Electoral Gender Quotas: Lessons from Argentina and Chile

This comparative case study examines the role of electoral quotas for increasing women's representation in Argentina and Chile. The Central hypothesis is that gender quotas in favourable electoral systems increase women's representation, and a corollary hypothesis is that more women in politics should also promote gender issues in public policy. Since the transitions to democratic regimes, many Argentine and Chilean women still promote gender issues, such as gender quotas, but the different transitions shaped the opportunity space for gender issues in politics. Thus, gender quotas can be effective, but the types of electoral and quota systems are important defining conditions and improvements in gender issues are not guaranteed.     

Indigenous Migration Dynamics in the Ecuadorian Amazon: A Longitudinal and Hierarchical Analysis

Amazonian indigenous populations are approaching a critical stage in their history in which increasing education and market integration, rapid population growth and degradation of natural resources threaten the survival of their traditions and livelihoods. A topic that has hardly been touched upon in this context is migration and population mobility. We address this by analysing a unique longitudinal dataset from the Ecuadorian Amazon on the spatial mobility of five indigenous groups and mestizo co-residents. Analyses reveal traditional and new forms of population mobility and migrant selectivity, including gendered forms of marriage migration and rural-urban moves driven by education. These results illustrate a dynamic present and an uncertain future for indigenous populations in which rural, natural-resource-based lifeways may well be sustained but with increasing links to urban areas.     

Frontline Safety: Understanding the Workplace as a Site of Regulatory Engagement

The concept of frontline safety encapsulates an approach to occupational health and safety that emphasizes the “other side of the regulatory relationship”—the ways in which safety culture, individual responsibility, organizational citizenship, trust, and compliance are interpreted and experienced at the local level. By exploring theoretical tensions concerning the most appropriate way of conceptualizing and framing frontline regulatory engagement, we can better identify the ways in which conceptions of individuals (as rational, responsible, economic actors) are constructed and maintained through workplace interactions and decision making as part of the fulfillment of the ideological and constitutive needs of neoliberal labor markets.     

Traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage: a 10-year case study and review

Fourteen cases of traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage (TSAH) from the years 1985-1995 are described. Two of these cases, one paediatric and one involving controlled substances, are considered separately. All 14 cases are then discussed together with the current literature with respect to: typical subject, the circumstances and aetiology of injury, time interval between injury and collapse; time of survival, the role of alcohol, the site of arterial rupture, and the methods recommended by other authors for the location of such an injury. We conclude that TSAH is a poorly understood cause of sudden death; fuller research is needed to clarify aetiology.     

Use of the Rorschach in forensic settings for treatment planning and monitoring

Forensic psychiatric patients exhibit complex clinical issues that are neither readily understood by staff nor necessarily responsive to traditional psychotherapy or treatment milieu approaches. Individualized treatment planning identifies treatment needs and matches them to treatment services, thereby increasing the opportunity for a positive therapeutic outcome. The nature of the Rorschach, particularly that it bypasses volitional resources, enables observation and quantification of personality processes, making the Rorschach uniquely suited for treatment planning in forensic settings. In this article, the authors review relevant Rorschach literature, address the importance of incorporating Rorschach data into the assessment process, and discuss how Rorschach data fit into a thorough assessment that includes historical, clinical, dispositional, and contextual information. The authors offer two case examples to illustrate how Rorschach data are integrated in forensic treatment planning.     

Negotiating with Your Nemesis

The assumption that negotiators can and should eradicate emotions from negotiating is unrealistic. Instead, effective negotiators know how to handle emotional outbursts including how to respond when the other negotiator evokes their nemesis. A nemesis is the hidden part of ourselves that we project onto others who push our hot buttons. When emotions are intense, understanding the possibility that you may be giving or receiving a projection can help you sidestep escalatory behavior. This article explores the concept of the nemesis and offers practical steps for confronting it as well as responding to others' emotions at the negotiating table.     

Women,Federalism and Women Friendly Policies

Australian women activists have never been enthusiastic about federalism because of its reputation as a system that restricts the scope of government and obstructs the path of progressive social change. Like their sisters in other countries, women's groups have sought collectivist solutions to economic and social problems. In the last couple of decades, however, orthodox ideas about the restrictive impact of federalism have been questioned. A revisionist view has emerged, which holds that the system sometimes facilitates the adoption of innovative policies and may lead to an expansion of the role of government. The revisionist perspective raises the question of whether women's groups have been wise to oppose federalism. This article examines relevant Canadian and Australian studies in order to test the validity of orthodox and revisionist perspectives and to draw conclusions about appropriate feminist approaches to federalism. The evidence is mixed. The main argument of this article is that, to the extent that we can distinguish its independent effect, federalism sometimes obstructs policy development and sometimes facilitates it. There are serious methodological problems involved in trying to isolate the impact of the federal variable from the many factors that influence policy, making generalisations precarious. Experience, therefore, offers little guidance to women's groups seeking to decide whether to support centralised or decentralised decision‐making structures. However, this study concludes that in the context of present Australian federal arrangements, women are more likely to achieve their aims when the Commonwealth government takes action, either alone or in cooperation with sub‐national jurisdictions.