‘Raising Her Voice’ (RHV) is a global programme from Oxfam GB to promote poor women's rights and capacity to participate effectively in governance at every level: raising women voices, increasing their influence, and making decision-making institutions more accountable to women. The present article is based on the findings of a case study of the Bolivian RHV project, prepared for the mid-term e…
The present article discusses how perceptions and practices of citizenship are experienced in the post-conflict situation of the Acholi region in northern Uganda. Here, the population lived through protracted conflict and long-term displacement into camps, caused by the Lord's Resistance Army. The article elaborates the lived experiences of Acholi women during and after the conflict and how the…
Despite human rights abuses, the ten-year conflict in Nepal brought aspects of empowerment to women, changing their role in the family and community, as women became active outside the home, challenged the security forces, and began to assert their rights as citizens. Drawing on a research project into the participation of women in community development projects in three areas of Nepal, the pre…
The present article assesses the outcome of the tenth Young Women Leaders Conference, held on 27 September 2010 at Miriam College, Philippines. ‘As we see it: young women redefining active citizenship’ was the theme of the conference. Its main objective was to inquire into the connections between thinking on citizenship, and Filipino young women's activism, where in the contemporary Philippine …
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is now the subject of global attention with the escalation of social unrest and the toppling of dictators. The present article summarises the key findings of regional research on active citizenship, gender and social entitlements in Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, zooming in on the role of the state and non-government organisations in channelling bas…
This article draws on a study which reviewed current evidence and lessons on how gender equality can be effectively strengthened in the context of conflict-affected and fragile states. The study looked at women's political and economic empowerment and women and girls’ access to quality services. State-building in conflict-affected and fragile contexts has been widely regarded as an opportunity …
Having two votes for the same election or two simultaneous elections with different electoral systems provides a golden opportunity to ascertain the impact of the electoral system and to sort out the relative magnitude of mechanical and psychological effects on parties and voters. The authors propose a new methodology for estimating such effects and apply that methodology to 13 elections, 9 in …
Britain and Germany have been experiencing significant changes in the nature of work and welfare since the 1990s. Although important differences have remained, there have been compelling indications of a dual transformation of welfare constituted not only by a far-reaching retrenchment in unemployment insurance but also by a remarkable expansion in family policy. These developments have their f…
The idea that democracy is contagious, that democracy diffuses across the world map, is now well established among policy makers and political scientists alike. The few theoretical explanations of this phenomenon focus exclusively on political elites. This article presents a theoretical model and accompanying computer simulation that explains the diffusion of democracy based on the dynamics of …
A perennial question for students of democracy is the extent to which government policies align with voter preferences. This is often studied by comparing median voter opinion on a left–right scale with the cabinet weighted mean, that is, the mean left–right position of cabinet parties, weighted by their legislative sizes. Government positions may also be estimated from their declarations, howe…
Recent theories of political development have emphasized redistributive demands as the main drivers of democratic transitions and consolidation. The authors employ Cox duration models to evaluate a number of economic, institutionalist, and sociological theories of regime transition, using global data from 1970 to 1999. This study suggests that demands for redistribution are insufficient explana…
The authors examine the relationship between the variation of policy choices on offer in a party system and citizen satisfaction. Cross-national analyses, based on 12 countries from 1976 to 2003, are presented that suggest that when party choices in a political system are more ideologically proximate to the mean voter position in left–right terms, overall citizen satisfaction increases. The cen…
Do foreign media facilitate the diffusion of protest in authoritarian regimes? Apparently for the first time, the author tests this hypothesis using aggregate and survey data from communist East Germany. The aggregate-level analysis takes advantage of the fact that West German television broadcasts could be received in most but not all parts of East Germany. The author exploits this “natural ex…
The authors assess the factors that affect judgments about the fairness of the distribution of wealth with pooled public opinion data from Latinobarometro surveys conducted in 1997, 2001, and 2002. They test hypotheses with a multilevel logit model that allows them not only to examine the effects of the class background and perceptions of individual respondents but also to assess the impact of …
What explains the varied ways that Africans practice citizenship on an everyday basis? And how does the extent of state building (or neoliberal unbuilding) in a particular context affect the way individual Africans think about the rights, duties, and appropriate channels for exercising their citizenship? Over the past 20 years across most of sub-Saharan Africa, neoliberal economic reform has me…
Causal inference and the logic of historical explanation are grounded in temporality. Yet the relationship between causal analysis and aspects of temporality, such as duration, tempo, acceleration, and timing, is often less clear. Using examples from analyses of institutional change and postcommunist regime transitions, the author argues that aspects of temporality allow us to predict which cau…
Abstract This article argues that a more nuanced understanding is needed of the social composition of the redshirt protests in Bangkok from March-May 2010. Based on extensive interviews and survey research, the paper argues that many redshirts were “urbanized villagers” with lower middle class income levels and aspirations.
Abstract Thailand's traditional elite continues to depict former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra and his “redshirt” supporters as the enemies of the state. This study examines how the making of “otherness” is employed to conceal the dark reality of Thai politics in which the existence of enemies legitimizes the elite's power position and interests.
Abstract The Chinese Christian Patriotic Education campaign demonstrates that the party-state has adapted itself to the religious politics among various public and private institutional actors, pivotally coordinated by the relatively liberal State Administration for Religious Affairs. Consequentially, religious freedom in China has made slow but significant progress in the past decade.
Abstract Grand mediation (GM) is a new concept raised currently in China that relies on mediation but links various social and governmental resources together aiming at resolving conflict more effectively. This paper examines the mechanism and application of GM. The quadripartite interaction reflects a low degree of judicial power in contrast to a high degree of the rule of politics.