Women’s Participation in Peace Negotiations and the Durability of Peace

There is an emerging consensus that women’s participation in peace negotiations contributes to the quality and durability of peace after civil war. However, to date, this proposition has remained empirically untested. Moreover, how women’s participation may contribute to durable peace has not been systematically explored. This article uses a mixed method design to examine this proposition. Our statistical analysis demonstrates a robust correlation between peace agreements signed by female delegates and durable peace. We further find that agreements signed by women show a significantly higher number of peace agreement provisions aimed at political reform, and higher implementation rates for provisions. We argue that linkages between women signatories and women civil society groups explain the observed positive impact of women’s direct participation in peace negotiations. Collaboration and knowledge building among diverse women groups contributes to better content of peace agreements and higher implementation rates of agreement provisions. We substantiate this argument with qualitative case study evidence and demonstrate how collaboration between female delegates and women civil society groups positively impacts peace processes. Our findings support the assumption that women’s participation in peace negotiations increases the durability and the quality of peace.     

“The War Will Come to Your Street”: Explaining Geographic Variation in Terrorism by Rebel Groups

Geographic variation in rebels’ use of terrorism is not well understood. This article explains the use of terrorism in civil conflict through examining geographic variation in terrorist attacks across first–level administrative regions. Two explanations are tested using data on 47 groups in 21 countries: that terrorism is intended to punish supporters of counterinsurgency efforts or to destabilize regions of the country that are both outside of rebels’ military reach and have substantial grievances against the regime. Results show that terrorism is most prevalent in national capitals and regions that are more deprived. The findings suggest that rebel groups face multiple incentives for violence beyond zones of direct military confrontation with the government, using both highly visible attacks against the center of power and attacks intended to geographically expand the rebellion. The findings imply maximizing public service provision and minimizing economic inequality may reduce the breadth of rebels’ potential expansion.     

Community,identity, orientation: sexuality,gender and rights in ASEAN

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) escalated its community building project significantly over the last decade, culminating in the launch of a reformed and substantially integrated ASEAN Community at the end of 2015. This article considers what might follow from this newly reformed and rhetorically people-focused version of ASEAN for matters of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression (SOGIE). In claiming to be people-oriented and people-centred, and by developing a regional rights regime, ASEAN opens itself to standards by which it can be measured and held to account. We critically review ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together, and consider civil society's response, focusing on the critique offered by the ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, the peak civil society organisation for ASEAN SOGIE matters. We focus on three themes: identity, visibility politics, and rights. We argue that while ASEAN falls short of its own rhetorical standards, these same standards support a politics which keeps rights in contestation, enabling civil society to push for accountability to international standards, and a more democratic politics.     

Women's rights in democratic transitions: A global sequence analysis, 1900–2012

What determines countries’ successful transition to democracy? This article explores the impact of granting civil rights in authoritarian regimes and especially the gendered aspect of this process. It argues that both men's and women's liberal rights are essential conditions for democratisation to take place: providing both women and men rights reduces an inequality that affects half of the population, thus increasing the costs of repression and enabling the formation of women's organising – historically important to spark protests in initial phases of democratisation. This argument is tested empirically using data that cover 173 countries over the years 1900–2012 and contain more nuanced measures than commonly used. Through novel sequence analysis methods, the results suggest that in order to gain electoral democracy a country first needs to furnish civil liberties to both women and men.     

Pacific men: how the feminist gap explains hostility

The gender gap in attitudes to foreign policy is well established in public opinion literature. Studies have repeatedly reported that women tend to be more peaceful and less militaristic than men. This article reexamines attitudes of individuals in relation to foreign policy and pits the gender gap against the largely forgotten feminist gap. We argue that the individual-level relationship between gender equality attitudes on the one hand, and tolerance and benevolence on the other, is under-researched, but also that key contributions about the effects of feminism have been mostly ignored in research on the gender gap in public opinion. We return to the notion of a causal relationship between gender equality attitudes, and peaceful attitudes, and of a feminist gap that also exists among men. In a series of novel empirical tests, we demonstrate that attitudes to gender equality, not biological sex, explain attitudes towards other nationalities and religious groups. Using individual-level survey data from five countries around the Pacific: China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States of America, we show that both men and women who reject gender equality are much more hostile both to other nations and to minorities in their own country.     

Investigating the Institutional Norms and Values of the Productivity Commission: The 2011 and 2015 Childcare Inquiries

The Productivity Commission (PC) has a mandate to provide independent advice to government that promotes community wellbeing. Whilst it plays a significant role in social and economic reform, the underlying institutional values and norms of the PC that shape its advice have not been examined. This paper examines policy problematisations (Bacchi 2009, 2012) across two PC ‘inquiries’ into childcare (2011, 2015) between Labor and Coalition governments, and the advice provided by the PC. In doing so, this research demonstrates that PC recommendations are imbued with economic values that are highly institutionalised. These values give preference to targeted social welfare and traditional gender norms, despite current evidence suggesting alternative approaches would have better social and long‐term economic outcomes. Our findings raise questions over the conflict between the traditional economic values of the PC and providing social policy advice that reflects best practice, indicating that further investigation into the PC is urgently needed.     

Education and labour supply inequality in the informal sector: the case of Cameroon

This paper estimated the effects of education on labour supply inequality in the informal sector. For this purpose, it used quantile regression and data from the national institute of statistics of Cameroon. The results indicate that labour supply decreases with education in the informal sector. Indeed, the effects of education on the labour supply is as follows: primary education ?0.054; lower secondary education ?0.083; upper secondary education ?0.18; and tertiary education ?0.34; no level of education is the reference. It appears that, labour supply of unqualified employees of the informal sector in Cameroon is very high. For this reason, the government should promote transition from informal sector to formal sector by encouraging private sector to create more jobs for skilled workforce. The government could also use media to spread information on the benefits of formalization of employment.     

解读女性中性化潮流的盛行——以超级女声为例看中国传统女性形象的时代变迁

由于时代的变迁,传统性别观念中阴柔、脆弱、被动的女性形象正在向阳刚、坚强、主动的形象转变.针对近两年由超级女声引发的女性中性化潮流的趋势,以超级女声电视栏目中出现的女性形象为例,从社会、经济、文化等层面加以分析,发现这种女性形象转变的趋势绝非一种偶然,而是社会发展的必然产物.     

Gender and institutional strengthening: the World Bank's policy record in Latin America

This article examines the gendered nature of institutional strengthening policies at the World Bank, as part of an attempt to analyse what role gender plays in the institutionalist turn within development policy. It focuses on three snapshots of Bank action wherein debates about gender and institutional strengthening are particularly pertinent: Washington, DC policy texts and Presidential speeches; gender policy enacted in the Latin American and Caribbean region; and an Argentine project loan on social capital promotion and family strengthening. Two themes emerge from these sites: (1) that couplehood between men and women has been identified as a key informal institution necessary for development; and (2) that gender reform has been positioned as an institutional change issue requiring attention to issues such as social marketing. New norms about gender interaction thus emerge as an explicit part of the Bank's reform agenda, and are shaping project experiences across Latin America.     

非“酷儿”亦非“同志”:台湾电影中的同性恋现象

台湾电影中的"同志"故事,往往放置在封闭的学校场域,表达未成年人已然苏醒的性别意识;但另一方面,传统意识的惯力仍然强大,规约另类情欲的放纵,拒绝边缘的"酷儿",从而决定了"同志"这种性别的狂欢,在迎合观众的审美惯力中难以获得"微观政治"学意义.从性别设置上说,"T"应该是最具底层性质的群体,不仅承受着社会周遭的性别歧视,面临无路可退的人生绝境,而且自身的情感空间也存在着崩塌的危险.台湾电影大量出现的被剥离阳刚气质的"去势"男性与"T"这一难以摆脱悲剧命运的人物群体,就是划分出一个社会底层的"庶民",这种"性别殖民"再次确认了西方殖民主义的逻辑,生产出全球化的流行身份.