No Handmaidens Here: women,volunteering and gender dynamics in the Sydney New Theatre

This paper considers the role of women in the Sydney branch of the New Theatre, from 1936 to 1969. In contrast to other gendered spaces found in the theatrical, industrial and political spheres, women held together the New Theatre. Not only did the theatre give opportunities to women as performers, but women embraced roles as directors, stage managers, writers, designers as well as holding elected offices. Drawing on oral histories and archival research, this study presents new scholarship on Australian women’s leadership in the theatre, arguing that their pattern of involvement was shaped by the voluntary nature of the work, the longevity of involvement, their political commitment and the theatre’s democratic structure. The blending of organisational and creative leadership created spaces for women’s voices in ways that were crucial to the long-term success of the Theatre, at a time when women were generally expected to focus on the domestic sphere.     

Town twinning and political support

Does town twinning foster citizens’ political support of the European Union? This study investigates the relation, which is maintained in politics and academics but still calls for empirical evidence. We distinguish between two levels of analysis, namely individual and context level, and differentiate in accordance with David Easton’s modes of political support specific from diffuse support. The corresponding hypotheses are tested with a unique dataset, which embraces survey findings of more than 12,000 respondents from 28 randomly selected municipalities in Germany. The main conclusions that emerge from the analysis are: First, town twinning does promote political support of the European Union on the individual level. Second, there are positive effects on specific and diffuse support. Thirdly, there is no relationship between local activity in twinning affairs and political support.     

Seal the Deal: Bargaining Positions,Institutional Design,and the Duration of Preferential Trade Negotiations

Multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization have stalled. This has contributed to a steep rise in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). At the same time, negotiations for PTAs have not always proven quick and painless: While some treaties are sealed within a few months or days only, other agreements are preceded by protracted bargaining processes in trade and trade-related issue areas. In this article, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical variation. More specifically, we argue that PTA negotiations take longer the greater the distance between the prospective partners’ initial bargaining positions. Moreover, we contend that negotiation processes become more protracted the higher the relative ambition of the prospective PTA. Due to the limited links to the domestic political arena in autocracies, we expect this latter effect to play out for groups of democratic bargaining partners only. We test these two hypotheses for 198 preferential trade negotiations using novel measures for bargaining templates and the ambition of PTA clauses. In our two-stage survival models, we find support for our argument. In line with qualitative evidence from recent preferential trade initiatives, our models indicate that services, investment and intellectual property rights are particularly sticky agenda items for democratic leaders at the international bargaining table.