scholarly journals Editorial introduction: Gender and political financing

2021 ◽  
pp. 019251212110409
Author(s):  
Rainbow Murray ◽  
Ragnhild Muriaas ◽  
Vibeke Wang

Contesting elections is extremely expensive. The need for money excludes many prospective candidates, resulting in the over-representation of wealth within politics. The cost of contesting elections has been underestimated as a cause of women’s under-representation. Covering seven case studies in six papers, this special issue makes theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding how political financing is gendered. We look at the impact on candidates, arguing that the personal costs of running for office can be prohibitive, and that fundraising is harder for female challengers. We also explore the role of political parties, looking at when and how parties might introduce mitigating measures to support female candidates with the costs of running. We demonstrate how political institutions shape the cost of running for office, illustrate how this is gendered and consider the potential consequences of institutional reform. We also note how societal gender norms can have financial repercussions for women candidates.

2009 ◽  
Vol 103 (01) ◽  
pp. 99-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILIP KEEFER ◽  
STUTI KHEMANI

A central challenge in political economy is to identify the conditions under which legislators seek to “bring home the pork” to constituents. We conduct the first systematic analysis of one determinant of constituency service, voter attachment to political parties, holding constant electoral and political institutions. Our analysis takes advantage of data from a unique type of public spending program that is proliferating across developing countries, the constituency development fund (CDF), which offers more precise measures of legislator effort than are common in the literature. Examining the CDF in India, we find that legislator effort is significantly lower in constituencies that are party strongholds. This result, which is robust to controls for alternate explanations, implies that legislators pass on pork when voters are more attached to political parties. It has implications not only for understanding political incentives and the dynamics of party formation, but also for evaluating the impact of CDFs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 440-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca R. Jensenius

Quotas for women and ethnic minorities are implemented to increase diversity in political institutions, but, as they usually target only one group at a time, they may end up increasing the inclusion of one under-represented group at the cost of another. Recent work has emphasized the institutional underpinnings of the variation in such outcomes. In this article I show how the intersectional effects of quotas may also vary within the same institutional context, as changes in the pressure to include excluded groups interact with the informal opportunity structures within political parties. Looking at the nomination of female candidates across India over time, I show that, as the efforts to include more women in politics intensified, much of the increase in female candidates occurred in constituencies reserved for ethnic minorities. This pattern may in part be the result of parties resisting changes to existing power hierarchies by nominating women at the cost of the least powerful male politicians, but can also be seen as evidence that minority quotas have created a political space that is more accessible to women.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1608
Author(s):  
Salvatore Ivo Giano

This Special Issue deals with the role of fluvial geomorphology in landscape evolution and the impact of human activities on fluvial systems, which require river restoration and management [...]


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurdistan Saeed

This study deals with the political parties’ pluralism in Iraq under the Parties Law No. 36 of 2015. The importance of the study lies in the fact that it looks at a topic that is at the heart of democracy and it is necessary for the success of any democratic processes. The study focuses on parties’ pluralism in Iraq since the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921 until the end of the Baath Party regime in 2003, it also covers the period after 2003 and pays particular attention to the Parties Law No. 36 of 2015. It focuses on the legal framework of political parties after the adoption of the Political Parties Law and studies the impact of this law on parties’ pluralism in Iraq after its approval in 2015. The study concludes that Law No. 36 of 2015 is incapable of regulating parties’ pluralism for reasons including: the lack of commitment by the political parties to the provisions of the law, the inability of the Parties Affairs Department to take measures against parties that violate the law the absence of a strong political opposition that enhances the role of political parties, the association of most Iraqi parties with foreign agendas belonging to neighboring countries, and the fact that the majority of Iraqi parties express ethnic or sectarian orientations at the expense of national identity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Atkinson ◽  
Firdoze Bulbulia

As a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns across the world, digital access has become paramount, as most aspects of education have moved online. Drawing together five case studies located in South Africa, Argentina, the Netherlands, India and Ethiopia, this article assesses the role of film education during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a specific focus on the impacts of digital access. We examine multimodal forms of film education, and how these were used to inform, entertain and educate children during the crisis by the varying work undertaken by the organizations. Applying theories of intersectionality, we address the need for context-specific approaches to film education, focusing upon the impact that the societal and individual contexts had on the dissemination of film education in each country.


2021 ◽  
pp. 213-244
Author(s):  
Leonardo R. Arriola ◽  
Martha C. Johnson ◽  
Melanie L. Phillips

The concluding chapter revisits the main hypotheses regarding women’s experiences as aspirants, candidates, and legislators. Complemented by tables summarizing key findings, the chapter identifies where and how the book’s studies of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Uganda, and Zambia either uphold or contradict hypotheses from the existing literature. Building on this summary, the chapter presents an agenda for future research on women’s political participation in African countries focused on the importance of financial constraints for women’s candidacies, the role of violence in shaping women’s political options, and the impact women in power have on gendered institutions. The book ends on an optimistic note, arguing that despite these barriers, the case studies clearly demonstrate that women are adept at securing a place for themselves, and asserting their voice, in local and national politics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1343-1359
Author(s):  
Anthony Ridge-Newman

In Britain, by 2015, Web 2.0 had become a more widely accepted and established mode of civic engagement of which political e-participation became an observable extension. However, in the run-up to 2010, social media were newer, less understood and largely associated with younger generations. These changes present questions about how wider technocultural developments impacted political engagement between the 2010 and 2015 UK general elections. This article aims to go some way in examining this question with a theoretical focus on the role of Facebook as a driver of change in political organisation. Using the British Conservative Party as a case study, the article analyses and compares events, observations and shifting power relations associated with digital technology and organisational change observed over two election cycles spanning from 2005 to 2015. A focal aim is to examine changes in Conservative Party campaigns and organisation in order to contribute to wider debates about the impact of digital technology in changing the organisation and activities of actors, like political parties and political participants, in democratic contexts. The article concludes that a complex combination of internal and external, technological and human, and grassroots and centralised factors played roles in changing the Conservative Party.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atefeh Yazdanparast ◽  
Mathew Joseph ◽  
Fernanda Muniz

Purpose The present research investigates the influence of brand-based social media marketing (SMM) activities on metrics of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). Specifically, the study examines the role of consumer-brand social media experiences on attitude toward SMM activities of brands and its consequent impact on brand perceptions. Design/methodology/approach Paper-and-pencil surveys were administered to undergraduate students in a Southwestern university in exchange for extra credit. Survey questions were adapted from previously validated scales, and measurement adaptations were minimal and only related to the context of questions to assure their relevance with the context of this study. Bi-variate correlation, bootstrapping technique, Sobel test, ANOVA and linear regression were used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results indicate that brand-based SMM is essential in impacting consumers’ attitudes toward brands and consequently, CBBE reflected via perceived value for the cost, perceived uniqueness and the willingness to pay a price premium for a brand. Additionally, the main reason for individuals to use social media impacts their attitudes toward and receptiveness of SMM activities of brands. Research limitations/implications This study used a sample of college students to address the research questions. Considering the higher adoption rate and interest in social media among younger consumer groups, the results may not be representative of the entire population. Much of the existing research on social media, however, has focused on undergraduate college students and is primarily based on studies utilizing the similar research population. Originality/value The present research is one of the few studies that empirically examine the impact of consumer-brand interactions/experiences on consumers’ attitudes toward SMM activities of brands, as well as brand-related knowledge and perceptions as reflected by CBBE. The results indicate that the CBBE model of the twenty-first century should incorporate the role of brand-based SMM activities as facilitators of brand knowledge (i.e. brand awareness and brand image) by reinforcing or even shaping important brand-based associations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-225
Author(s):  
Arif A JAMAL

AbstractIn considering the articles in this Special Issue, I am struck by the importance of a set of factors that, in my view, both run through the articles like a leitmotif, as well as shape the major ‘take away’ lesson(s) from the articles. In this short commentary, I elaborate on these factors and the lesson(s) to take from them through five ‘Cs’: context; complexity; contestation; the framework of constitutions; and the role of comparative law. The first three ‘Cs’ are lessons from the case studies of the articles themselves, while the second two ‘Cs’ are offered as lessons to help take the dialogue forward. Fundamentally, these five ‘Cs’ highlight the importance of the articles in this Special Issue and the conference from which they emerged on the one hand, while on the other hand, also making us aware of what are the limits of what we should conclude from the individual articles. In other words, taken together, the five ‘Cs’ are, one might say, lessons about lessons.


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