Gender Cleavages Research Articles

Public Feelings toward ASEAN

What determines how ASEAN is perceived by the citizens of its member states? Most studies on ASEAN take a state-centric and elite-oriented viewpoint. We improve on this by bringing the people of ASEAN into the center of the analysis. Considering lessons from the European Union’s internal legitimacy crisis, we develop hypotheses on how skill-based economic interests, sociocultural beliefs, and assessments of national context shape people’s attitude to ASEAN. Our hypotheses are tested using the latest data from the Asian Barometer Survey, covering eight of the 10 ASEAN countries. We find that citizen confidence in domestic governance and a positive assessment of major extra-regional powers are associated with a closer identification with ASEAN. Our analysis also identifies age and gender cleavages. ASEAN affinity is higher among older rather than younger and male rather than female respondents. Our findings have important policy implications for the proponents of ASEAN.

Avoiding the subject? Gender gaps in interpersonal political conflict avoidance and its consequences for political engagement

Conflict is inherent to democratic politics, and citizens are regularly confronted with polarizing and conflicting viewpoints. Given this, surprisingly little research has systematically explored attitudes towards political conflict, and gender cleavages therein. Yet, women are known to generally engage less in politics, and a tendency to be more likely to avoid interpersonal political conflict than men may be an important barrier for women to get actively involved in politics. Therefore, using the 2011 British Democratic Disconnect and Political Participation Survey, we test whether a gender difference in political conflict avoidance exists, and how this matters for gender gaps in political engagement. We confirm that among our British sample, women feel less comfortable with interpersonal political conflict than men, even when controlling for political interest and efficacy. Furthermore, we find that political conflict avoidance is negatively related to participation in general and – to a lesser extent – to partisan-oriented political activities, independent of political interest and efficacy. In combination with political interest and efficacy, political conflict avoidance also helps to explain the gender gap in political engagement.

The gender gap in policy orientation: how relevant is locality?

The notion that policy orientation is gendered has important implications for both policy research and practical policymaking. If men and women differ in their policy orientation, policy action will equally differ depending on which group controls the levers of community politics/policy agenda. However, a substantial question still looms: are gender cleavages in policy orientation inevitable, or, do things change markedly according to locality? This research uses national probability sample data from Afghanistan to examine the extent to which locality shapes gender cleavages in policy orientation. The results posit that locality matters in two significant ways. First, it crystallises women's group interests. Secondly, it promotes policy 'convergence', to the extent that men and women living and operating in the same social space will tend to react to policy similarly. However, such a broad outlook does not preclude gender polarisation on policy matters. Women will align with their group interest even when that interest is at odds with their community's trajectory.

Looking for a new legitimacy: internal challenges within the Israeli Left

Considering current Israeli society in terms of the asymmetric power relations and privileges experienced by its heterogeneous population, this paper aims at questioning the role played by Israeli left-wing parties and grassroots organizations since the failure of the Oslo ‘peace process’, with a focus on the aftermath of the legislative elections of 2015. In general, most of the political initiatives led by the Zionist Left can be seen to have lost the internal legitimacy they need in order to challenge the assumptions underpinning the power asymmetries. By taking account of those narrative identities excluded from the mainstream Zionist Left discourse, among which are the Palestinian citizens of Israel, Mizrahi Jews, women's feminist activists and African asylum seekers, I attempt to problematize the ethnic, national, class and gender cleavages emerging in a situation which includes some complex instances of dispossession and marginalization. In a settler colonial context such as the one prevailing in Israel, I question whether the left-wing has been able to represent and to support the rights of the most marginalized communities and to face up to the neo-liberal and ethno-nationalist drift which is gathering increasing momentum inside the country. Deploying an approach that is contrary to the predominant narrative, which addresses the parties and the grassroots groups of the Israeli Left as types of activism based on a single and homogeneous platform, I draw attention to alternative socio-political initiatives that have often been silenced by the mainstream, such as those initiated by radical left-wingers, ‘48 Palestinians, Mizrahim, feminist activists, and also more recently by African migrants and asylum seekers. In this way, the paper also deals with the necessity of providing a means of expression for the critical points of view emerging from the most marginalized backgrounds of Israeli society, a need which is underlined by a good number of my interviewees, and a need which, if fulfilled, could enable the building up of a new and broader legitimacy within the Israeli leftist political arena.

Classificando ocupações prévias à entrada na política: uma discussão metodológica e um teste empírico

O artigo propõe uma discussão sobre definição, classificação e mensuração de posições sociais de origem para o estudo do recrutamento de elites políticas. Para tanto, apresenta diferentes estratégias teórico-metodológicas para enquadrar a variável "ocupação prévia à carreira parlamentar" e sugere a pertinência de um critério mais analítico que sociográfico na codificação das profissões daqueles que postulam ingressar no mundo político. Sustenta-se que o recrutamento político pode ser mais bem apreendido por meio de uma tipologia que leve em conta não apenas variáveis institucionais, mas, na linha sugerida por Max Weber, variáveis econômicas e sociais. No teste empírico dos critérios propostos neste artigo, foram utilizados dados sobre candidatos a deputado federal no Brasil em 2006 e 2010 para simular o rendimento de uma classificação alternativa. Essa classificação está baseada em três parâmetros: 1) a flexibilidade da carreira profissional do candidato (tempo livre e autonomia financeira), 2) a importância dessa ocupação numa dada comunidade (status social) e 3) sua afinidade prévia com os valores e as práticas do mundo político. O resultado revelou que clivagens sociais e clivagens de gênero podem ser reforçadas pelo tipo de atividade profissional exercida previamente pelos candidatos a parlamentar antes mesmo que filtros institucionais produzam seus efeitos.

Inclusion and Exclusion in the European Public Sphere

Can transnational public spheres be envisaged for Europe, which, in fact, create accountability – that is, spaces of critical articulations, control mechanisms, and political correctives to the governing levels? Can the political, as a critical force and the willingness to struggle and decide, be re-introduced into the public sphere? In which ways are race/ethnicity, class and gender cleavages being (re)presented and articulated in the public sphere and how do they intersect? In attempting to answer these questions, we aim this article at exploring the potential for a European discursive space pertaining to issues of gender and diversity. The empirical focus is on the views of political parties and social movements that are participating in public debates. Addressing the inclusions and exclusions in the European public sphere at the intersections of gender and racial/ethnic minorities, we look at the shifts in rhetoric, discourses and policies. As a result, we find common discursive patterns on the intersections between ethnicity and gender which, however, can at best be interpreted as a sign of the emergence of broader European public spheres. Only if these debates can be generalised, European public spheres fulfilling the functions of creating accountability and control mechanisms can develop.

Independence and the Creation of Nation-States in Iberian America: A Comparative Analysis of Portuguese and Spanish America

The process of nation-state building in Latin America was certainly not even; it took longer in some cases than in others; and the creation of new republics was far from being a generalized phenomenon, let alone a swift one. In the Americas, it can be said that only the United States constituted an exception, bringing the experiment of the modern republic into the world at the very first fracture of the Ancien R gime. Moreover, the American Revolution opened the way for both France and Haiti to also accelerate their own internal processes and move to the peak of the so-called Age of Revolutions. Nevertheless, even in the example of the early American republic, the structures of the modern nation-state would only be fully realized much later, in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was only in the aftermath of the Civil War, especially during the two decades following Reconstruction, that more Hamiltonian-like or centralized policies took place in America, promoted by a de facto national state project. Conversely, in the case of Iberian America, what could be perceived throughout the first half of the nineteenth century was a series of long-term political changes, initially triggered by the fall of the Spanish Empire and followed by decades of revolutions and wars of independence. Attempts at nation building took different directions among the various parts of the former Iberian empires, and the political map of the continent changed many times over during the post-revolutionary period. Liberalism and republicanism wrought many important changes to the principles of legitimization of political power, but there was no single republican model for Iberian American countries. The label of Republicanism itself applied at the time to a great variety of endeavours, some radical, others not, which brought about the development of many new political practices. Such practices certainly created modifications in the relationships between the 'many and the few' and, at the same time, extended and redefined the old borders of inclusion and exclusion for the new emergent polities. Class, ethnic, racial, and gender cleavages all need to be considered from this perspective, and the different connections these groups were to establish with the building of citizenship under the new order must be highlighted for each of the different societies under study. In short, diversity was what prevailed as 'the' pattern.

Citizenship beyond politics: the importance of political, civil and social rights and responsibilities among women and men1

AbstractPrevious research has suggested that men are more engaged as citizens than are women. Yet, little is known about gender cleavages across a variety of citizenship norms. To what extent do men and women define citizenship differently? To address that question, this study examines the importance men and women assign various citizenship rights and responsibilities using 2004 ISSP data from 18 Western, industrialized nations. Using a disaggregated approach to understanding definitions of citizenship, we examine political, civil, and social rights and responsibilities. After controlling for a variety of demographic and attitudinal influences, we find that men and women are not different in their views regarding the importance of political responsibilities. However, women do view political rights as significantly more important than do men. Further, in comparison to men, women view both civil and social responsibilities and rights domains as significantly more important.

Cleavage-based voting behavior in cross-national perspective: evidence from six postwar democracies

We investigate trends and cross-national variation in the impact of class, religious, and gender cleavages on voting behavior in six advanced capitalist democracies in the postwar period. Earlier research on cleavage voting has been criticized for utilizing outdated “two-class” models of class structure, simplistic left/right party distinctions, flawed statistical approaches, and incompatible and/or limited of cross-national empirical evidence. We take such criticisms seriously and seek to overcome them. Using multinomial logistic regression models, we analyze data from a new dataset, the International Social Cleavages and Politics (ISCP) file, which contains comparable, over-time cross-national data from 112 nationally representative election surveys of voters in six Western democracies in the period 1964–1998. The six countries examined in the paper (Australia, Austria, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States) are unique because of the existence of time series data available for all three cleavages. Our analyses examine the changing magnitude of the class, religion, and gender cleavages for up to five distinct party families for each country. Unskilled workers have become less distinctive in their partisan alignments over time, but other classes have experienced offsetting changes, yielding little evidence of a universal decline in the class cleavage. Further analyses suggest an important degree of stability in the aggregated effects of all social cleavages, while also revealing significant cross-national differences and trends in the magnitude of specific cleavages. These results refine debates concerning the possible decline of social cleavages; implications for research are discussed in conclusion.

Power Inequalities and the Institutions of Senegalese Development Organizations

Abstract: The focus on decentralization and civil society in Africa demands that scholars examine the factors that affect the institutions (i.e., rules and procedures) of local development organizations. Using two case studies from rural Senegal, this article investigates how the preferences of group participants, the authority positions of group actors, and the alternatives that individuals have shape the institutions of local organizations. The article then illustrates how the rules that emerge through institutional bargaining affect the decisions local organizations make about issues such as resource allocation and the implementation of development projects. Resume: Se concentrer sur la decentralisation et la societe civile en Afrique demande aux chercheurs d'examiner les facteurs affectant les institutions (c'est a dire les reglements et procedures) des organisations locales de developpement. En se basant sur deux cas d'etude dans le Senegal rural, cet article examine comment les preferences des participants au groupe, la position d'autorite des acteurs du groupe, et les alternatives proposees aux individus et offrant les memes benefices que ceux de l'organisation, faeonnent les institutions des organisations locales. Cet article illustre ensuite comment les reglements emergeant des negociations institutionnelles affectent les decisions prises par les organisations locales sur les problemes tels que l'allocation des ressources et la mise en oeuvre de projets de developpement. Introduction Since the 1980s, many sub-Saharan African governments and international donors have decentralized authority structures and emphasized community associations as a means of fostering development and grassroots democracy (Conyers 1983; Mutizwa-Mangiza & Conyers 1996; Wunsch & Olowu 1990; Ribot 1995; Tordoff 1994).J In addition, international aid agencies have directed more funds to local organizations (van de Walle & Johnston 1996). Despite these efforts, development in many sub-Saharan African countries has stagnated, as evidenced by weak agricultural production, declines in overall economic growth, increasing debt levels, and poor export production (New York Times, june 1, 2000; World Bank 1997). In addition, there is little evidence to suggest that decentralization has fostered democracy. Although these various problems cannot be blamed fully on ineffective governance, I believe that it is necessary to examine the institutions of local development organizations and the power inequalities that they often reflect in order to better understand the continent's problems. This article applies insights from various theories of institutionalism to case studies from rural Senegal. The purpose of the article is twofold. First, I examine how three variables affect the formation of institutions for local development organizations.2 These variables are the preferences of participants, the authority positions of the actors, and the opportunities for members to achieve the same benefits elsewhere. Though development organizations and their institutions are intricately connected, the primary focus of this article is on the institutions (i.e., the rules and procedures). Organizations are created with purposive intent, but it is institutions that shape organizational outcomes and the behavior of individuals within the organization (North 1990:5). The second purpose of the article is to illustrate that institutions have an enormous impact on development organizations. In the language of new institutionalism, one might say that institutions matter. I do not assume, however, that institutions that emerge from bargaining are necessarily as efficient, democratic, or effective as they could be. The lessons of the case studies have widespread applicability for state officials, international donors, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) officials who seek to design effective development initiatives. Scholars have approached sub-Saharan Africa's underdevelopment using several explanatory variables, including class, ethnic, and gender cleavages, as causal factors influencing underdevelopment (Fatton 1995; Horowitz 1985; Parpart & Staudt 1990). …

The Developmental Theory of the Gender Gap: Women’s and Men’s Voting Behavior in Global Perspective

Studies carried out in many countries in previous decades found that women were more conservative than men and less likely to participate in politics. Here, it is examined whether this traditional gender gap persists today, or whether gender cleavages in the electorate have converged, and whether the phenomenon of the modern gender gap, with women more left wing, has become evident elsewhere. The article draws on evidence from the World Values Surveys in the early 1980s, and the early and mid-1990s carried out in over sixty countries around the world. This study establishes that gender differences in electoral behavior have been realigning, with women moving toward the left of men throughout advanced industrial societies (though not in postcommunist societies or developing countries) and explores the reasons for this development, including the role of structural and cultural factors. The conclusion considers the political implications of the findings.

Group Size, Turnout, and Political Alignments and the Development of U.S. Party Coalitions,1960-1992

We propose an approach for analysing trends in the contributions of social groups to electoral coalitions, and apply this approach to an analysis of the impact of changes in the race, religion, class, and gender cleavages on coalitions in U.S. Presidential elections between 1960 and 1992. We improve on existing studies of party coalitions by developing a multivariate model that measures group-specific political alignments while also correcting for changes in group size and turnout rates. Our analyses show that there have been significant changes in the contributions of different social groups to major party coalitions: the Democrats now receive more votes from professionals (and to a lesser extent, managers), blacks, and non-religious persons, and fewer votes from working-class voters; the Republican coalition has gained among managers (and to a lesser extent, professionals), while losing out significantly among liberal Protestants, blacks, and non-working voters. The analyses provide evidence of a slight convergence amidst a larger pattern of enduring group-based differences within the Democratic and Republican coalitions. The approach developed here can readily be extended to study electoral coalitions in other national contexts

Deconstructing the Political Spectacle: Sex, Race, and Subjectivity in Public Response to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill "Sexual Harassment" Hearings

Extending Edelman's (1988) analysis of the constructed, phenomenal nature of political spectacles, this research employs Q-methodology as a means of interrogating the range of meanings implicit in public reaction to televised hearings held by the U.S. Senate in connection with Anita Hill's charges of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Results disclose a range of five alternative, subjective constructions of the same set of events. The accounts so revealed are examined in light of the diverse subjectivity they manifest as well as in terms of their ties to race and gender cleavages within the viewing audience. A concluding discussion makes note of the implications for the further analysis of politics as spectacle.

Gender Cleavages and the Resolution of Local Policy Issues

This paper presents the results of a decisional analysis of 30 recent policy issues in Lawrence, Kansas, a setting having several characteristics conducive to the effective participation of women. On 20 of these issues, cleavages or differences were observed involving men and women activists and policymakers; such cleavages were much less prevalent among citizens at large. Gender cleavages involving policymakers and activists were found to overlap only partially with other types of cleavages. Particularly on issues with stronger cleavages, the views of men tended to prevail over those of women. This greater responsiveness to the preferences of men than to the preferences of women was not adequately explained by the greater participation of men, for regression models suggest that policy changes are more sensitive to increases in men's participation than to increases in women's participation. Explanations of such gender bias are briefly explored. Do political communities adopt public policies that reflect equally the preferences of women and men political actors, or, alternatively, do communities exhibit gender bias: an unequal pattern of policy responsiveness such that the preferences of men are more reflected in policy decisions than are those of women? The importance of this question is strongly implied by democratic theorists who assert that unequal influence in political communities should be the result of germane factors such as intensity of concern (Kendall and Carey, 1968), political participation (Cohen, 1971, pp. 17-22), or persuasiveness (Walzer, 1983, p. 304) and should not be the result of extraneous factors such as personal