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Chapter 1 poses the central question of the book: Why has women’s representation advanced on high courts worldwide? After theorizing why women’s presence is essential for the judicial process, the chapter argues that monocausal explanations for women’s representation on high courts are insufficient. The appointment of judges involves multiple sources of influence. This chapter builds an analytic framework to explain the gains women have made on high courts by focusing on three sets of explanations: pipelines to high courts, domestic institutions including selection mechanisms, and international influences. The book’s global lens and combination of quantitative time-serial analyses and five country studies (Canada, Colombia, Ireland, South Africa, the United States) allows for examining these influences across a variety of structures, institutions, and regional contexts. The chapter also lays out the plan of the book, with the first part highlighting the book’s cross-national quantitative comparisons, and the second part examining pathways and processes to investigate how and why women are appointed.

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