Sex role beliefs,control, and social isolation of battered women

This study compared battered and non-battered women on their sex role types, control needs, and inclusion needs. The subjects included 33 battered, married women matched with 33 unbattered married women on education, employment, status, and age. The instruments used were the Bern Sex Role Inventoy and the FIRO-B. Results indicated a significant relationship between the battered/non-battered status and sex role type and wanted control. Battered subjects were more feminine in sex role type than the non-battered subjects. Battered women were also more tolerant of external control.     

The European Union Qualification Directive: The Creation of a Subsidiary Protection Regime

The European Union Qualification Directive is the first supranationalinstrument to seek to harmonize complementary protection (termed‘subsidiary protection’ in the EU). Though it hasshifted complementary protection beyond the realm of ad hocdomestic practices to a codified regime, it entrenches a protectionhierarchy that unjustifiably differentiates between the rightsand status accorded to Convention refugees vis-à-visbeneficiaries of subsidiary protection. This article tracesthe development of the Qualification Directive by examiningpreparatory documents and drafting records. It discusses changesto the categories of persons granted subsidiary protection aswell as to the substantive rights attaching to that status.In particular, it criticizes the narrowing-down of originally-proposedcategories of persons eligible for subsidiary protection, arguingthat omitting to provide for known groups of extra-Conventionrefugees does not eliminate them, but simply creates new categoriesof unprotected persons. It also highlights the absence of anyinternational legal basis on which to base distinctions betweenthe rights granted to Convention refugees vis-à-vis beneficiariesof subsidiary protection. It concludes that the QualificationDirective represents a regional, political manifestation ofthe broader legal concept of complementary protection, and assuch does not provide a model for emulation at the internationallevel.     

‘Women are trouble,did you know that Fergus?’: Neil Jordan's <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Crying Game</Emphasis>

The subject of this article is Neil Jordan's film The Crying Game. Released in 1992, it was widely received as a film that challenged stereotypes in relation to both the IRA and questions of race, sexuality and desire. This article calls into question such a radical reading by analysing the way in which Jude the IRA woman is represented. Through a feminist deconstruction, the article proposes that the character of Jude can be seen to represent both national and international anxieties concerning contemporary masculine and feminine subject positions. The article plots this by investigating how the film deals with the specifics of gender and Irish nationalism. It then moves on to consider how these specifics can be seen to articulate international postmodern concerns about contemporary gender identities.     

Book reviews

Vernon Hewitt, The New International Politics of South Asia (Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1997), xxxvi +305 pp., ISBN 0–7190–5121–5 (hb), 0–7190–5122–3 (pb)

Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (Macmillan, London, 1997), 284 pp., ISBN 0–333–53488–3

Martin Bull and Martin Rhodes (eds), Crisis and Transition in Italian Politics (Frank Cass, London, 1997), 253 pp., ISBN 0–7146–4816–7 (hb), 0–7146–4366–1 (pb)

Linda McDougall, Westminster Women (Vintage, London, 1998), 215 pp., ISBN 0–09–927405–1     

Electoral Systems, Campaign Strategies, and Vote Choice in the Ukrainian Parliamentary and Presidential Elections of 1994

In the Ukrainian parliamentary elections of 1994 the Communist party gained the greatest number of seats, yet the presidential election of the same year was won by a liberal reformer, Leonid Kuchma. The question arises as to how within a period of only a few months the Ukrainian electorate could have brought about such divergent results. This article addresses the question with reference to the workings of the Ukrainian electoral systems. It argues firstly, that the systems governing the two types of election created distinctive incentive structures for campaign strategy which interacted with the structure of preferences of the electorate in different ways, and secondly, that majoritarian aggregative formulae had different effects in the two sets of elections.