'A Job in Politics is not for Woman': Analysing Barriers to Women's Political Representation in CEE

This article discusses women’s political representation in Central and Eastern Europe in the fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the adoption of liberal democratic political systems in the region. It highlights the deepseated gender stereotypes that define women primarily as wives and mothers, with electoral politics seen as an appropriate activity for men, but less so for women. The article explores the ways in which conservative attitudes on gender roles hinders the supply of, and demand for, women in the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. It also discusses the manner in which the internalisation of traditional gender norms affects women’s parliamentary behaviour, as few champion women’s rights in the legislatures of the region. The article also finds that links between women MPs and women’s organisations are weak and fragmented, making coalition-building around agendas for women’s rights problematic.

Perspectives for quantum state engineering via high nonlinearity in a double-EIT regime

We analyse the possibilities for quantum state engineering offered by a model for Kerr-type nonlinearity enhanced by electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), which was recently proposed by Petrosyan and Kurizki [2002, Phys. Rev. A, 65, 33833]. We go beyond the semiclassical treatment and derive a quantum version of the model with both a full Hamiltonian approach and an analysis in terms of dressed states. The preparation of an entangled coherent state via a cross-phase modulation effect is demonstrated. We briefly show that the violation of locality for such an entangled coherent state is robust against low detection efficiency. Finally, we investigate the possibility of a bi-chromatic photon blockade realized via the interaction of a low density beam of atoms with a bi-modal electromagnetic cavity which is externally driven. We show the effectiveness of the blockade effect even when more than a single atom is inside the cavity. The possibility to control two different cavity modes allows some insights into the generation of an entangled state of cavity modes.

The reform of Welfare Regimes in Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay

The aim of this article is to analyze the social policy in Latin America in a context of emerging welfare states. To understand the changes one takes into consideration the theories about institutional reform and the transformations produced in the XX century and the beginning of the XXI to substitute a social security regime mainly based on segmentation of benefi ts and on programs to fi ght poverty by another with an institutional and redistributive nature. The paper pays attention in particular to the path of the most developed welfare states of Latin America: Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Brasil y Uruguay.

Welfare Regimes and “progressive” governments in Latin America: The cases of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia

Several authors have applied the concept of Welfare Regimens for studying social policy in Latin America (Esping-Andersen, 1993 and 2000). Among others, Martínez Franzoni (2007) develops a typology, with fi eld work is at the turn of the millennium, and establishes three categories: State-productivist regime, state-protectionist and family orientated. Most countries in the region are placed in the latter category. The hypothesis of this article argues that with the emergence of governments considered “left” or “progressive” in several countries of the region from the late ‘90s and, more decisively, in 2000’, the map of welfare regimes models could have mutated substantively. The nationally transformative experiences are different (various socio-economic realities and political action in which they are located exists) but they have several contact points that can be summarized in a greater state intervention in different areas previously closed to their operating and recovery of important functions of welfare and care of the population by the government. The paper discusses with an exploratory and descriptive approach the welfare schemes that would shape in three countries that have constitutionalized the change from the neoliberal paradigm: Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Welfare Effort and Poverty from the Monetary and Capabilities Approach: A Cross-Country Analysis in Latin American and the Caribbean (1990-2010)

There is abundant empirical evidence on the negative relationship between welfare effort and poverty. However, poverty indicators traditionally used have been representative of the monetary approach, excluding its multidimensional reality from the analysis. Using three regression techniques for the period 1990-2010 and controlling for demographic and cyclical factors, this paper examines the relationship between social spending per capita —as the indicator of welfare effort— and poverty in up to 21 countries of the region. The proportion of the population with an income below its national basic basket of goods and services (PM1) and the proportion of population with an income below 50% of the median income per capita (PM2) were the two poverty indicators considered from the monetarist approach to measure poverty. From the capability approach the proportion of the population with food inadequacy (PC1) and the proportion of the population without access to improved water sources or sanitation facilities (PC2) were used. The fi ndings confi rm that social spending is actually useful to explain changes in poverty (PM1, PC1 and PC2), as there is a high negative and signifi cant correlation between the variables before and after controlling for demographic and cyclical factors. In two regression techniques, social spending per capita did not show a negative relationship with the PM2. Countries with greater welfare effort for the period 1990-2010 were not necessarily those with the lowest level of poverty. Ultimately social spending per capita was more useful to explain changes in poverty from the capability approach.