Gender and Modernity in Post‐War British Cinema; a case study of Young Wives’ Tale (1951)

This article explores the interrelationship between gender and modernity within the context of post‐war Britain, focusing upon the representation of women in the popular film genre of the ‘marriage comedy’. It uses a case study of the 1951 film Young Wives’ Tale to explore post‐war ideas about the ‘companionate marriage’ and the emergence of a ‘modern’ British society. Critical examination of female performance style and the gendered negotiation of domestic space within the film suggests the ways in which anxieties about the ‘new’ and the ‘modern’ are displaced onto the female protagonists. The article explores the ways in which ‘tradition’ is usurped in the film and concludes that it was a box office failure because it was out of step with the cultural consciousness of post‐war cinema audiences. The film’s lack of success demonstrates the extent and manner to which gender relations could be challenged in the early 1950s.     

Accommodating ‘Mrs. Three‐in‐One’: homemaking,home entertaining and domestic advice literature in post‐war Britain

This article analyses the effects of the ‘servant problem’, meaning the contraction of the domestic service industry in the twentieth century, as represented in domestic advice literature (etiquette, homemaking and home decoration books). Before World War II, domestic advisors assumed that readers employed staff, while by the 1970s no such assumption could be made. Managing a home unassisted, especially when entertaining guests in the role American etiquette expert Emily Post termed ‘Mrs. Three‐in‐One’ (hostess, cook and waitress at once), formed an enduring topic for British and North American domestic advice writers between 1920 and 1970. Rather than reapportioning parts of the homemaker’s labour to other family members, the solutions offered by domestic advisors revolved around reshaping domestic space and its uses in order to facilitate the simultaneous performance of multiple tasks. Multipurpose objects were promoted to act as ‘bridges’ between distinct domestic regions, while multifunctional spaces and open‐plan interiors collapsed distinctions between such regions. Thus changes in the roles of women within society and the family are shown in this analysis of domestic advice literature to affect the design and layout of the home, and domestic advice books are seen to have promoted ultimately conservative solutions.     

Constraining Executive Action: The Role of Legislator Professionalization in Latin America

What explains the failure of legislatures with strong constitutionally endowed powers to exert themselves over the executive in practice? We examine the role of legislator professionalization in strengthening the legislature's ability to constrain executive action, conceptualizing legislator professionalization as prior legislative experience and prior professional work experience. We argue that more professionalized legislators, through the skill and knowledge they bring to the policymaking process from prior experience, will be better equipped to challenge executive authority. In a sample of four Latin American countries from 1990 through 2010, we find that legislatures are more likely to curb executive decree issuance when individual legislators are strongly professionalized, controlling for constitutional powers and several other partisan and political factors. Our findings suggest that legislatures composed of more professionalized legislators can constrain executive action, especially in the context of a unified political opposition in the legislature.     

Presidential Approval and Public Security in Mexico's War on Crime

To fight criminal organizations effectively, governments require support from significant segments of society. Citizen support provides important leverage for executives, allowing them to continue their policies. Yet winning citizens' hearts and minds is not easy. Public security is a deeply complex issue. Responsibility is shared among different levels of government; information is highly mediated by mass media and individual acquaintances; and security has a strong effect on peoples' emotions, since it threatens to affect their most valuable assets—life and property. How do citizens translate their assessments of public security into presidential approval? To answer this question, this study develops explicit theoretical insights into the conditions under which different dimensions of public security affect presidential approval. The arguments are tested using Mexico as a case study.