Women's parliamentary representation: are women more highly represented in (consolidated) democracies than in non-democracies?

Although there have been many studies that address the representation of women in parliament, there are few analyses that compare the current state of gender representation between democracies and non-democracies. Focusing on Africa, Central and South America, as well as Asia and the Pacific region, this paper evaluates whether democracies have more female deputies or whether female representation increases with the maturity of democracy. While controlling for the type of electoral system, quotas, women's participation in the workforce, a state's GDP, as well as its degree of corruption and Communist regime type, this cross-national analysis reveals that the variable democracy does not affect the representation of the genders in parliament. Women's parliamentary representation also does not increase with the maturity of democracy.     

Gender tropes and colonial discourses in the turbulence of global finance

This article seeks to prick the pretension of neutrality and objectivity in finance as a knowledge construct and regime of power. It does this by focusing on how constructions of risk, the deployment of ‘otherizing’ discourses and, importantly, the mobilization of gender and colonial tropes assisted(s) not only in the normalization of financial practices but also the imperial order of Western-derived financial governance institutions as well.     

Cause and response: vulnerability and climate in the Anthropocene

Causal analysis of vulnerability aims to identify root causes of crises so that transformative solutions might be found. Yet root-cause analysis is absent from most climate response assessments. Framings for climate-change risk analysis often locate causality in hazards while attributing some causal weight to proximate social variables such as poverty or lack of capacity. They rarely ask why capacity is lacking, assets are inadequate or social protections are absent or fail. This contribution frames vulnerability and security as matters of access to assets and social protections. Assets and social protections each have their own context-contingent causal chains. A key recursive element in those causal chains is the ability – means and powers – of vulnerable people to influence the political economy that shapes their assets and social protections. Vulnerability is, as Sen rightly observed, linked to the lack of freedom – the freedom to influence the political economy that shapes these entitlements. In the Anthropocene, human causes of climate hazard must also now be accounted for in etiologies of disaster. However, attention to anthropogenic climate change should not occlude social causes of (and responsibility for) vulnerability – vulnerability is still produced in and by society.     

‘Just Thinking:’ Attitude Development,Public Opinion,and Political Representation

The role of public opinion polls in electoral democracy is undeniable because, for good or for bad, they affect, in part, the kinds of laws and policies elected officials enact. But the voices measured in polls are not perfectly representative of their populations of interest. More precisely, polls generally sing with a more “knowledgeable” accent than those they represent because of the greater tendency of the less knowledgeable to remain silent. This distortion, however, can be palliated by providing conditions more propitious to attitude development. By relying on survey-experiments conducted in Brazil and in the U.S., I present evidence that inducing people to think more carefully before answering attitude questions reduces substantially the likelihood of the less knowledgeable, which compose most of the Brazilian and American populations, to express a nonopinion response. Thus providing people with greater opportunity to think about politics—something most of them do not do very frequently—makes for more representative measures of public opinion. But the analyses also suggest that increased thought induces greater uncertainty or ambivalence among the most knowledgeable. As a whole, this paper improves our understanding on how people come to develop political attitudes and on the conditions that lead to greater attitude uncertainty or ambivalence. It also carries important lessons and implications for survey design more generally.

When do electoral institutions trigger electoral misconduct?

Drawing on two complementary mechanisms, this article explores the question of whether electoral institutions and conditions of electoral competition create incentives to promote electoral misconduct in young or developing democracies. The first mechanism explains how majoritarian institutions like disproportional electoral systems are more likely to trigger electoral fraud than consensus electoral institutions like proportional representation. However, for this mechanism to be activated, the incumbent must feel effectively threatened by the opposition. To better understand the way this mechanism works, the electoral history of the country also needs to be taken into consideration. Democracies which have a historical record of running clean elections are less likely to experience fraud than countries with a history of electoral misconduct. I test these theoretical claims using a dataset that contains relevant information for 323 parliamentary elections in 59 new or developing democracies in the period between 1960 and 2006. The empirical analysis shows a strong and robust empirical support for the two mechanisms.     

Ideological congruence over government mandates under majoritarian and proportional representation electoral systems

The existing literature on ideological congruence has typically looked at congruence immediately after elections when governments are formed. This article goes beyond that comparative static approach by examining changes in citizen-government ideological congruence between two fixed points in time, namely at the beginning and end of government mandates. Building on a veto player approach and dynamics of party competition under majoritarian and proportional representation (PR) electoral systems, the results indicate, first, that government positions are more stable in between elections, as the number of parties and their ideological distance increase in cabinet. Second, it appears that single-party and homogeneous coalition governments decrease ideological congruence between elections under low levels of polarisation, while they increase congruence under very high levels of polarisation. Third, it was found that governments under majoritarian systems slightly decrease congruence between elections while congruence stays stable on average under PR systems. The different levels of party system polarisation across majoritarian and PR electoral systems mostly explain this difference.     

Populisms and liberal democracy – business as usual?

Populism is often thought to mark a sharp break with liberal democracy. But to what extent is this the case? In this contribution the connections between populism and liberal democracy are sketched in the context of several areas where discussions about populisms have stressed their discontinuity with the liberal democratic tradition and its practices. The discussion concentrates upon the notions of the people, their representation, elites, constitutional issues and economic policies. In each case it is suggested that continuities are as strong, and sometimes stronger, than discontinuities in these relationships. The contribution ends with a discussion of how it might be possible to defend liberal democracy from a non-liberal position in the face of the critique from populisms.     

Better Know a District: Competition,Demographics, Ideology and the Use of Pollsters in the 2010 U.S. House Elections

Why do some congressional candidates hire pollsters, while others do not? Prior work claims candidates hire them when they face close contests. This argument does not explain the selection of pollsters in uncompetitive races, especially by incumbents, who also use pollsters to monitor the ramifications of some demographic changes in their districts and ideological incongruity with the constituencies. These determinants should be evident for the use of the most prestigious pollsters, and I argue that candidates hold in higher demand those survey research specialists who have worked for party campaign committees than those without party ties. But while challengers in close races can attract the services of these firms, incumbents in some vulnerable contexts, such as facing experienced challengers, are less able to do so. This study shows that constituency conditions and voter attitudes beyond electoral competition alone shape candidate use of pollsters, who serve representational needs to the extent they are contractually tied to the party organization, which extends its influence over but does not control the political consulting industry.     

Incumbency advantage and candidate characteristics in open-list proportional representation systems: Evidence from Indonesia

We use evidence from Indonesia's April 2014 legislative elections to study the relationship between incumbency, list position, candidate characteristics, and electoral success in open-list PR systems. Contrary to a recent literature identifying an incumbency disadvantage in other large developing democracies, we identify a consistent personal incumbency advantage in Indonesia. However, we argue that this advantage is mediated by party choices over how incumbents and newcomers are ranked on party lists, a key heuristic for voters in low-information electoral environments such as Indonesia.     

A LAWYER FOR EVERY CHILD: CLIENT-DIRECTED REPRESENTATION IN DEPENDENCY CASES

The article begins with a due process analysis concluding that children are legally entitled to counsel and continues by presenting examples of federal and state legislation, court decisions, and public policy arguments that support this right. The article then goes a step further to advocate for a traditional, client-directed model of representation, which empowers children and leads to better judicial decision making. Finally, the article discusses the impact of high caseloads and lack of training on attorney performance. This article serves as an important addition to the academic literature examining the need for and role of the child's attorney in dependency proceedings.