Revisiting Representation: Communism,Women in Politics,and the Decline of Armed Conflict in East Asia

This research note evaluates one of the commonly used measurements for political gender equality: representation of women in parliaments. It demonstrates that caution is called for when interpreting results where this variable is used, because parliamentary representation implies different things in different settings. Societies with more women in parliament tend to have fewer intrastate armed conflicts. We investigate this statistical association with a particular focus on East Asia. This region has seen a shift from extremely intense warfare to low levels of battle deaths at roughly the same time as great strides have been made in the representation of women in parliaments. This research note shows, however, that this statistical association is driven by authoritarian communist regimes promoting gender equality as a part of communist ideology, and these countries’ representative chambers have little influence over politics. Using statistical tests and empirical illustrations from East Asia, the note concludes that the political representation of women is an invalid indicator of political gender equality in East Asia. There is thus a need for nuance in assessing the picture painted in earlier research. In addition, the suggestion that more women in parliament will lead to fewer armed conflicts runs the risk of being forwarded as an oversimplified solution to a complex problem, and we briefly discuss the instrumentalization of gender equality in peace and security studies.     

Practising the Common Good: Philanthropic Practices in Twentieth-Century Denmark

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society - Since the beginning of the 1990s, civil society has attracted both scholarly and political interest as the ‘third sphere’...     

The prevalence of co-witnesses and co-witness discussions in real eyewitnesses

Abstract

Several laboratory studies have shown that eyewitness discussions can negatively affect memory recall. The current study looked at the prevalence of multiple witnesses using real witnesses at a UK identification suite. We investigated the frequency of co-witness discussion, what the co-witnesses tended to discuss and whether there was an association between this information, and the outcome of the identification. Sixty witnesses at the Force Identification Unit in Brighton (UK) filled out a questionnaire following the identification procedure. Co-witnesses were reported by 88% of the sample, with the average number of co-witnesses being 4.02 (SD=6.52). In addition, 58% of the multiple witnesses had discussed the criminal event with at least one co-witness. The most common areas of discussion were ‘general crime details’ (52%) and ‘suspect details’ (39%). The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Cohabitation from illegal to institutionalized practice: the case of Norway 1972–2010

The main objective of this article is to explore the institutionalization of cohabitation that occurred in Norwegian law in the period 1972–2010. From being (officially) illegal until 1972, cohabitation in its contemporary form has become majority practice, a child-rearing institution, as well as recognized in law in ways that blur the differences between cohabitation and marriage. Although cohabitation is common in many European countries, Norway is one of the few to have gone full circle. This article focuses on the changes in politicians’ ideas and norms regarding intimate relationships during this period. The empirical analysis is based on political documents and debates in the Norwegian parliament about cohabitation, marriage, single motherhood and the family.     

The compliant court — Procedural fairness and social control in compulsory community care

Compulsory community care (CCC) was introduced in Sweden in 2008. This article investigates all written court decisions regarding CCC over a 6 month period in 2009 (N = 541). The purpose is to examine how the legal rights of patients are protected and what forms of social control patients are subjected to.     

Either with us or against us? Third-country alignment with EU sanctions against Russia/Ukraine

Since the mid-1990s, selected neighbours have in impressive numbers aligned with European Union (EU) foreign policy sanctions. However, much more than for any other sanctions case, neighbours have declined joining recent measures against Russia/Ukraine. This article uses freshly gathered data from the entire period of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) to analyse how the practice of alignment influences international relations in Europe. Thereby, the article demonstrates that: (1) sanctions are not a two-party game, but an instrument that impacts broadly on relations with third countries; (2) alignment with sanctions not only articulates similarity, but contributes to normative polarization in wider Europe; (3) for a high-salience case such as Russia sanctions, neighbours are reluctant to be instrumentalized for EU foreign policy purposes.     

The Party's View of Dyadic Responsiveness: A Survey Experiment in Sweden

When responding to citizens who make direct contact, politicians perform an act that matters not only to themselves and the contacting citizen, but also to colleagues within the party. This article studies whether some types of responsive behaviour are more accepted within the party than others. It also studies the circumstances that increase and decrease acceptability for party colleagues’ responsiveness. In a survey experiment, 1,660 Swedish politicians were asked to approve of different communicative and adaptive responses given by a fictive colleague. Results show that responses that aim at changing the party from within are well regarded, but that open and external responses, which are more visible to voters, are considerably less liked by the politician's colleagues. The implication is that norms surrounding dyadic responsiveness are strong within parties and that they are likely to influence when and how citizens get responses from individual politicians.     

Pacific men: how the feminist gap explains hostility

The gender gap in attitudes to foreign policy is well established in public opinion literature. Studies have repeatedly reported that women tend to be more peaceful and less militaristic than men. This article reexamines attitudes of individuals in relation to foreign policy and pits the gender gap against the largely forgotten feminist gap. We argue that the individual-level relationship between gender equality attitudes on the one hand, and tolerance and benevolence on the other, is under-researched, but also that key contributions about the effects of feminism have been mostly ignored in research on the gender gap in public opinion. We return to the notion of a causal relationship between gender equality attitudes, and peaceful attitudes, and of a feminist gap that also exists among men. In a series of novel empirical tests, we demonstrate that attitudes to gender equality, not biological sex, explain attitudes towards other nationalities and religious groups. Using individual-level survey data from five countries around the Pacific: China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States of America, we show that both men and women who reject gender equality are much more hostile both to other nations and to minorities in their own country.