CONTENTS OF THE RIGHT TO CITIZENSHIP: CERTAIN ASPECTS

The article is devoted to the research of current tendencies changes of the content of the right of citizenship under the influence of general integration processes and practices of European Court of human rights. The content of the right of citizenship is subjected under new tendencies assessment taking place in the process of realization of the Association Treaty between Ukraine and European Union. Analyzing the notion of citizenship in the context of Constitution, national legislature, European convention of citizenship differentiation of formal and legal status of an individual, legal relations between an individual and a state, combination of rights and duties according to the current tendencies of the conception of citizenship evolution are carried out. It’s indicated in the work that according to the current realization of the content of the right of citizenship it’s appropriate to maintain practical intention of regulation of legal nature and essence of absent nationality, improving of contextual and legislative principles concerning citizenship and legal identity of an individual in Ukraine as one of the basic constitutional human right. The right of citizenship, as institution of constitutional law, in recent years was proved as subjective right, changing owing to interpretation of citizenship by European Court of human rights within conventional rights and freedoms. At the same time a state, that is the subject of the definition of citizenship policy, regulates all spectrum of issues, connected with citizenship and derivative from above mentioned institution by national legislature. The sphere of citizenship minimally influenced by the norms of international law, that refers legal regulation of citizenship to the internal affairs of a state. A state owns the possibilities to determine a circle of citizens, correcting grounds of citizenship admission, setting restriction for citizens. The right of citizenship is a protection measure of possible behavior directing for the gratification of human interests, appeared in connection with acquirement, changing and outgoing of citizenship. The effectiveness of guarantees of the realization of right of citizenship in Ukraine consists of making legal guarantees that are contained in the norms of laws and depends on logic and systematic expediency, accurate focus and certainty relating specific subject and appropriate social relationship.

#MeToo in East Asia: The Politics of Speaking Out

The global diffusion of #MeToo has sparked case studies and scholarly discussions (Fileborn and Loney-Howes 2019; Lee and Murdie 2020; Noel and Oppenheimer 2020), but the East Asian experience remains understudied, especially from a comparative perspective within and outside the region. The internet hashtag movement emerged from quality investigative journalism, and the movement has done what the law could not (MacKinnon 2018). Examining tweets that include the English version of the hashtag, Lee and Murdie (2020) found that women are more likely to engage in #MeToo in countries where their political rights are better protected. This finding, however, does not seem to fit East Asia's experience. The region's earliest and longest democracy, Japan, had a much milder movement than neighboring South Korea. Many South Korean women publicly named their perpetrators, but Japanese women, when sharing their experience of being harassed, mostly remained anonymous (Hasunuma and Shin 2019). Moreover, Taiwan, arguably the most gender-equal country in this region—if measured by women's political representation (42% in the national legislature) or by policies toward sexual minorities (it was the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage)—has had virtually no #MeToo movement.

The Descriptive Representation of Women in Politics

Women remain strikingly underrepresented in politics: as of 2020, women hold only 25% of seats in the world’s national legislatures. Studies of women’s descriptive representation can be divided into two broad categories. The first category of scholarship seeks to understand when, why, and how women are elected to political office. Earlier academic work on the descriptive representation of women primarily analyzed social (educational levels, workforce participation rates) and cultural factors to understand women’s descriptive underrepresentation in politics. Institutional factors emerged as a significant area of scholarship, buoyed by the adoption and near immediate success of gender quotas. Scholarship has also centered on political parties and contextual factors (candidate selection and recruitment processes, the effects of crisis). A second category of work examines the effects of women’s descriptive representation on the substantive and symbolic representation of women, and increasingly whether women’s descriptive representation begets more women in office. The scholarship on the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation has found strong evidence that having women in office results in the representation of women’s interests. Establishing how the descriptive representation of women affects citizen attitudes—such as their interest in politics and trust in government institutions—has yielded more mixed results. Nonetheless, the scholarship on the effects of women’s descriptive representation largely confirms that having women in office matters for outcomes related to policy and citizen attitudes. The rich work that has been done to date on women’s descriptive representation could benefit from expanding the definition of the term. Although scholars have relied on a head count of women in positions of power—and notably often just in the national legislature—to assess descriptive representation, a more expansive approach to defining women’s descriptive representation is needed. Researchers ought to consider other ways in which representatives can descriptively represent constituents, for example, by calling attention to their role as women in their parliamentary speeches. Moreover, the study of women’s descriptive representation would benefit from greater attention to women’s descriptive representation at subnational levels; too often, the proportion of women in the national legislature is equated with women’s descriptive representation, leaving out how women can be descriptively represented at other levels of office, in particular, in local positions. Examining within-country variation in women’s officeholding could be particular fruitful in understanding the factors that affect women’s descriptive representation, including the pipelines to higher office. Furthermore, studying differences in descriptive representation for elected versus appointed positions could prove instructive. In addition, more scholarship is needed that takes an intersectional approach to studying both the factors that help or hinder women’s descriptive representation and the ways in which descriptive representation affects substantive and symbolic representation.

CLEAVAGE STRUCTURE CHANGE IN THE 2019 GENERAL ELECTION IN INDONESIA

This paper examines the following puzzle in the Indonesian electoral results: while the 2019 election showed clear cleavage voting at the presidential level, such voting was not apparent in the national legislative elections, which are held at the same time. It considers two different explanations for this divergence, split-ticket voting and the distinctions in the electoral system between the presidential election and the election for the national legislature. It concludes that the structure of the different voting systems does the best job of explaining the differences in voting patterns.

The value of ‘between-election’ political participation: Do parliamentary e-petitions matter to political elites?

Responding to the crisis of democracy, legislatures worldwide are developing new participatory mechanisms to promote parliamentary engagement and provide additional opportunities for citizens to influence policymaking. Yet despite the prevalence of such initiatives, little is known about whether political elites are receptive to public input. This article addresses this important gap, presenting original research that examines the e-petition system in the United Kingdom’s national legislature. It demonstrates significant apathy – on occasion, antipathy – on the part of Westminster’s elected MPs. In particular, it reveals concerns that parliamentary e-petitions risk undermining the relationship between MPs and their constituents; inundating the parliamentary agenda with immediate, but not necessarily important, issues; and exacerbating misunderstandings of the parliamentary process. More broadly, political elites remain sceptical about the capacity of parliamentary e-petitions to address the democratic divide, with a widespread sense that e-petitions often amplify the voices of those who already shout the loudest.

Democratic Federalism

This chapter details the likely economic, democratic, and rights performance of a decentralized national legislature with representatives elected from geographically specified local districts. The national legislature is assigned responsibility for national public goods and services and national regulations. Decisions in the legislature are made by simple majority rule. Independent local governments continue to be responsible for important local services, perhaps provided concurrently with the national government. On the dimensions of democratic participation and the protection of rights and liberties, Democratic Federalism is likely to do well, provided all citizens are represented in the legislature. It is on the dimension of economic efficiency that legislature-only Democratic Federalism is most likely to fall short.

Democratic Federalism

This chapter addresses the two weaknesses of Democratic Federalism. First, how can we guarantee all minorities are represented in the legislature? Second, how can we control the national legislature's inclination to usurp all important dimensions of public policy? The chapter evaluates the contributions of three new national institutions: first, an upper chamber called the Senate, elected not from local districts but from geographically larger provinces or states; second, a nationally elected president with agenda and veto powers over legislative decisions; and third, an independent national court to interpret the ground rules for federal governance and, in particular, what constitutes meaningful local assignment and full representation of all citizens. In addition to these three constitutionally created institutions, it also considers the ability of national political parties, if they were to arise, to foster minority representation and to control an overreaching national legislature. Each of these four safeguards contributes positively to the performance of Democratic Federalism, but only if a majority of all citizens understands and support the ongoing contribution of these institutions to the goals of economic efficiency, democratic participation, and protection of rights.

Fist

This chapter discusses the guidelines for the needed federalism debate by outlining a sequence of evaluative questions that national policy-makers should consider before the passage of any national law that affects one or more of the three institutions of federalism: assignment as to who does what, the number of lower-tier governments, and representation of those governments to the national legislature. The proposed evaluation provides citizens with a Federalism Impact Statement, or FIST, for the proposed policy. As implemented, FIST begins with an analysis of the economic implications of each proposed central government policy by asking whether the national benefits of the policy outweigh its national costs, and whether there might be an alternative policy that is plausibly more efficient. If the proposed policy is viewed as inefficient, by itself or relative to alternative policies, then FIST asks whether there is evidence of, or plausible argument for, compensating benefits from improved local political participation, improved economic fairness, or increased protection of individual rights or liberties. If so, then FIST asks whether these noneconomic benefits can be achieved more efficiently. The execution of FIST would be by an independent agency, such as the Congressional Budget Office or the European Commission, while a national court could ensure that all relevant central government legislation acknowledge, though not necessarily accept, the content and conclusions of the FIST analysis.