Jan Crawford of NOW moderates a workshop in sexism in the media at the "Sexism in the Schools" conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

"Sexism in the Schools" conference at P.S. 41 about sex biases in high schools

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Flyer at Sexism in the Schools Conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Crisis communication in politics: forgiveness as image restoration tool

Crisis communication is a widely treated field. There are lot of works and guides which provide helpful information in order to face crisis situations successfully (Alcat, 2005, Benoit, 1997) and articles about case studies (Nespereira, 2014, Blaney y Benoit 2001). Nonetheless, most of times, these guides are focused on business or corporations (Abeler, 2010) and there are not such information about crisis communications in politics (Gaspar e Ibeas, 2015). The field is smaller if we speak about forgiveness as restoration image tool in politics (Harris 2006). Despite all, we live in “forgiveness era” as Krauze said (1998) where people demand to politicians to apologize when they have mistakes (Harris et al. 2006:716). So, we will try to make an approach to forgiveness in politics as a image restoration tool and analyze its capabilities in order to face crisis management.

Crises and Crisis Generations: International Conflict and Military Participation in Politics

Why do states facing high levels of international threat sometimes have militaries that are heavily involved in politics and at other times relatively apolitical, professional militaries? I argue that the answer to this puzzle lies in a state's history of 'acute' international crises rather than its 'chronic' threat environment. Major international crises lead to professionalization and de-politicization of militaries in both the short- and long-term. International crises underscore the need for the military to defend the state and highlight military deficiencies in this regard. Accordingly, major international crises lead to military professionalization and withdrawal from politics in order to increase military effectiveness. This effect persists years, and decades, later due to generational shifts in the officer corps. As the "Crisis Generation" of officers become generals, they bring with them a preference for professionalization and de-politicization. They guide the military towards abstention from politics. I test this theory using a new global dataset on military officers in national governing bodies from 1964-2008 and find strong support for the theory. Major international crises lead to two waves of military withdrawal from government, years apart. Further statistical analysis finds that this effect is most strongly felt in the non-security areas of governing, while in some cases, international crises may lead to militaries increasing their involvement in security policy-making. Further, international crises that end poorly for a state — i.e., defeats or stalemates — are found to drive more rapid waves of military withdrawal from government. The statistical analysis is supported by a case illustration of civil-military relations in the People's Republic of China, which demonstrates that the crisis of the Korean War (1950-53) led to two waves of military professionalization and de-politicization, decades apart. The first occurred immediately after the war. The second wave, occurring in the 1980s, involved wholesale military withdrawal from governing bodies, which was made possible by the ascent of the "Crisis Generation" of officers in the military, who had served as junior officers in the Korean War, decades prior.

Democratic Legitimacy and the Politics of Rights : A comparative analysis of the conceptual relationship between democracy and rights in contemporary political theories

Democratic Legitimacy and the Politics of Rights is a research in normative political theory, based on comparative analysis of contemporary democratic theories, classified roughly as conventional liberal, deliberative democratic and radical democratic. Its focus is on the conceptual relationship between alternative sources of democratic legitimacy: democratic inclusion and liberal rights. The relationship between rights and democracy is studied through the following questions: are rights to be seen as external constraints to democracy or as objects of democratic decision making processes? Are individual rights threatened by public participation in politics; do constitutionally protected rights limit the inclusiveness of democratic processes? Are liberal values such as individuality, autonomy and liberty; and democratic values such as equality, inclusion and popular sovereignty mutually conflictual or supportive? Analyzing feminist critique of liberal discourse, the dissertation also raises the question about Enlightenment ideals in current political debates: are the universal norms of liberal democracy inherently dependent on the rationalist grand narratives of modernity and incompatible with the ideal of diversity? Part I of the thesis introduces the sources of democratic legitimacy as presented in the alternative democratic models. Part II analyses how the relationship between rights and democracy is theorized in them. Part III contains arguments by feminists and radical democrats against the tenets of universalist liberal democratic models and responds to that critique by partly endorsing, partly rejecting it. The central argument promoted in the thesis is that while the deconstruction of modern rationalism indicates that rights are political constructions as opposed to externally given moral constraints to politics, this insight does not delegitimize the politics of universal rights as an inherent part of democratic institutions. The research indicates that democracy and universal individual rights are mutually interdependent rather than oppositional; and that democracy is more dependent on an unconditional protection of universal individual rights when it is conceived as inclusive, participatory and plural; as opposed to robust majoritarian rule. The central concepts are: liberalism, democracy, legitimacy, deliberation, inclusion, equality, diversity, conflict, public sphere, rights, individualism, universalism and contextuality. The authors discussed are e.g. John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Iris Young, Chantal Mouffe and Stephen Holmes. The research focuses on contemporary political theory, but the more classical work of John S. Mill, Benjamin Constant, Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt is also included.

Gender, Politics and Democratisation in Cameroon

Gender perceptions, religious belief systems, and political thought have excluded women from politics, for ages, around the world. Combining feminist and modernisation theorists in my theoretical framework, I examine the trends in patriarchal Europe and I highlight the gender-sensitive model of the Nordic countries. Retracing local gender patterns from precolonial to postcolonial eras in sub-Saharan Africa, I explore the links between perceptions, needs, resources, education and women's political participation in Cameroon. Democratisation is supposed to open up political participation, to grant equal opportunities to all adults. One ironic feature of the liberalisation process in Cameroon has been the decrease of women in parliamentarian representation (14% in 1988, 6% in 1992, 5% in 1997 and 10% in 2002). What social, cultural and institutional mechanisms produced this paradoxical outcome, the exclusion of half the population? The gender complementarity of the indigenous context has been lost to male prevalence privileged by education, church, law, employment, economy and politics in the public sphere; most women are marginalised in the private sphere. Nation building and development have failed; ethnicism and individualism are growing. Some hope lies in the growing civil society. From two surveys and 21 focus groups across Cameroon, in 2000 and 2002, some significant results of the processed empirical data reveal low electoral registration (34.5% women and 65.9% men), contrasted by the willingness to run for municipal elections (33.3 % women and 45.2% men). The co-existence of customary and statutory laws, the corrupt political system and fraudulent practices, contribute to the marginalisation of women and men who are interested in politics. A large majority of female respondents consider female politicians more trustworthy and capable than their male counterparts; they even foresee the appointment of a female Prime Minister. The Nordic countries have institutionalised gender equality in their legislation, policies and practices. France has improved women's political inclusion with the parity laws; Rwanda is another model of women's representation, thanks to its post-conflict constitution. From my analysis, Cameroonian institutions, men and more so women, may learn and borrow from these experiences, in order to design and implement a sustainable and gender-balanced democracy. Keywords: democratisation, politics, gender equality, feminism, citizenship, Cameroon, Nordic countries, Finland, France, United Kingdom, quotas, societal social psychology.

Why Ideas Matter in International Relations : Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and the Moral Construction of Power Politics

Williams, Mike, 'Why ideas matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and the Moral Construction of Power Politics', International Organization (2004) 58(4) pp.633-665 RAE2008

Equalising opportunities for women in electoral politics in Ireland: The Views of Women Members of Parliament

This paper examines the attitudes of women political elites in Ireland toward positive action initiatives that would assist in increasing women's legislative presence. An earlier study isolated family responsibilities and lack of finance as significant barriers for Irish women wishing to enter, and stay in, political life. In addition, scholarly and policy debates on boosting women's parliamentary representation focus on manipulating electoral or party selection rules along with strategies for making a political career more compatible with women's socially determined responsibilities. This paper examines how Irish women politicians respond to various suggestions for positive action in these three arenas: combining legislative and family responsibilities, funding a political campaign and getting elected. The paper highlights the broad consensus among women politicians, irrespective of party, self-interest, or length of service, favoring certain positive action initiatives, as well as their reluctance to support other options. It also illustrates the complexity of implementing some of these reforms. In addition, the paper emphasizes how cultural expectations and values act to inhibit women's political agency.

Subtle sexism : re-informing intergroup bias and regulating emotion in an Australian police organization

From a liberal feminist perspective, we argue that gender can both inform and should continue to be informed by social identity studies in efforts to understand and manage subtle sexism in contemporary workplaces. We investigated the presence of a form of subtle sexism, affective aversive sexism, in an Australian male-dominated organization: a police force. To do this we surveyed 159 policemen and examined relationships between individual emotional experience, emotional intensity and emotion regulation. Results indicated that, in a subtle display of intergroup bias, policemen experienced both higher positive and higher negative emotions in the presence of other policemen than of policewomen who, we argue, may be less central in the men's identities and relationships at work. Implications for research, training, and emotion management in the workplace are discussed and it is suggested that liberal feminist research can contribute much to understanding the dynamics that reproduce structural segregation in the workplace.

Sexist attitudes in Australia are on the rise, young women tell gender study

Women aged from 14 to 25 say they will avoid certain careers because of sexism and less than 1% want to be in politics.

Gender politics, women's rights and international norms in Lebanon

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the reasons for the under-representation of women in politics in Lebanon, and the role of international norms of gender equality in bringing about change. For those questions, I examined the particular relevance of confessionalism arguing that a confessional social structure and political system empower patriarchal forms of organization with detrimental effects to women's political participation. This dissertation makes innovative contributions to two types of literature. First, literature on the barriers to women being elected into political office has put strong emphasis on electoral systems of representation, but has rarely addressed the way in which electoral systems that seek to ensure minority representation – such as the confessional system in Lebanon – operate to keep women out of politics. This study provides an important corrective to this literature by exploring a non-Western case and broadening theorizing on the issue. Second, constructivist literature in the field of International Relations has argued that international norms of gender equality – including gender quotas – have diffused throughout the 20th century. This research illustrates the mechanisms that counteract international diffusion, and adds to our understanding of how international norms are translated into domestic contexts.

Are we keeping the bastards honest? Perceptions of corruption, integrity and influence on politics

The words of the late Don Chipp, the founder of the Australian Democrats, have a perennial relevance to politics. When Chipp talked about ‘keeping the bastards honest’, it related to a minor political party playing a role of keeping the major political parties true to their word (Warhurst 1997). Yet it is also a democratic role that citizens play on an ongoing basis, particularly through the mechanism of elections. At the ballot box, governments that are widely perceived to have acted with a lack of integrity are roundly punished. This chapter explores public opinion on issues of integrity, corruption, influence and trust in politics and politicians in Australia. The evidence paints a differentiated picture of a public which sees little sign of overtly corrupt political practices but on the other hand does not feel terribly influential and is not always confident of fair treatment from public officials...

Investigative Essentials for Journalists in Multicultural and Diverse Communities

This chapter describes how investigative journalism can uncover news that often goes unreported about personalities, problems, ways of life and pressing issues in ethnic and religious sub-communities. While investigative journalism is traditionally understood as reporting that exposes corrupt, inefficient, incompetent or other inappropriate conduct in politics and business circles, investigative reporters do far more than that. They also map human activities, landmarks, patterns and changes in the landscape, and connections across the whole of society. This type of investigative journalism can improve reporting of ethnic and religious sub-communities via identification, deep observation and analysis of trends, events, and issues that would otherwise remain hidden or obscured. The chapter includes details of techniques that investigative journalists can employ to identify interesting topics, find sources of information, analyse data and issues, and report compelling stories.