Gender stereotypes in politics: what changes when a woman becomes the local political leader?

This study documents how the presence of a woman in an executive political role affects the gender stereotype of women in politics. We use Brazilian electoral data and restrict our focus to close mayoral races (using an RDD design) in which the top two candidates are of opposite sexes. Our most important result was a reduction in the number of candidates and votes for female mayoral candidates after a woman is elected, regardless of her eligibility status for reelection. This negative result is linked only to the position of mayor and not to other political positions (councilor, state or federal deputy). In addition, our results may be interpreted as evidence that voters do not use their update on women as local leaders to change their beliefs on women’s ability to run for other political positions. Finally, female mayors do not appear to have a role model effect on younger cohorts of women. We also note that our results are not influenced by differences in mayoral policies (generally and specifically for women), which could influence voters’ gender stereotypes.

Wallace's American stud-book : being a compilation of the pedigrees of American and imported blood horses, with an appendix of all animals without extended pedigrees prior to 1840 : and a supplement containing all horses and mares ... from the earliest trotting races till the close of 1866 /

No more published.

Neurodynamics of an election

Variables influencing decision-making in real settings, as in the case of voting decisions, are uncontrollable and in many times even unknown to the experimenter. In this case, the experimenter has to study the intention to decide (vote) as close as possible in time to the moment of the real decision (election day). Here, we investigated the brain activity associated with the voting intention declared 1 week before the election day of the Brazilian Firearms Control Referendum about prohibiting the commerce of firearms. Two alliances arose in the Congress to run the campaigns for YES (for the prohibition of firearm commerce) and NO (against the prohibition of firearm commerce) voting. Time constraints imposed by the necessity of studying a reasonable number (here, 32) of voters during a very short time (5 days) made the EEG the tool of choice for recording the brain activity associated with voting decision. Recent fMRI and EEG studies have shown decision-making as a process due to the enrollment of defined neuronal networks. In this work, a special EEG technique is applied to study the topology of the voting decision-making networks and is compared to the results of standard ERP procedures. The results show that voting decision-making enrolled networks in charge of calculating the benefits and risks of the decision of prohibiting or allowing firearm commerce and that the topology of such networks was vote-(i.e., YES/NO-) sensitive. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

More than Words? An Analysis on the Language and Structure of General Election Manifestos of the British Labour Party 1983-2005

The topic of this study is the language of the educational policies of the British Labour party in the General Election manifestos between the years 1983-2005. The twenty-year period studied has been a period of significant changes in world politics, and in British politics, especially for the Labour party. The emergence educational policy as a vote-winner of the manifestos of the nineties has been noteworthy. The aim of the thesis is two-fold: to look at the structure of the political manifesto as an example of genre writing and to analyze the content utilizing the approach of critical discourse analysis. Furthermore, the aim of this study is not to pinpoint policy positions but to look at what is the image that the Labour Party creates of itself through these manifestos. The analysis of the content is done by a method of close-reading. Based on the findings, the methodology for the analysis of the content was created. This study utilized methodological triangulation which means that the material is analyzed from several methodological aspects. The aspects used in this study are ones of lexical features (collocation, coordination, euphemisms, metaphors and naming), grammatical features (thematic roles, tense, aspect, voice and modal auxiliaries) and rhetoric (Burke, Toulmin and Perelman). From the analysis of the content a generic description is built. By looking at the lexical, grammatical and rhetorical features a clear change in language of the Labour Party can be detected. This change is foreshadowed already in the 1992 manifesto but culminates in the 1997 manifesto which would lead Labour to a landslide victory in the General Election. During this twenty-year period Labour has moved away from the old commitments and into the new sphere of “something for everybody”. The pervasiveness of promotional language and market inspired vocabulary into the sphere of manifesto writing is clear. The use of the metaphors seemed to be the tool for the creation of the image of the party represented through the manifestos. A limited generic description can be constructed from the findings based on the content and structure of the manifestos: especially more generic findings such as the use of the exclusive we, the lack of certain anatomical parts of argument structure, the use of the future tense and the present progressive aspect can shed light to the description of the genre of manifesto writing. While this study is only the beginning, it proves that the combination of looking at the lexical, grammatical and rhetorical features in the study of manifestos is a promising one.

Tan cerca, tan lejos: Aldo Rossi y el Grupo 2C. Arquitectura, ideología y disidencias en la Barcelona de los 70 = So close, so far : Aldo Rossi and the 2C Group. Architecture, ideology and dissents in the Barcelona of the 70s

The Catalan reception of the 1966 manifestos by Robert Venturi and Aldo Rossi marks the scenario of a breakup: while North America debates about the architectural shape as a linguistic structure, Italy dips its roots in the Modern Movement tradition as an origin for a new temporal and ideological architectural dimension. The first contacts between Rossi and Spain verify this search and allow the Italian to construct common itineraries with some architects from Barcelona. From these exchanges the 2C group will be born, taking part on typical vanguardist mechanisms: they will publish the magazine, 2C. The construction of the city (1972-1985), they will attend the XV Triennale di Milano in 1973 with the Torres Clavé Plan (1971) and the Aldo Rossi + 21 Spanish architects exhibition (1975) while he will organize the three issues of the Seminarios Internacionales de Arquitectura Contemporánea (S.I.AC.) which took place in Santiago, Sevilla and Barcelona between 1976 and 1980. In front of the unfolding of the firsts, the American contacts of Federico Correa, Oriol Bohigas, Lluís Domènech and the PER studio or the teaching work of Rafael Moneo from Barcelona since 1971, allow to draw replica itineraries with the foundation of the magazine Arquitecturas Bis (1974-1985), the organization of the meetings between international publications such as Lotus and Oppositions in Cadaqués (1975) and New York (1977), while stablishing exchanges with members of the Five Architects. Replicas that in 1976 conduct the initial ideological affirmations between Rossi and the 2C group towards irreconcilable distancing. Verifying the itinerary of the journey that the Italian leads from the Italian resistance towards the American backing down is part of the aim of this article

Betting on winner: the effect of local elections on corporate political activity outcomes

How can managers successfully access political rents by way of corporate political strategies (CPA)? Existing research has suggested several endogenous factors that correlate with CPA outcomes. I offer a more robust solution to this problem. Drawing on insights from the perspective of CPA as exchanges between firms and political decision-makers, and from the special interest politics of political economy, I develop and test a causal mechanism that links local elections, legislative bargaining and access to political rents at the national level. I conducted a natural experiment using regression discontinuity design and propensity score matching in municipal elections in Brazil to show that firms enjoy superior access to subsidized financing from the state-owned national development bank (BNDES) when they decide to invest in municipalities whose winning mayoral candidate is coalition-aligned with the national ruler. This effect fades away fades away as the level of competition in the local election decreases. The evidence implies that when managers bet on national coalition-aligned winners in close local elections, they positively affect CPA outcomes. I extend the exchange-based typology of corporate political strategies by offering a novel possibility of targeting voters with financial inducements, which I call a private local development strategy. Finally, these results show that firms exchange their project-execution capabilities for superior access to subsidized financing.

The Incumbent Spending Puzzle

Objective This article seeks to explain the puzzle of why incumbents spend so much on campaigns despite most research finding that their spending has almost no effect on voters. Methods The article uses ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and fixed-effects regression to estimate the impact of incumbent spending on election outcomes. The estimation includes an interaction term between incumbent and challenger spending to allow the effect of incumbent spending to depend on the level of challenger spending. Results The estimation provides strong evidence that spending by the incumbent has a larger positive impact on votes received the more money the challenger spends. Conclusion Campaign spending by incumbents is most valuable in the races where the incumbent faces a serious challenge. Raising large sums of money to be used in close races is thus a rational choice by incumbents.

Firing Up the Crucible with Senator Lee Metcalf & Governor Forrest Anderson -- Judge Gordon Bennett in “The Crucible of Change”

During the lead-up to Montana second progressive era, Lee Metcalf and Forrest Anderson, along with others, kept the progressive flame lit in Montana. Metcalf’s political history is replete with close electoral wins because of his commitment to progressive ideals when the times were not always politically favorable for that. As State Legislator, MT Supreme Court Justice, Congressman and eventually as US Senator, Lee won races by as little as 55 votes because he stuck to his guns as a progressive. In Forrest Anderson’s career as a County Attorney, State Legislator, MT Supreme Court Justice and 12 years as MT Attorney General he was respected as a pragmatic practitioner of politics. But during that entire career leading up to his election as Governor, Forrest Anderson was also a stalwart supporter of the progressive agenda exemplified by FDR and the New Deal, which brought folks out of the Great Depression that was brought on by the bad policies of the GOP and big business. As MT’s second progressive period began in 1965, the first important election was Senator Metcalf’s successful re-election battle in 1966 with the sitting MT Governor, Tim Babcock. And the progressive express was really ignited by the election of Forrest Anderson as Governor in 1968 after 16 years of Republican Governors in MT. Gordon Bennett played a rather unique role, being a confidant of Metcalf and Anderson, both who respected his wide and varied experience, his intellect, and his roots in progressivism beginning with his formative years in the Red Corner of NE Montana. Working with Senator Metcalf and his team, including Brit Englund, Vic Reinemer, Peggy McLaughlin, Betty Davis and Jack Condon among others, Bennett helped shape the progressive message both in Washington DC and MT. Progressive labor and farm organizations, part of the progressive coalition, benefitted from Bennett’s advice and counsel and aided the Senator in his career including the huge challenge of having a sitting popular governor run against him for the Senate in 1966. Metcalf’s noted intern program produced a cadre of progressive leaders in Montana over the years. Most notably, Ron Richards transitioned from Metcalf Intern to Executive Secretary of the Montana Democratic Party (MDP) and assisted, along with Bennett, in the 1966 Metcalf-Babcock race in a big way. As Executive Secretary Richards was critical to the success of the MDP as a platform for Forrest Anderson’s general election run and win in 1968. After Forrest’s gubernatorial election, Richards became Executive Assistant (now called Chief of Staff) for Governor Anderson and also for Governor Thomas Judge. The Metcalf progressive strain, exemplified by many including Richards and Bennett, permeated Democratic politics during the second progressive era. So, too, did the coalition that supported Metcalf and his policies. The progressivism of the period of “In the Crucible of Change” was fired up by Lee Metcalf, Forrest Anderson and their supporters and coalitions, and Gordon Bennett was in the center of all of that, helping fire up the crucible, setting the stage for many policy advancements in both Washington DC and Montana. Gordon Bennett’s important role in the 1966 re-election of Senator Lee Metcalf and the 1968 election of Governor Forrest Anderson, as well as his wide experience in government and politics of that time allows him to provide us with an insider’s personal perspective of those races and other events at the beginning of the period of progressive change being documented “In the Crucible of Change,” as well as his personal insights into the larger political/policy picture of Montana. Gordon Bennett, a major and formative player “In the Crucible of Change,” was born in the far northeast town of Scobey, MT in 1922. He attended school in Scobey through the eighth grade and graduated from Helena High School. After attending Carroll College for two years, he received his BA in economics from Carleton College in Northfield, MN. During a brief stint on the east coast, his daily reading of the New York Times (“best newspaper in the world at that time … and now”) inspired him to pursue a career in journalism. He received his MA in Journalism from the University of Missouri and entered the field. As a reporter for the Great Falls Tribune under the ownership and management of the Warden Family, he observed and competed with the rigid control of Montana’s press by the Anaconda Company (the Great Falls Tribune was the only large newspaper in Montana NOT owned by ACM). Following his intellectual curiosity and his philosophical bend, he attended a number of Farm-Labor Institutes which he credits with motivating him to pursue solutions to economic and social woes through the law. In 1956, at the age of 34, he received his Juris Doctorate degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC. Bennett’s varied career included eighteen years as a farmer, four years in the US Army during WWII (1942-46), two years as Assistant MT Attorney General (1957-59) with Forrest Anderson, three years in private practice in Glasgow (1959-61), two years as Associate Solicitor in the Department of Interior in Washington, DC (1961-62), and private law practice in Helena from 1962 to 1969. While in Helena he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Montana Supreme Court (1962) and cemented his previous relationships with Attorney General Forrest Anderson and US Senator Lee Metcalf. Bennett modestly refuses to accept the title of Campaign Manager for either Lee Metcalf (1966 re-election over the challenger, MT Republican Governor Tim Babcock) or Forrest Anderson (his 1968 election as Governor), saying that “they ran their campaigns … we were only there to help.” But he has been generally recognized as having filled that critical role in both of those critical elections. After Governor Anderson’s election in 1968, Bennett was appointed Director of the MT Unemployment Compensation Commission, a position from where he could be a close advisor and confidant of the new Governor. In 1971, Governor Anderson appointed him Judge in the most important jurisdiction in Montana, the 1st Judicial District in Helena, a position he held for seventeen years (1971-88). Upon stepping down from his judgeship, for twenty years (1988-2008) he was a law instructor, mediator and arbitrator. He currently resides in Helena with his wife, Norma Tirrell, former newspaper reporter and researcher/writer. Bennett has two adult children and four grandchildren.

An Appropriate Role for the Leadership: A Quantitative Analysis of the Effects of House Leadership on Open-Seat Races

This paper investigates the effects on open-seat races in the United States House of Representatives. This project focuses on the influence that the House leadership exerts on races. Generally, the leadership influences race through spending by party organizations and leadership visits. During each election cycle, national party organizations spend millions of dollars to get their candidates into office. I have developed a multiple regression model that measures different types of spending from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Republican National Committee and the effects of these spending types on the election results. Also, the study examines the number of visits by each party’s leadership to each race. I introduced control variables that account for the year, the competitiveness of each race, and the individual candidate fundraising. In terms of statistical significance, the results were mixed showing one type of party spending to be highly influential in the outcome of the race. Competitiveness and individual candidate fundraising also achieved statistical significance. The study also includes a qualitative investigation of leadership visits and individual case studies in order to understand better the way in which the data interact in real campaigns.

The European Union and the United States, before the election: a much deeper mutual understanding. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 12 Special, October 2012

From the Introduction. Governor Romney’s statement that President Obama was trying to convert the United States into a European state actually served to point out the need for a much deeper understanding of both entities to make considerable progress in the future. The need for a close alliance is taken for granted. However, the link is riddled with confusion and stereotypes. This relationship is considered a normal fact forged by mutual historical legacies. Hence the frequent signs of awkward behaviour and misunderstandings under the cover of the notion that potential damage will be corrected by the force of the special relationship. If conflicts are detected, both parties are said to be condemned to agree. If a lack of knowledge is detected, it will be modified by accessible means. Mechanisms for an understanding and cooperation are within reach. Therefore, an effective relationship is not utopian. However, there are areas in which much work is needed to strengthen the alliance and correct its shortcomings. There is a need, not only for agreements in economic and political issues, but also for a deeper understanding of the essence of both entities.

Optical scan manual of instructions for Illinois election judges.

The instructions in this manual describe the statutory responsibilities of election judges and their duties on Election Day. ... Included in this manual are step-by-step instructions which describe in detail the procedures to be followed before the polls open, during voting hours, and after the polls close. This manual also includes information on voter coding, who can vote, pollwatchers rights and limitations, challenging a person's right to vote, voter assistance and instruction, processing absentee ballots, and remaking damaged and overvoted ballot cards. In addition, this manual reflects the many changes brought about by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and Senate Bill 428, PA 0574.

Optical scan manual of instructions for Illinois election judges.

Election judges serve a vital role in protecting the rights of voters. They are responsible for ensuring that the electoral process is administered fairly and in accordance with federal and state election laws. This manual of instructions has been prepared by the State Board of Elections to assist the election judges with the administration of their duties in accordance with Illinois statutes. The instructions in this manual describe the statutory responsibilities of election judges and their duties on Election Day. ... Included in this manual are step-by-step instructions which describe in detail the procedures to be followed before the polls open, during voting hours, and after the polls close....In addition, this manual reflects the many changes brought about by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and Senate Bill 428, PA 0574. These changes include provisional voting, eligbility requirements for serving as a pollwatcher, campaign free zones and other processes encountered on Election Day.

Porcupine's works : containing various writings and selections, exhibiting a faithful picture of the United States of America; of their governments, laws, politics and resources; of the characters of their presidents, governors, legislators, magistrates, and military men; and of the customs, manners, morals, religion, virtues and vices of the people : comprising also a complete series of historical documents and remarks, from the end of the war, in 1783, to the election of the President, in March, 1801 /

continued: ... XII. Historical documents and remarks (from December, 1799 to March, 1801) ; Trial of Cooper ; Emigration Society ; Washington's death ; Proceedings in Congress during the session which began December, 1799 ; Board of Commissioners ; Defence of the Quakers of Pennsylvania ; Farewell advertisement ; Prison eclogue ; Republican morality ; Jefferson's election ; Adam's public conduct ; Jefferson's character ; Convention concluded between America and France, in 1800 ; Proceedings in Congress during the session which ended in March, 1801 ; Index.

New Genotype of Dengue Type 3 Virus Circulating in Brazil and Colombia Showed a Close Relationship to Old Asian Viruses

Dengue type 3 genotype V viruses have been recently detected in Brazil and Colombia. In this study, we described another Brazilian isolate belonging to this genotype. Phylogenetic analysis including dengue type 3 viruses isolated worldwide showed that Brazilian and Colombian viruses were closely related to viruses isolated in Asia more than two decades ago. The characteristic evolutionary pattern of dengue type 3 virus cannot explain the close similarity of new circulating viruses with old viruses. Further studies are needed to confirm the origin of the new dengue type III genotype circulating in Brazil and Colombia.

Transforming Youth Identities: Interactions Across ""Races/Colors/Ethnicities,"" Gender, Class, and Sexualities in Johannesburg, South Africa

In South Africa, and especially in Johannesburg, apartheid's ""racial"" paradigms are being transformed. Fifteen years after the end of apartheid and the elimination of all forms of inequity based on notion of ""race,"" including the abolition of the Immorality Act of 1949 that prohibited mixed marriages, the discourses of youth challenge preestablished boundaries. Today, the South African Constitution gives people the right to proclaim their sexual orientation and to shape their own identities. Through ethnographic observations carried out in Johannesburg and in-depth interviews with young people, this paper explores transforming notions of identity based on ""race/color/ethnicity,"" gender, class, and sexuality. The dynamics and challenges faced by young people with regards to mixed interactions in post-apartheid Johannesburg are analyzed and the paper looks at how "" race,"" gender, and sexuality interact in the various spaces in Johannesburg and how they affect young people's lives, particularly their perceptions of risk, violence, and HIV/AIDS vulnerability.