Democratization and women’s representation in presidential cabinets: evidence from East and Southeast Asia

This article examines patterns of women’s cabinet representation across all presidential democracies in East and Southeast Asia since democratization. It demonstrates how the choice of female ministers differs across career backgrounds in presidential systems and further examines why young presidential systems in Asia are conducive to women’s access to ministerial power through professional career tracks. We argue that despite women’s successful performance in national legislative elections, women have been restricted to access the power resources necessary to target other political goals, such as cabinet positions, whereas democratic transition has provided broader avenues for women to emerge as professionals outside party politics. By analyzing original data on female ministers in East and Southeast Asia, the study finds that the share of women among professional ministers has increased over time, but women’s share among political ministers has not changed significantly. Additionally, the different qualifications of female politicians and professionals also make them eligible for appointment to different types of policy areas in terms of prestige and gender. Our analysis suggests that women’s cabinet representation has improved overall since democratic transition in Asia, but this improvement disguises contrasting outcomes in women’s cabinet status according to their career backgrounds.     

Spain: from the indignados rebellion to regime crisis (2011-2016)

Since 15 May 2011 Spain has progressively entered a political and regime crisis in which the main institutional pillars of the political system constructed in 1977-1978 during the transition from the Franco dictatorship to parliamentary democracy suffered from serious wear. This can be analysed following Gramsci's notion of hegemony crisis whose main features fit well with the current situation in Spain. The regime crisis has passed through different stages – the last being the emergence and rise in the polls of Podemos, which emerged in a context marked by the deepening of the crisis and the difficulty of securing significant social victories. To understand the meaning of this current regime crises it is useful to read history, following Walter Benjamin as an open process full of bifurcations with no linear trajectory. Spanish regime crisis opens for the first time since the seventies the possibility of a social and political change whose final sense is still uncertain.     

The changing dynamics of policy experiment in Singapore: does the 2011 general election make a difference?

The city-state of Singapore is proactive in harnessing policy experimentation to incubate innovations, transfer knowledge and facilitate collaborations across different public sectors. Given the country’s strong knack for pragmatism, international practices and lessons are usually first tested and adapted in policy experiments before scaling up to nationwide policies. Singapore’s practice of policy experimentation, however, has also demonstrated evolution over time. This article reviews the evolving role of experimentation in Singapore’s policy decision-making and implementation, and analyses pilot programmes in public housing to elicit the key attributes and commonalities of its policy experiments. It finds that policy experiments have been increasingly used after the 2011 general election, which witnessed a radical political rebalancing in Singapore’s governance history. Pilot projects have thus transformed from a utilitarian to citizen-centric, design-thinking approach after 2011. Pilot programmes are used for multiple purposes in policy innovations, among which civil service mentoring, knowledge transfer and cross-boundary collaboration are the values primarily pursued. The article discusses the contributions of the findings to the literature and policy implications for practitioners.     

South European Healthcare Systems under Harsh Austerity: A Progress–Regression Mix?

This article addresses the question of whether the economic crisis provides a politically opportune time to drastically curtail public healthcare in South Europe or whether, instead, there are signs of longer-term reform strategies for potentially balancing fiscal targets with the quest for enhanced value and health outcomes, when eventually growth resumes. After a brief examination of the profile of healthcare systems in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain prior to the crisis, we comparatively assess the mix of retrenchment, restructuring and recalibration strategies. The effects of the austerity-driven reforms on current (and expected) health outcomes are also briefly analysed. We conclude with reflections on the future of public healthcare in South Europe.     

Revolutionary Mothers? Interacting Power Relations,Agency, and Social Change

In this article a theoretical discussion about intersectionality is carried out in dialogue with the ways in which battered and separated mothers deal with their children's situation and their relationship to their violent co‐parents/ex‐partners. In line with Connell's (1987) Connell, R. W. 1987. Gender and Power. Society, the Person and Sexual Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press.  [Google Scholar] argument that categories such as gender are shaped by several structures and that the social order is inherently instable due to historic “unevenness”, contradictions, and internal differentiation, it is shown how abused mothers both follow and undermine well‐established notions of childhood, gender, and parenthood when trying to tackle their situation post separation or divorce. What is furthermore shown is how their “doing” of age, gender, and kinship entails both dichotomization and neutralization. It is argued that constructions prominent in public discussions about children at risk—the intrinsic value of childhood, children's right to personal integrity, and need of safety and protection—serve as a resource when the interviewees argue against the norm prescribing contact between children and fathers post separation and divorce. Two established constructions of the child's best interests are set up against each other when the mothers try to undermine power associated with the father position. An empirically sensitive and actor‐centred intersectional analysis must be sophisticated enough to grasp such complexities if we are to be able to fully explore possibilities for social change.     

Associations of Participation in Service Activities with Academic, Behavioral, and Civic Outcomes of Adolescents at Varying Risk Levels

Youth who participate in service activities differ from those who do not on a number of key demographic characteristics like socio-economic status and other indicators of risk; and most studies demonstrating positive outcomes among service participants employ small non-representative samples. Thus, there is little evidence as to whether the outcomes associated with service participation are similar among students with varying levels of risk. The National Household Education Survey of 1999, a large nationally representative cross-sectional data set that focused on community service, was analyzed to investigate associations between the risk status of 4,306 adolescent students (50.2% female; 63.3% European American, M age?=?15.9), their participation in community service, and their academic adjustment, behavioral problems, and civic knowledge. Because adolescents who participate in service differ from those who do not with respect to demographic characteristics, propensity score analyses were used to correct for potential selection bias in the examination of these relationships. Analyses tested competing theoretical models of service??protective versus compensatory??among students at varying levels of risk, and suggested that service acts as a compensatory factor with respect to academic, behavioral, and civic outcomes. Propensity score analyses revealed patterns suggesting that, in some cases, students with certain demographic profiles that are themselves related to the likelihood of service participation may benefit from service participation more than others. Findings are discussed in terms of their significance for adolescent development, for planning service programs, and for educational policy.     

Survival Strategies of Widows in Dijon during the French Revolution

When people talk about their lives, people lie sometimes, forget a little, exaggerate, become confused, and get things wrong. Yet they are revealing truths … the guiding principle for [life histories] could be that all autobiographical memory is true: it is up to the interpreter to discover in which sense, where, and for what purpose. (Passerini Passerini and Luisa. 1989. “Women's Personal Narratives: Myths, Experiences, and Emotions”. In Interpreting Women's Lives: Feminist Theory and Personal Narratives. Eds. Personal Narrative Group and Joy Webster Barbre 197Bloomington: Indiana, UP Print [Google Scholar] 197)     

“abandoned women and bad characters”: prostitution in nineteenth-century Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the extent of prostitution in nineteenth-century Ireland. It centres on the problem of prostitution as one of visibility and the prostitute as a site of possible contagion, both physical and moral. The legal powers given to the police to control prostitution were used when prostitution became a particular problem and the focus of public and clerical condemnation. However, for the public prostitution was most acceptable when it was hidden from public view. Attempts to rescue and reform prostitutes came from lay and religious women in particular. The establishment of Magdalen Asylums offered the Irish public a place of confinement for their ‘wayward’ daughters, placing them away from the public gaze. Examining the registers of these asylums reveals that ‘fallen women’ were capable of using these institutions for their own ends, particularly in the nineteenth century. The decline in prostitution evident in Ireland from the 1870s owned much to the new ‘morality’ being imposed on the Irish people by the middle classes and the Catholic church.