Filtern
Anzeige der Dokumente 1-8 von 8
This article compares the determinants of political participation, from voting and signing petitions to boycotting, across 23 European countries, posing the question whether and to what degree social inequalities in political participation differ between post-communist and Western countries. The data for the analysis is from the second round of the ESS survey, conducted in 2004–2005. The analysis focuses on the role of education, occupation, and gender in shaping the chances of engaging in political action, while also controlling for a range of sociological, political, and demographic variables. Interaction effects between individual variables and a post-communist dummy variable are used to directly compare the statistical signifi cance of the difference in coeffi cients between post-communist and Western countries. The article finds that the observed effects of the post-communist context are actually accounted for by the indirect effects of a number of individual-level variables. In particular, education, occupation, and gender have stronger effects in post-communist countries than Western countries on many forms of political participation; in other words, the post-communist countries exhibit somewhat larger inequalities in political participation than in the West.The article deals with the questions of gender policy formation & women's participation in Lithuanian political & civil life. It is based on the results of the EU 5th Framework project 'Enlargement, Gender & Governance: The Civic & Political Participation of Women in the EU Candidate Countries'. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with women politicians & activists, the article mainly describes gender mainstreaming as implemented through 'transversal' action plans for gender equality. These action plans assign responsibility to different units for the delivery of different objectives. The author points out that 'transversalism' involves no necessary change in policy-making structures or practice, & argues that gender mainstreaming continues to be designated as a distinct or separate policy space in Lithuania. The author also notes that the absence of a stable commitment to gender mainstreaming & the general policy culture of Lithuania are not conducive the evaluation & impact assessment activities in this area.This article explores some of the debates surrounding the gendered impact of both the democratisation process & European Union enlargement on the countries of Central & Eastern Europe. It focuses on three key issues of gender-equitable citizenship: debates about the best mechanisms for achieving gender equality in mainstream politics; questions about the efficacy of civil society activism in relation to mainstream politics; & the pros & cons of gender mainstreaming as a key component of EU enlargement. It also raises the question of the most appropriate frame for achieving more gender-equitable societies: the nation-state or supra-national institutions such as the European Union.The article deals with the questions of the (in)visibility of women in Slovak political life. The material presents statistical data on women's participation in Slovak national, regional & local politics with the support of qualitative data from interviews with women politicians & activists. The author looks at the reasons for the low political representation of women & the unsuccessful attempts to increase it by introducing positive mechanisms such as quotas. The primary focus is put on the representation of women in municipal politics. The author analyses the main reasons why women are more successful in local politics than in 'high' politics.The article describes Czech women's civic organising focused on gender equality & women's rights since the Second World War & explains its character & development in the context of (a) the state socialist regime, (b) the impact of foreign & international donors on Czech women's civic organising during the socio-economic & political transformation of the first part of the 1990s, & (c) the current process of the formalisation of Czech women's civic groups brought about by the Czech Republic's preparation for EU accession. The formalisation of women's civic groups is a process that consists of project-orientation, reform-orientation & the professionalisation of women's civic groups. In the era when the funding of women's civic groups has changed (as a result of EU Eastern enlargement) & the range of national political actors engaged in promoting gender equality has broadened (owing to pressure from the EU), these processes have brought about a shifts in the topics, activities, partnerships & strategies of Czech women's civic groups. These processes have contributed on the one hand to the marginalisation of those topics, activities & strategies previously addressed by some of Czech women's civic groups that do not fit in with the mainstream topics, activities & strategies defined by the EU (& by the EU influenced state). At the same time, however, some channels for having an impact on national decision-making processes have opened up to specific women's civic groups. EU Eastern enlargement paradoxically led to the orientation of women's civic groups towards national rather than supranational lobbying.This article looks at Polish women's movements in the context of how women's & social movements are defined theoretically & in the light of the development of the women's movement in Poland historically. It examines how the women's movement fits into Polish society in the light of public opinion on the women's movement, women's rights & issues of equality, also looking at how these views evolved over the 1990s, & the reasons behind them. It explores the different types of women's movements that exist in Poland, differentiating between them in terms of how much they conform to definitions of 'traditional' & 'new' social movements & in terms of the role they play in effectuating change, their relationships with domestic & international organisations, their relationship to the Catholic Church, their strategies, their formal & informal nature, & other distinguishing criteria.This article discusses women's political representation in Central & Eastern Europe in the fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall & the adoption of liberal democratic political systems in the region. It highlights the deep-seated gender stereotypes that define women primarily as wives & mothers, with electoral politics seen as an appropriate activity for men, but less so for women. The article explores the ways in which conservative attitudes on gender roles hinders the supply of, & demand for, women in the politics of Central & Eastern Europe. It also discusses the manner in which the internalisation of traditional gender norms affects women's parliamentary behaviour, as few champion women's rights in the legislatures of the region. The article also finds that links between women MPs & women's organisations are weak & fragmented, making coalition-building around agendas for women's rights problematic.Analyzes the role of various categories of intelligentsia in establishing the terms of public discourse, as well as specific & general perceptions of the gender dimension of Czech politics & gender stereotypes in the context of politics. Data are drawn from articles explicitly dealing with the subject in the major Czech dailies & selected magazines. A typology of the attitudes embodied in these articles is developed, & their authors classified in terms of profession, sex, age, & political affiliations. Analysis confirms that media workers are weak in their response to public opinion & use of experts, & are principally aligned with attitudes directly derived from the sphere of politics. In relation to the issue of the political representation of women, the media has affected public discourse by both opening it &, paradoxically, blocking it. Nevertheless, gender stereotypes have been undergoing special modifications in the context of political representation.