 43 out of 129 seats in Holyrood (33.3 per cent), compared with 39.5 per cent in the 2003 elections and 37.2 per cent in 1999. In terms of the victorious SNP, the performance on women’s representation was comparatively poor. Although the party has a number of high profile women