How electoral vulnerability affects pension politics: Introducing a concept,measure and empirical application

Are electorally vulnerable politicians really less likely to support controversial legislation, such as pension reforms? While the literature on welfare state retrenchment has increasingly pointed to the role of electoral factors in the dynamics of social policy cutbacks, there are few studies that actually measure the magnitude of electoral pressure and its consequent impact on the politics of reform. To this end, the authors have developed a quantitative measure of the electoral vulnerability of politicians and tested its impact on pension reform outcomes using an original dataset comprising 16 Western European countries from 1980 to 2003. In line with expectations, the results show that the impact of electoral vulnerability on reform depends upon the system of interest intermediation. In corporatist systems, electoral vulnerability indeed impedes reform. But in pluralist systems, increased electoral vulnerability is associated with higher levels of reform. This is because unions in corporatist (but not in pluralist) systems can exploit electoral vulnerability in pre‐legislative bargaining, and thus pressure politicians. Consequently, this study has broader implications for the differential responsiveness of democracies to redistributive issues more generally.     

Re/visioning the women's movement in Israel

Current literature on the women's movement argues that in recent decades, a schism based on the politics of identity has divided women and led to the weakening of the movement. This process, intersecting with the escalation of neoliberal trends and the ‘NGOization’ of civil society, has resulted in the depoliticization of the women's movement and the waning of its influence as a political force. The present paper seeks to examine whether this argument is consistent with the situation in the Israeli women's movement of the early twenty-first century. Based on the history of the women's movement in Israel, the paper posits a twofold argument: (a) the women's movement in Israel has not disappeared but has been restructured as a result of its NGOization; (b) despite criticism of the movement in the literature and on the part of activists as the result of its NGOization, the movement's political messages have remained intact and even expanded to embrace questions of social justice, including novel thinking on matters of peace and security.     

Gender,political participation and electoral systems: A cross‐national analysis

This article investigates whether the smaller gender gaps in political engagement, found in more proportional electoral systems, translate into smaller gender differences in political participation. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, it presents the argument that more proportional systems may send signals that multiple interests are included in the policy‐making process, which may increase women's levels of political participation and thereby reduce gender gaps. Additionally, the article tests for the possibility that a greater number of political parties and the elected representatives they provide act as barriers to political participation that have a greater impact on women's levels of participation than men's. It is argued that women's lower levels of political resources and engagement might create more difficult barriers for them than for men. Results lend little support for the first hypothesis, but a greater confirmation for the second.     

Pathways to power: Women's representation in the 2014 European Parliament elections

The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections produced a record proportion of women MEPs overall (37 per cent). Yet, these results vary widely across countries and parties. This article aims to explain these variations, evaluating not only who the elected representatives of the 8^th EP are, but also how they got there. Are the paths to the EP the same for women and men? Are there gender differences in terms of MEPs’ political experience? A unique dataset listing more than 700 elected MEPs and their background, party and country characteristics is used to empirically examine who makes it to the EP and through which route. The results of the analysis suggest no significant gender differences in the pathways to the EP. Yet, parties matter: more women were elected to the 8^th EP from left‐wing than from right‐wing or ‘new’ parties, and both men and (especially) women representing right‐wing parties tend to be politically more experienced than their fellow MEPs from other types of parties. Furthermore, it is found that men are more likely than women to be promoted straight from party office to the EP, suggesting that some pathways to the EP are less open to women than others.     

Bargaining in legislatures,portfolio allocation,and the electoral costs of governing

What motivates political parties in the legislative arena? Existing legislative bargaining models stress parties’ office and policy motivations. A particularly important question concerns how parties in coalition government agree the distribution of cabinet seats. This article adds to the portfolio allocation literature by suggesting that future electoral considerations affect bargaining over the allocation of cabinet seats in multi-party cabinets. Some parties are penalised by voters for participating in government, increasing the attractiveness of staying in opposition. This ‘cost of governing’ shifts their seat reservation price – the minimum cabinet seats demanded in return for joining the coalition. Results of a randomised survey experiment of Irish legislators support our expectation, demonstrating that political elites are sensitive to future electoral losses when contemplating the distribution of cabinet seats. This research advances our understanding of how parties’ behaviour between elections is influenced by anticipation of voters’ reactions.     

Behavioral consequences of mixed electoral systems: Deviating voting behavior of district and list MPs in the German Bundestag

Electoral rules should affect parliamentary behavior. In particular, deputies elected from single-member districts should be more likely to deviate from the party line than deputies elected under proportional representation. This paper suggests a framework for conceptualizing and modeling the effect of the type of mandate on deputies’ propensity to cast deviating votes in mixed electoral systems. The proposed modeling strategy uses disaggregated voting data and integrates dependencies among observations in a multi-level design. Empirically, the paper analyses voting behavior in the 16th German Bundestag (2005–2009) and shows that the odds of district MPs to deviate are significantly higher despite frequent claims that the two types of MPs behave alike. However, the behavioral differences cannot be attributed to attempts by district MPs to follow their local constituents as competing principals.     

Electoral volatility and the dynamics of electoral reform

Recent elections in Europe have shown that a context of increasing citizen distrust towards democratic institutions may lead to very high levels of electoral volatility and to the emergence of new parties. On the other hand, institutional reforms are sometimes presented as a solution to citizens’ discontent with political institutions. Focusing on a specific type of political institution ? electoral systems ? the question addressed in this study is whether high levels of electoral volatility may trigger electoral reforms. The article investigates the conditions under which reforms affecting the electoral system’s degree of openness to new parties were enacted in 25 European countries between 1945 and 2012. The findings demonstrate that volatility due to the emergence of new parties is the most powerful explanation to account for the introduction of electoral reforms, particularly those that hinder the entry of new parties into the system.     

The impact of candidate selection rules and electoral vulnerability on legislative behaviour in comparative perspective

Legislators are political actors whose main goal is to get re-elected. They use their legislative repertoire to help them cater to the interests of their principals. It is argued in this article that we need to move beyond treating electoral systems as monolithic entities, as if all legislators operating under the same set of macro-rules shared the same set of incentives. Rather, we need to account for within-system variation – namely, candidate selection rules and individual electoral vulnerability. Using a most different systems design, Germany, Ireland and Portugal are leveraged with both cross-system and within-system variation. An original dataset of 345,000 parliamentary questions is used. Findings show that candidate selection rules blur canonical electoral system boundaries. Electoral vulnerability has a similar effect in closed-list and mixed systems, but not in preferential voting settings.     

Gender Analysis and Community Consultation: The Role of Women's Policy Units

Community consultation has become a widely accepted part of policy development in Australia. In this article, we consider how, in an Australian context, consultation can be incorporated within gender analysis processes. Gender analysis refers to systematic procedures to detect and correct gender bias in the full range of government programs, projects and policies. We draw upon insights from a qualitative case study to argue that policy workers located within women's policy units could play a key role in designing and coordinating meaningful and inclusive consultation. We conclude that well‐resourced women's policy offices within Australian governments are essential to ensuring effective, equitable consultation exercises are included within gender analysis processes.     

The Recall of MPs Act 2015: Petitions,Polls and Problems

Under the terms of the Recall of MPs Act 2015, there have been three recall petitions brought against MPs who have committed misconduct. The outcomes have been variable. The first petition failed to attract enough signatures to trigger a by‐election. The second led to the unseating of the MP, who declined the opportunity to stand in the subsequent by‐election. The third led to the removal of the MP and an unsuccessful candidature to regain his seat at the by‐election. Variation has not been confined to outcomes. There have been differences in how the legislation has been implemented—in terms of the ease of access of constituents to the recall petition. This article suggests that in the interests of fairness and transparency, there is a strong case for adjusting the legislation to ensure national standardisation of local implementation.     

Out of the Hands of the Parties: Women's Legislative Recruitment at Westminster

At the next general election the percentage of women elected to the smaller House of Commons risks being lower than in the current parliament, where they constitute 22 percent of all MPs. The 2008–10 Speaker's Conference identified many of the barriers faced by women and other under‐represented groups and made a series of recommendations, only some of which have been introduced. The Government favours a voluntary approach to Recommendation 24, which calls for diversity data monitoring, whilst Recommendation 25 which calls for serious consideration of legislative quotas in the absence of a significant increase in the numbers of women in 2010, appears forgotten. A second Speaker's Conference should therefore be established; the issue of women's under‐representation should be taken up above the party level—with legislative quotas introduced to address the system level failure of democratic representation at Westminster.     

Growth in women's political representation: A longitudinal exploration of democracy, electoral system and gender quotas

The expansion of women's formal political representation ranks among the most significant trends in international politics of the last 100 years. Though women made steady political progress, substantial country-level variation exists in patterns of growth and change. In this article, longitudinal theories are developed to examine how political factors affect women's political representation over time. Latent growth curve models are used to assess the growth of women in politics in 110 countries from 1975 to 2000. The article investigates how electoral systems, national-level gender quotas and growth of democracy – both political rights and civil liberties – impact country-level trajectories of women's legislative representation. It is found: first, national quotas do affect women's political presence, but at a lower level than legislated by law; second, the impact of a proportional representation system on women's political representation is steady over time; and third, democracy, especially civil liberties, does not affect the level of women's political representation in the earliest period, but does influence the growth of women's political representation over time. These findings both reinforce and challenge prior cross-sectional models of women's political representation.     

Confident and cautious candidates: Explaining under-representation of women in Danish municipal politics

Why are women under-represented even in democratic and egalitarian countries? Previous research considers either demand-side or supply-side explanations. We integrate both perspectives in a least-likely case for the under-representation of women, namely the municipal councils in Denmark. The data stems from a candidate choice conjoint experiment, a survey among potential candidates, and data on the actual pool of nominated candidates. On the voter demand-side, we show that there is no pro-male bias in general or in combination with other candidate traits nor that traits evaluated positively by voters appear more frequently among actual male candidates. On the supply-side, we find that women are less likely to be interested in running for political office. This is primarily because women assess their own political qualifications significantly lower than men. The under-supply of female candidates seem to drive the disparity suggesting that we should focus more on supply-side factors to overcome the gender imbalance.     

Women's interpretations of the right to legal abortion in Mexico City: citizenship,experience and clientelism

In April 2007, after a period of intense social debate, the Mexico City Legal Assembly legalized abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, which was an unprecedented development in women's rights in Mexico. Within the context of a proliferation of public discourses about women's citizenship rights changes in women's social status in Mexico, this article explores the extent to which the newly legalized character of abortion is interpreted by women as a right. Drawing on 24 interviews with women who had a legal termination of pregnancy between 2008 and 2009, this research shows that legalization opens up new and complex relationships between women as subjects of rights and the state. Such relationships are expressed as three discursive figures: legal abortion (1) as a concession from the government, (2) as ‘excessive’ tolerance by the state, and (3) as a right to be protected and guaranteed. The analysis shows that women's interpretations of the right to legal abortion are mediated by profound transformations, which Mexican society is currently undergoing. These include changes related to a shift from a clientist political culture to one more framed in terms of citizenship, the subjective effects of family planning policies, and their ambivalent relationships with Catholic notions of women and motherhood, and the effects of feminist discourses of women's citizenship, abortion, and reproductive rights.     

Reflexivity,participatory art,and the failures of monist representation

ABSTRACT

This essay engages in a dual-disciplinary theorizing of reflexivity as response to crises of democratic representation. We trace this crises through the parallel lenses of democratic theory and art history. As political theorists explore alternative representations of ‘the people,’ contemporary artists have developed their own responses to the crisis of monist representation. In both state institutions and in participatory art – and in the theorizing of both – we find the rejection of monist representations of ‘the people’ and the embracement of pluralist, partial, and proximate representations. These public reflexive spaces give voice to new, partial publics, and call attention to past and present exclusions.     

Dynamics of protest and electoral politics in the Great Recession

This article links the consequences of the Great Recession on protest and electoral politics. It innovates by combining the literature on economic voting with social movement research and by presenting the first integrated, large-scale empirical analysis of protest mobilisation and electoral outcomes in Europe. The economic voting literature offers important insights on how and under what conditions economic crises play out in the short-run. However, it tends to ignore the closely connected dynamics of opposition in the two arenas and the role of protests in politicising economic grievances. More specifically, it is argued that economic protests act as a ‘signalling mechanism’ by attributing blame to decision makers and by highlighting the political dimension of deteriorating economic conditions. Ultimately, massive protest mobilisation should, thus, amplify the impact of economic hardship on the electoral losses of incumbents and mainstream parties more generally. The empirical analysis to study this relationship relies on an original semi-automated protest event dataset combined with an updated dataset of electoral outcomes in 30 European countries from 2000 to 2015. The results indicate that the dynamics of economic protests and electoral punishment are closely related and point to a destabilisation of European party systems during the Great Recession.     

A look into the mirror: Preferences,representation and electoral participation

Voting Advice Applications (VAA) are often praised as tools helping users to find their best matching candidates or parties. Using such tools, so the claim goes, might trigger a positive impact on electoral participation. We show that the relationship between VAA usage and the intention to take part in elections indeed exists. The mechanism through which users are drawn to the polls or, inversely, detracted from taking part in the elections is, however, primarily working through the extent with which users' preferences overlap with those of the political parties running in the campaign. The further users find themselves away – in terms of this overlap – from the political parties, the higher the probability of a VAA deterring this user from participating.     

Mixed-member electoral systems,best loser rules,and the descriptive representation of women

Proportional representation (PR) electoral systems are commonly considered more advantageous for the election of women compared to majoritarian electoral systems. In mixed electoral systems, female candidates are often more likely to be elected through the PR tier compared to women running in single-member district races. While most mixed systems employ a closed-list, a number of legislatures use a best loser provision whereby losing district candidates are ordered on the PR list based on their performance in single-member districts. This paper examines the extent to which best loser laws impact the election of women using candidate data from sub-national legislatures in Mexico and Germany and Japan's House of Representatives. We find the contamination of PR lists by single-member district results reduces the advantage women candidates have in the PR tier. Best loser limits the ability of political parties to use PR to represent groups underrepresented in single-member district elections.     

Gendered political space: civil society,contingency theory,and the substantive representation of women

Whilst existing civil society studies generally fail to systematically examine the way that contextual factors shape women’s representation in the civil sphere, political science has predominantly focused on legislative settings. This article responds to the resultant knowledge-gap by examining the hitherto underexplored role of civil society as a political space integral to the substantive representation of women (SRW)—or, the process by which women’s concerns are advanced in policy and politics. The article uses grounded theory in order propose a systematic analytical model showing how the SRW is a contingent process whereby the motives of civil society organizations are translated into action repertoires shaped by three (non-discrete) spheres: political, socioeconomic, and organizational. Its wider contribution to civil society scholarship is in highlighting how civil society is a complex, heterogeneous political space wherein SRW claims-making requires cognizance of the co-presence of contingent factors that offer immanent explanatory power.