Political Representation Research Articles

Unveiling the Consequences of Parliamentary Thresholds on the Quality and Quantity of Political Representation in Multi-Party Systems

Unveiling the Consequences of Parliamentary Thresholds on the Quality and Quantity of Political Representation in Multi-Party Systems

Insiders Versus Outsiders: A Comparative Study of Female Politician’s Social Media use

In the past, the media had a tendency to neglect women's issues, thereby restricting their visibility concerning development endeavours and political representation. However, this is changing due to technological advancements. Social media offers female politicians access to millions of users, freedom to interact directly with the electorate, bypass gatekeepers and opportunities for self-promotion. This research aims to investigate female politicians' social media use during their legislative terms with a focus on their self-presentation and the policy issues they support. The study involves content analysis of six female politicians from countries with a much lower female representation than their regional counterparts; three from Kenya and three from Hungary who have the highest number of followers on Twitter and Facebook respectively. The data was collected over a three-month period. The visuals were coded using 3 variables based on the insider and outsider perspective (Gulati 2004) while the text was coded in accordance with the 21 policy agendas defined by the Comparative Agendas Project codebook (Baumgartner 2019). The results indicate that a majority of female politicians in both countries, in the ruling parties presented themselves as insiders while those in the opposition presented themselves as outsiders. The insiders were majorly characterized by wearing of formal clothing, an important element of statesmanship, that portrays them as ideal candidates. In addition, the insiders' social media use was characterized by original content while outsiders reshared articles and retweets. Both Kenyan and Hungarian female politicians addressed women related policy issues. There were however some differences in social media use and self-presentation between the female politicians of the two countries such as the sharing of personal information and family pictures. The limitation of this study is that it does not fully represent the views and use of social media of all female politicians in Kenya and Hungary.

Unveiling obstacles and Possibilities for Gender Equality in Governance Structures in Tanzania

Tanzania has made stride in enhancing women’s political representation through initiatives such as gender quotas and reserved seats in parliament. However, the translation of representation into substantive participation and influence remains a challenge. The paper employs and adopts a survey design with a descriptive approach, utilizing questionnaire for data collection. The collected data from 230 civil servants underwent descriptive analysis. The findings shed light on various challenges including limited representation, discriminatory legal frameworks, sociocultural barriers, restricted access to resources, institutional biases, violence/harassment, lack of gendersensitive policies, underrepresentation in leadership, and inadequate support systems. These challenges collectively underscore the barriers to gender equality in Tanzanian governance structures. The paper concludes that while Tanzania has witnessed advancement in women’s political representation, there are persistent challenges impeding substantive gender equality in governance structures. The paper recommends the following: implement gender –sensitive policies, enact legal reforms to remove barriers, strengthen women’s empowerment programs, conduct education and awareness campaigns, undertake institutional reforms to address biases, and foster supportive leadership to create an inclusive and equitable governance environment that enables women to actively participate in decision making process and contribute to positive governance outcomes.

Transformations Of the Actor's Performance in The Political Theater

يعد المسرح السياسي أحد أشكال الفن الذي يحمل في طياته رسالة توعية وتأثيرًا اجتماعيًا قويًا. إنَّ المسرح في هذا السياق ليس مجرد وسيلة ترفيهية، بل هو منبر فني يستند إلى الفكر والتعبير الفني لاستكشاف قضايا الحاضر والمستقبل. ويقدم المسرح السياسي نافذة فريدة إلى التفاعل بين الفن والواقع السياسي، حيث يتيح للجمهور فهم القضايا المعقدة بشكل أعمق وتحليلها من خلال رؤية فنية.إنَّ المسرح السياسي يشكل مساحة فنية حية تعكس التحولات والتطورات في المجتمعات، حيث يسلط الضوء على الصراعات السياسية، والظلم الاجتماعي، والتحديات الإنسانية. والمسرح هنا وسيلة لتحفيز النقاش العام وتشجيع التفكير النقدي، مما يساهم في بناء وعي جماعي حول القضايا الهامة.وهذا البحث يهدف إلى استكشاف دور المسرح السياسي كوسيلة فعّالة لتشكيل وجهة نظر الجمهور حيال القضايا السياسية المعاصرة. وذلك من خلال الممثل الذي يعرض الشخصيات على المسرح بطريقة فنية، اذ يأتي دور الممثل كجزء حيوي من هذه العملية الفنية والاجتماعية. والممثل ليس فقط ناقلًا للنصوص والشخصيات، بل هو أيضًا وسيلة فعّالة لنقل رسائل وفهم معاني القضايا المعاصرة. وتناول البحث مفهوم المسرح السياسي وتطوره على مر العصور، مع التركيز على كيفية تأثيره في تشكيل الرأي العام وتحفيز التفكير النقدي.كما تناول البحث أهمية اللغة الفنية المستخدمة في المسرح السياسي، وكيف تتجلى الشخصيات والأحداث على المسرح كوسيلة لاستعراض وفهم التحولات السياسية. وتضمن البحث اربعة فصول. كان الفصل الاول هو الإطار المنهجي للبحث من مشكلة البحث واهمية البحث واهداف البحث وحدود البحث. وتناول المبحث الثاني الإطار النظري للبحث واشتمل على مبحثين ومن ثم مؤشرات الإطار النظري. اما المبحث الثالث فقد تضمن مجتمع البحث وتحليل عينة مسرحية سياسية. واخيرا الفصل الرابع الذي يحوي النتائج والاستنتاجات وقائمة المصادر والمراجع.

Challenging Liberal Principles: Understanding of Democracy among Populist Radical Right Youth Leaders in Austria and Germany

ABSTRACT Responding to the growing political success of populist radical right parties, scholars have increasingly examined those parties relationship to democracy. While some consider these parties as a democratic corrective to a crisis of political representation, others point to their ideological conflict with the principles of liberal democracy. We contribute to this debate by exploring the understanding of democracy of populist radical right youth leaders. Specifically, we conducted nine qualitative semi-structured expert interviews with leaders and executive members of the populist radical right youth wings in Austria (Ring Freiheitlicher Jugend/RFJ) and Germany (Junge Alternative/JA). To determine their understanding of democracy, we utilised a vignette technique to simulate governmental decision-making in resolving specific political scenarios. The findings indicate that although the youth leaders recognise democracy as such, their understanding of democracy contains majoritarian and anti-egalitarian aspects that might indirectly curtail liberal principles of democracy. This study thus provides an in-depth analysis of the motivations underlying the intentions of populist radical right youth leaders toward potential transformations of democratic institutions.

SIMULATION INTELLECTUAL SIGN #Aniespresiden2024 IN SOCIAL MEDIA BIGDATA ANALYSIS

Talking about 2024 is of course talking about the political year in Indonesia. 2024 is the year when legislative candidates and of course presidential and vice presidential candidates will begin to fight. Currently, one of the presidential candidates from the party that is the current government party is Anies Baswedan. Based on what has been regulated in political ethics and election ethics, it is certainly not allowed to campaign by presidential candidates before the campaign period is carried out, but what happened was the emergence of social media content from Anies Baswedan containing campaigns with disguised signs and also camouflaged content so that what the public eye sees presented in cyberspace is only the content of his daily activities. This study aims to determine how Anies Baswedan’s political branding simulation in preparation for the 2024 Presidential Election. This research uses simulation analysis on Jean Baudrillarde’s theory based on big data analysis on Tiktok social media through content related to Anies’ candidacy as a 2024 Presidential candidate. The focus of the research is the arrangement and meaning of #aniesPresiden2024 signs and messages on mainstream social media received by the digital community and then forming a simulation of Anies Baswedan’s political branding which is the result of the digital communication process towards Anies’ political representation as a 2024 presidential candidate. The results of this study found that tiktok social media has a huge influence on the political branding of anies baswedan, digital society widely receives and consumes information related to the intellectual sign of anies baswedan.

Analyzing Monarchy and Republicanism in Machiavelli's The Prince: A Corpus-Based Study of Political Representations

This research filled a research gap in the utilization of corpus and discourse analysis in The Prince. Niccol Machiavellis paramount treatise, The Prince, persists in generating scholarly discourse and contentious discussions due to its forthright examination of political expediency within the turbulent milieu of Renaissance Italy. Although Machiavelli's impact permeates the discipline of political science, the preponderance of examinations of his oeuvre has been conducted from political and philosophical perspectives, resulting in a dearth of analysis from a linguistic standpoint. Traditional discourse analysis has played a critical role in investigating attitudes, but it tends to focus on a small number of texts only, which leads to concerns from the perspective of statistics. This study aims to use a new prevailing method combining corpus-based research with manual text analysis, to investigate Machiavellis attitudes toward Republics, by analyzing his famous work The Prince. An analytical model based on the attitude schema is proposed to explicate the strategies for encoding attitudes. Analysis shows that Machiavellis attitudes towards Republicanism are characterized by a series of positive judgments of propriety, creating a positive image of Republicanism, whereas when Republicanism is mentioned, his attitudes are characterized by his favor. It is found that negative attitudes are always expressed implicitly by recounting events that elicit the attitudes (i.e. behaviors of the monarchies or republics) and performing speech acts that are motivated by the attitudes.

Commonsense sovereignty: a practice theory of Flanders’ paradiplomacy to the European Union

ABSTRACT European regions implement up to 70% of EU legislation, yet they are generally considered ‘objects’ rather than ‘subjects’ of European governance. This article proposes an original conceptual framework derived from practice theory in IR for the analysis of regional paradiplomacy in multilateral institutions. Through a case study of the Delegation of Flanders to the EU based on interviews with Flemish and Federal members of the Belgian Permanent Representation, this research contributes to the literature on paradiplomacy by critically examining the commonsense acceptance that sovereign authority can be delegated to substate actors while the unity of sovereign political representation must remain unchallenged. The analysis therefore shows that regional strategies of engagement with the EU are not only determined by formal institutions but are also shaped by taken for granted understandings of sovereignty which set the standards of competent diplomatic practice and inclusion for substate representatives.

Improving Women’s Representation in Politics through Gender Quotas

Gender quotas for women in local government bodies can improve women’s representation in politics, increase provision of public services, and improve perceptions of women as leaders. Gender quotas are one policy tool designed to increase women’s representation in politics. Women hold fewer than 25 percent of parliamentary seats worldwide, and just 12 percent of the world’s heads of state and government are women. In many countries this imbalance extends to local governments. Countries are taking action In 2013, 118 countries were implementing a form of gender quotas for an elected office. Women's empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society, including participation in the decision making process and access to power ,are fund a mental for the achievement to fequality , development and peace. One way to implement gender quotas is by reserving a certain number of leadership positions for women. A review of eleven randomized evaluations in India, Lesotho, and across 28 states in India found that reservation quotas influenced women’s political participation and policy outcomes and increased the provision of public goods aligned with female voters’ preferences. Further, quotas improved men’s perceptions of women as leaders, increased the aspirations of girls, and helped women get elected even after quotas were removed. Most of the rigorous research drawn on in this insight comes from India comparative conclusions should be drawn cautiously. This evidence largely suggests that governments seeking to improve women’s representation in politics should consider reservation quotas for local leadership positions. overview of the three main types of quota policies reserved seats, party quotas, and legislative quotas. These are found in all major world regions in countries with a broad range of institutional, social, economic, and cultural characteristics. At the same time, the mere advent of gender quotas has not resulted in uniform increases in the percentage of women in parliament worldwide some countries have witnessed dramatic increases, while others have seen more modest changes or even setbacks in the number of women elected to national assemblies. Despite the rapid international diffusion of these measures, most research has focused on single countries or, at most, the presence of quotas within one world region. Consequently, explanations for the adoption and impact of gender quotas derived from one study often contradict .

Political competition and representation in municipal councils

ABSTRACT I study whether the numbers of high- and low-social status-individuals in French municipal councils are affected by the level of political competition. I argue that because the most-eligible positions within lists of candidates are obtained by high-social-status persons, political competition increases the number of high-status municipal councilors and is thus detrimental to the election of low-social-status candidates. Using the elections of 2008 and 2014, I provide suggestive evidence that the socioeconomic status of individuals is indeed correlated with their position within lists of candidates. Moreover, I show that the presence of an additional competing list during an election is associated with 0.2 additional high-social-status individuals within the municipal councils. I also observe that those additional municipal councilors are males, which is a result that might have been caused by the gender quota policy implemented in French local elections.

How to study political parties: from civil society to the state and back. The Peter Mair lecture 2023

ABSTRACT Cartel party theory has put the study of party-state relations high on the research agenda, deliberately shifting the focus of researchers away from an understanding of political parties on the basis of their relationship with civil society or, indeed, as part of civil society itself. As fruitful as this reorientation has been, this essay argues that the resulting emphasis on ‘parties as governors’ has produced downsides of its own. Cartel party theory reinforced a separation of the study of parties from the study of other membership organizations considered the very fabric of civil societies. While their governing role makes parties distinct from the latter, I argue that what parties do and how they function should be also assessed against other organizations such as interest groups or associations through which citizens engage in joint activities including but not restricted to political interest representation. The contention is that bringing the study of party back to civil society will generate a broader understanding of the possible roles political parties can (or cannot) play in contemporary democracy than an exclusive study of party as a separate genus.

An Interpretive Case Study of Chinese New Zealanders’ Participation in Non-elected Representation

This paper adopts Michael Saward’s representative claims theory to analyze Chinese New Zealanders’ participation in non-elected representation. It explores how they made representative claims and examines the democratic legitimacy of their claims. Based on an interpretive analysis of in-depth interviews with 38 Chinese New Zealanders, I found age-based and educational-level-based patterns of how they participate in non-elected representation. Individuals and Chinese associations made representative claims based on various grounds. However, the democratic legitimacy of individual-made claims and association-made claims varied. When interviewees made representative claims, they cherished the claims’ instrumental goals and intrinsic values. These findings expand our knowledge of Chinese New Zealanders’ political participation and representation. This paper also analyzes the difference between making representative claims and political advocacy. It deepens our understanding of non-elected representation.

Till Death Do Us Part

The so-called Kulturkampf, the conflict between the German Reich and the Catholic Church in the 1870s and 1880s, is one of the most important ideological conflicts of the late nineteenth century and reveals a political theological dynamic characteristic of the modern (German) nation state. This paper analyzes the paradoxes of this conflict along the lines with Eric Santner’s analysis of political representations. During the Kulturkampf, Catholic citizens were publicly suspected of not being loyal Germans, and the Catholic Church is widely figured as an (inner) enemy in the liberal press and in modern caricatures. In these polemics, numerous political theological figures emerge: images of a gendered relation of domination of the (female) church by the (male) state, phantasies of the body politic and its precarious unity as well as of its purification respectively of the extermination of its others that continue to determine other ideological conflicts in the twentieth century.

Using cluster analysis to identify communities of interest for purposes of legislative redistricting: A case study of parishes in Louisiana

The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology has been found to limit the kinds of communities that can in principle achieve political representation through redistricting because the process excludes “communities of interest” (COIs) that cannot be mapped. We argue that these limits can be overcome using empirically based variables to define a COI in conjunction with an empirically based classification system, cluster analysis. Our argument is based on a case study of a legislative redistricting case in which we examined the cultural, economic, demographic, historic, and social characteristics upon which a COI would be defined. We employed an empirically and scientifically based classification system called “cluster analysis” to determine if these two geographically-separated groups of parishes form a single COI, which, in turn, would serve as a justification for them being placed together into reorganized congressional District 5. We find that East Carroll Parish and its six neighboring parishes (Franklin, Madison, Morehouse, Richland, Tensas, and West Carroll) are in a different COI grouping than East Baton Rouge Parish. Moreover, from the COI perspective, East Baton Rouge Parish should not be included in proposed plans involving a proposed RCD5 that include East Carroll Parish and its six neighboring parishes. This finding also applies to Lafayette Parish, both in whole and in part. This finding is not only relevant because COIs are important in redistricting, but it demonstrates that the limits identified in regard to the use of GIS-based technology in identifying COIs can be surmounted.

TRADITIONAL DOWRY IN REPRESSING PAPUAN WOMEN’S POLITICAL REPRESENTATION JAYAPURA CITY LEGISLATIVE 2014-2019

This research investigated the impact of traditional dowry payments on the low political representation of indigenous Papuan women in the Jayapura City legislature from 2014 to 2019. Despite the election of four indigenous Papuan women to the Jayapura City legislature in 2014, there remains a significant gap in representation. This qualitative research gathered data through interviews with 30 respondents, including seven influential community figures, seven husbands of indigenous Papuan women, six Papuan students, two lecturers, three members of political parties, two female Papuan legislators, one representative from the General Election Commission, one member of the Papuan People’s Council, and the head of the Population and Civil Registry Service. Observational data were gathered from the General Election Commission Office and the indigenous Papuan community in Jayapura City. Documentation review further supplemented the research, focusing on legislative representation data, voter turnout, and customary dowry payment records for indigenous Papuan women. The data underwent rigorous re-validation to ensure the analysis accurately reflected the reality of how traditional dowry practices hinder the political participation of indigenous Papuan women in the Jayapura City legislature during the specified period. The findings reveal that the obligation for indigenous Papuan women to adhere to their husbands’ directives, a consequence of dowry payments, significantly limits their ability to engage in political activities, including legislative candidacy and community campaigning. This restriction was exemplified in the 2019 election, where only one indigenous Papuan woman was elected to the Jayapura City legislature.

The Politics of Youth Representation at Climate Change Conferences: Who Speaks, Who Is Spoken of, and Who Listens?

Abstract In this article, we examine how young climate activists make use of the United Nations (UN) constituency system to give voice to children and youth in global climate governance. Our study is based on a mapping of accredited youth nongovernmental organizations (YOUNGO) as well as fieldwork at two UN Climate Change Conferences, where we conducted interviews, observed events, and analyzed plenary interventions. Informed by constructivist accounts of political representation, the article pays attention to the performative relationship between institutionalized means of youth representation and “the represented.” When analyzing our material, we asked who speaks for youth, how youth are spoken of, and how institutions shape representative speech. Our study identifies three subject positions that offer competing interpretations of who youth are as a political community and what they want. Rather than taking youth’s demands and interests as a starting point for representative politics, the article illustrates how the UN constituency system actively constructs youth and effectively molds young climate activists into professional insiders.

“Gender wars” and populist politics in South Korea

The 2022 South Korean presidential election campaign saw populist politicians, especially conservative parties, leverage gender conflicts and misogyny to attract young male swing voters. But there has been limited scholarly attention to the connection between gender and populist politics, particularly in South Korea, with research primarily focused on women's voting patterns, their political party representation, and on populist politics in the US, Europe, and Latin America. Existing research identifies that common strategies employed by populist politicians include anti-feminist discourses, reference to crises in masculinity, and appeals to emotion and affect. This paper examines how South Korean populist politics has utilized gender conflicts since democratization, considering the evolution of ‘gender wars’ in the South Korean context. It specifically delves into the strategies employed by conservative populist politicians from the People Power Party (PPP) during the 2022 election campaigns. These strategies, although similar to those of right-wing populists in Europe and the US, emphasized three key issues unique to South Korea: compulsory military service, low fertility rates, and the dismantling of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. This South Korean case contributes significantly to academic discussions about populist politics and gender, contextualized within the local political, social, and cultural context.

For a Justice-to-Come: Milo Rau’s Utopian Realism

One of the most prolific political theatre makers in Europe today, Milo Rau is known for his commitment to a realist art of possibility—a “Möglichkeitsrealismus,” as he defines it, devoted to opening space for envisioning possible alternatives to the status quo. Drawing on Ernst Bloch’s writings on utopia, this article argues for an understanding of Rau’s artistic practice as a kind of “concrete utopianism” that materially engages the world so as to imagine—and enact—new possibilities for improvement and transformation. Via a reading of Rau’s Kongo Tribunal (2015), an attempt is made to show how, by staging the tribunal in the here and now of performance, the artist seeks to disclose the real but not yet realized possibilities available in the present, giving form to an alternative institutionality—and an alternative practice of justice—that is made fully graspable in the imagination and in reality. As a material act of imagining otherwise, the Kongo Tribunal refuses the closure of the present, inviting spectators to step back and recognize the institutionalized forms of law and justice not as fixed but variable—and thus (still) open to change.

THEORETICALLY DEFINING THE GENDERED EMPOWERMENT AND QUOTA REPRESENTATION

Democracies are seen as synonyms for political participation and representation. With the global wave of feminism, empowerment and political representation of women were seen as essential tools for delivering gender justice; they detected vulnerability based on gender. The aspect of empowerment is necessary to define the unequal power dynamics based on social gender norms. In contrast, political representation is seen as a way to reform the vulnerability. Feminism's recent global wave pushed the government to reconsider its patriarchal policies and accommodate the representation of women. The current paper looks into the various aspects of the women's empowerment and Representation debate.

Laborarte: decolonial pioneering in the maranhense theater

This research aims to investigate the impact of Laborarte on the Brazilian theater, with a focus on its decolonial approach. Its theoretical framework encompasses decolonial theories, political theater, and the Maranhense culture. This study aims to analyze Laborarte’s contribution to deconstructing stereotypes, promoting local culture, and fostering social justice in the Maranhense theater. Its methodology includes an analysis of theatrical texts, interviews, and historical context analysis. Results highlight Laborarte’s pioneering role in theatrical decolonization, influencing subsequent productions to embrace an inclusive and just perspective of the Maranhense reality.