XII National Congress SISMES Padua, 8–10 October, 2021

Despite electing a female president, Michelle Bachelet, and at one point achieving gender parity in cabinet appointments, women’s presence in Chile’s national congress remains small, is only slightly higher at local levels, and is extremely limited among party and coalition leaders. In her gendered analysis of representation, Susan Franceschet argues this is because of the strong formal and informal institutions that limit the size of electoral districts, require large thresholds to win seats, and require coalition negotiation over candidates for elected office. Even though women have a mixed record of representation, their presence has had important policy consequences. A gender-focused presidency has been critical for passage of gender-attentive policies. Women in Chile’s legislative arenas have been more likely to bring gender issues to the agenda. Franceschet points out that Sernam, the women’s ministry, has played a critically important role in this. The electoral reforms approved by congress in 2015 include a gender quota, creating expectations that improvements will continue.

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1st National Congress of the Hellenic Society of Digestive Surgery

Digestive Surgery ◽

10.1159/000074832 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 12-22

Keyword(s):

Digestive Surgery ◽

National Congress

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The African Dimension to the Anti-Federation Struggle, ca. 1950–53: “It has united us far more closely than any other question would have accomplished”

Itinerario ◽

10.1017/s0165115321000188 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-21

Author(s):

Rob Power

Keyword(s):

Political Discourse ◽

Political Activism ◽

African National Congress ◽

The Subject ◽

National Congress

Abstract The documentary record of African opposition to the CAF (Central African Federation) has been the subject of renewed historiographical interest in recent years.2 This paper seeks to contribute to the existing debate in three principle ways. Firstly, it will show that opposition to the scheme was fatally undermined by the pursuits of two very distinct strands of NAC (Nyasaland African Congress) and ANC (African National Congress) political activism. In the second instance, it will show that this dissimilar political discourse produced contradictions that resulted in bypassing African objections. Thirdly, the paper will go a step farther, suggesting that the two respective anti-Federation campaigns not only undermined the efforts of both Congress parties to stop federation, but laid the path for future discord in the national dispensation then materialising.

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Populism and Religion in Brazil: The View from Education Policy

Social Policy and Society ◽

10.1017/s147474642100004x ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-15

Author(s):

Catarina Ianni Segatto ◽

Mário Aquino Alves ◽

Andrea Pineda

Keyword(s):

Education Policy ◽

Historical Analysis ◽

Secondary Data ◽

Right Wing ◽

Religious Groups ◽

Welfare Services ◽

National Congress ◽

Over Time

This article is a case study of Brazil, a country where Catholic-based organizations have historically played a key role in providing education and welfare services. Since the 1980s, these organizations have supported progressive changes at both the national and subnational levels. Nevertheless, the influence of religion on education policy has shifted in the last few decades. Pentecostal and Neopentecostal groups have gained prominence through representatives in the National Congress, and, in 2018, formed a coalition enabling the election of a right-wing populist President. We analyse the trajectory of religious groups’ influence on Brazil’s education policy over time (colonization to the 1980s, the 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s, and the 2000s until now) through a qualitative-historical analysis of primary and secondary data. This article argues that both Catholic and Protestant groups have influenced progressive changes in Brazil’s education policy, but they also share conservative ideas impeding further advances.

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Why China’s Re-centralisation Emerges in the Age of Globalisation?

China Report ◽

10.1177/0009445520984764 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 57 (1) ◽

pp. 40-56

Author(s):

Jun Yang ◽

Shuyang Sheng

Keyword(s):

Tax Reform ◽

Central Government ◽

Legitimate Authority ◽

System Reform ◽

Root Cause ◽

Charismatic Authority ◽

New Type ◽

Important Sign ◽

National Congress ◽

Tax Sharing

Although involved in the age of globalisation,1 China has become more centralised. After the decentralisation from 1978 to 1993, the trend of centralisation2 has been once again strengthened since 1994, which was called re-centralisation by some scholars. Many scholars only focus on the period since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, but they fail to find out the root cause for re-centralisation. They ignore the fact that the 1994 Tax-sharing System Reform is an important sign of China’s re-centralisation, the answer may lie in it. In this article, we analyse the 1994 Tax-Sharing System from the perspective of Weber’s theory of domination and find out that the anxiety of the new Chinese central government in the early 1990s was the motivation for both tax reform and re-centralisation. At that time, the new central government could rely on none of Weber’s types of legitimate authority to maintain efficient operations because the charismatic authority3 of central leaders had weakened since the era of Deng Xiaoping, and the new type of authority had not been established. In these circumstances, the central government was eager to reshape the authority to stabilise the centralised order, which was also the basic motivation for Tax-Sharing System Reform.

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