Clinton,Europe and Economic Diplomacy: What Makes the EU Different?

The Clinton administration's economic diplomacy has been more aggressive, politicized and controversial than that of any recent US administration. We examine its application to the European Union (EU) and seek to answer the question: what makes Europe different? Put another way, why has the US pursued cooperation on “behind-the-border” issues such as competition policy, standards and investment rules, and eschewed export promotion? We offer three explanations. First, the EU's market is unique: it is a mature, but lucrative one for large US-owned firms concerned more with behind-the-border issues than with market access issues. Second, American companies who have invested heavily in Europe have developed their own political links to the EU, particularly through the EU Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce. Third, these same companies have a powerful influence over US policy towards Europe as well as EU policymaking. Our analysis develops these three hypotheses, and also offers an assessment of the progress and meaning of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue.     

Women Ministers in Latin American Government: When,Where, and Why?

We examine factors that affect the supply of and demand for female cabinet ministers in Latin America and seek to understand the frequency with which women join cabinets and the types of portfolios women receive. Our analysis covers 18 Latin American democracies from 1980 to 2003. We find that presidents from parties of the left appoint more women. Increases in the percentage of women in the legislature and higher human development correlate with more women in the cabinet. Intense partisan competition increases the likelihood that a cabinet will contain a woman. Women are more likely to receive high-prestige cabinet posts from leftist presidents and when the percentage of women in the legislature increases. In addition, an international diffusion effect appears to explain the rapid expansion of women in Latin American cabinets.     

Do Guarantees of Non-Recurrence Actually Help to Prevent Systemic Violations? Reflections on Measures Taken to Prevent Domestic Violence

Netherlands International Law Review - This article assesses the effectiveness of guarantees of non-recurrence to prevent the recurring, systemic violation of domestic violence. I consider whether...     

Parliamentarianism and anti-parliamentarianism in Portugal. The voices of the republicans, 1910–26

In Portugal the republican regime broke ties with the monarchy, advocating the need to reassume the national principle, as well as the secularization of its foundations and of the state itself. With the establishment of the new parliamentary republic in 1910 and the debate between republic and monarchy, the supporters of parliamentarianism saw a rupture in the composition and relationship between the powers foreseen in the constitutional charter of 1826, which gave more power to the king during the period of the constitutional monarchy. This made republicans grow closer to the constitution of the French Third Republic, the Brazilian constitution of 1891, the 1812 constitution of Cadiz and the 1822 Portuguese constitution, owing to the fact that these were radical liberal constitutions that conferred national sovereignty. The republicans put forward various arguments both to defame and to defend parliamentarianism. Nevertheless, as in the constitution of 1822, the republican constitution of 1911 stipulated that the congress (the Portuguese Parliament) would be, in theory, the only body that could regulate the political guidelines of the republic.     

Enjoy their symptom: of woman,men and other interesting figures in Greek literary texts

Voela and Tamboukou use Slavoj ?i?ek’s notion of the symptom as a lens through which to look at representations of female figures in Greek literary texts of the early twentieth century by Gregorios Xenopoulos. In mapping the construction of the figure of the modern woman in the matrix of discourses, fantasies and power relations of fin-de-siècle Greece, they draw on psychoanalytic insights, interrupted by Foucauldian interventions. Following Judith Butler’s move of making trouble they attempt to open up a dialogic space between psychoanalytic and Foucauldian approaches to the female subject, contextualized in a specific social, historical and cultural milieu. It is in this context that they discuss, first, how feminine and masculine subjectivities are represented in man’s speech; second, how unintended excesses and interruptions occur in the problematic representation of women; and, third, how madness and ultimately death come to play a significant role in the power relations between the sexes.