How Women Become Political Actors: Female Candidates in Finnish Elections

Finnish women attained universal suffrage as the first in Europe, together with the majority of men, in 1906. Since 1906 the number of women in the national parliament has increased from about 10 percent to more than one-quarter. Earlier, women were more successful in the socialist parties, but nowadays this left-right difference has diminished. Women candidates obtain least votes in the rural parties and in the least developed areas where pressure toward uniformity is high. The earlier east-west difference has almost disappeared. Voting for female candidates is more common among women than among men. Education, employment, working in a white-collar job, high family income, and urban residence increase the probability among women to vote for a female candidate. Among men, those in the highest and lowest social status groups are more favourable towards women candidates than those in between. Middle class men seem to be most afraid of losing status if more women become political actors.     

Political Trust,Individual‐level Characteristics and Institutional Performance: Evidence from Finland, 2004–13

Several scholars agree that low political trust has fundamental negative implications for society at large. This study tests the power of institutional performance theory in explaining the differences between individuals in political trust (cross‐sectional) and fluctuations of political trust over time (longitudinal). Indeed, the dominant scholarly debate has concerned whether political trust is stable and dependent of endogenous factors such as political socialization and social trust, or whether it is exogenous (i.e., in constant fluctuation due to later experiences with institutions and the outputs they produce). In terms of cross‐sectional differences, the aim is to assess the relative impact institutional performance on political trust of a citizen. As regards the longitudinal approach, political trust varies over time and from an explanatory perspective it is important also to understand how well the institutional performance theory predicts over‐time variation of political trust. The study employs repeated European Social Survey data for Finland between 2004 and 2013. The results show, first and foremost, the strong impact of evaluations of institutional performance on political trust: satisfaction with government and economy explains differences both between individuals and over time. Social trust and welfare state performance are also strong predictors, but they explain differences only at the individual level and do not predict over‐time variations.     

Attachment Disorganization and Its Relevance to Sexual Offending

The theoretical nature of attachment disorganization within two separate research traditions, are reviewed. Studies of attachment style related to sexual offending are then critically evaluated, with particular reference to the use of the self-report methodology for studying adult attachment styles. Here, it is argued that these studies may not have taken sufficient account of the disorganized attachment style or used a methodology that was able to adequately capture attachment disorganization. In that attachment disorganization could account for some of the known features of sexual offenders, such as aggression and socioaffective problems. We then suggest that if attachment disorganization is found in some serious sexual offenders this could have implications for treatment. Possible ways of increasing the validity of self-reported attachment style are also discussed within this paper.     

blowing the love-breath: healing men in Caribbean women's writing

Caribbean women writers (such as Erna Brodber and Opal Palmer Adisa, who are discussed in this article) often include men in women's liberatory quests as participants: helpers, healers or caregivers. The close connection between sexuality and emotions in this body of writing can be read through a new model of affective feminist reader theory, which embraces and redefines from a feminist perspective the affective fallacy (over-interpreting a text based on one's feelings) so dreaded by the New Critics. This article interrogates how to read through affects across multiple intersecting differences between the text and the reader (such as race, class, culture and gender). A self-reflective negotiation between an outsider reader and a text's healing communities reveals the limits of the reader's ability to participate. The affective fallacy in this context becomes a useful tool for reading, but here it seeks a very different goal from that for which it was previously used. The transcultural feminism of difference relies on affectivity and emotions as a political force and a method for meaning; however, knowing the boundaries of one's affects prevents one from intrusively taking on the other's suffering through sympathetic reading. Women's sexual healing processes in the novels discussed in this article are not self-evidently or solely gynocentric in the Caribbean context: men are often active participants in these processes, and thus also in gender reconfigurations. Participation in these affective moments between the novels’ women and healing men is made possible by the reader's parallel process of embracing and curtailing her affective responses to the suffering of the other.     

Social Capital and Political Trust in Finland: An Individual-level Assessment

Political trust has in previous studies mainly been associated, either positively or negatively with a set of political variables, such as subjective knowledge of and interest in political issues, political efficacy, national pride, post-materialist values and corruption permissiveness. More recently, it has been debated whether or not indicators of social capital also have an impact on political trust. It has been argued that social capital helps to sustain civic virtues and that lack of it will create democratic problems like political dissatisfaction and declining political participation. While trends in social capital seem stable and high at the aggregate level in Finland, the level of political trust has varied to a much larger degree. In this article, indicators of social capital, political variables and social background variables are set against the Finns' trust in politicians and the parliament as well as their satisfaction with democracy. The analysis shows that social capital, as defined by a set of variables comprised of interpersonal trust and voluntary organisational activism, does not, en bloc, prove to be a powerful predictor of political trust. However, when the social capital items are examined as single factors, interpersonal trust seems to have strong impact on all levels of political trust, while the influence of voluntary organisational activity is less evident.     

Taking Language Seriously: An Analysis of Linguistic Reasoning and Its Implications in EU Law

This article discusses legal reasoning at the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The following questions are addressed. First, the authors look at the way linguistic arguments are used in ECJ case‐law. Second, they consider whether the requirements of legal certainty, and more specifically that of predictability, may be fulfilled by reference to linguistic arguments in a multilingual legal system. The theoretical starting‐point is that of open‐endedness of language: no means exists to definitely pin down the meaning of words. Defining the meaning of words in a legal context is necessarily a matter of choice involving evaluative considerations. Consequently, when the ECJ uses linguistic arguments to justify a decision, it is an active agent choosing the meaning of words in a specific case. Essentially, the authors argue that legal reasoning based on linguistic arguments is particularly problematic from the viewpoint of legal certainty and predictability. In this respect, the key importance of systemic and teleological argumentation is emphasised in assuring convincing, acceptable and transparent legal reasoning especially in the context of multilingual EU law.     

From mice-eaten passports to fingerprint scanning: fluctuating state presence and ‘entangled documents’ along the Kyrgyz–Uzbek border

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on engagement with identity documents among the rural Uzbek population in the borderlands of Kyrgyzstan. By exploring the materiality of the documents and people’s concern with these material artefacts of bureaucracy, this article illustrates how the state has been moving in, out and through the lives of the people living on the margins of the state. People’s engagement with documents illuminates the temporal dynamics of the state’s spatialization practices and highlights the fluctuating presence of the state. In addition, this article exposes the discrepancies between the classificatory bureaucratic order and the changing realities of everyday life. Gaps between these two domains are filled with what I refer to as entangled documents. People’s attempts to disentangle documents reveal how people on the margins of the state manage encounters with state bureaucracy and provide insight into the internal dynamics of a local bureaucracy.     

Comments and Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
An extended review of Leif Lewin, Ideologi och strategi: Svensk politik under 100 àr (Ideology and Strategy: Swedish Politics through 100 Years), Stockholm: Norstedt, 1984.