Rethinking crises and the accretion of executive power: the ���War on Terror��� and conditionality evidence from seven political systems

External shocks to democratic systems are likely to threaten the stability of relations between the executive and the representative assembly. This article investigates the impact of the so-called ���war on terror��� on executive-assembly relations in comparative perspective. We analyze data from seven countries, which varied in terms of form of government, level of democracy, culture, social structure, and geographic location, to evaluate its effects. We find that whereas in some systems the ���war on terror��� altered the balance of power between the executive and the assembly, in other cases the extant balance of power was preserved. We postulate various conditions under which the constitutionally sanctioned balance of power is most likely to be preserved in times of crisis.

Shared Rule in Federal Political Systems: Conceptual Lessons from Subnational Switzerland

This article reconceptualizes shared rule and uses novel data to measure it, thus addressing two shortcomings of federal literature. First, while most studies focus on self-rule, one question that is largely neglected is how lower-level governments can influence politics at a higher level in the absence of ���second��� chambers. The answer is through shared rule. A second shortcoming is that even when addressing this question, scholars concentrate on constitutional-administrative aspects of vertical intergovernmentalism, neglecting more informal, ���political��� dynamics. Comparing the twenty-six Swiss cantons allows drawing two lessons for federal studies: That shared rule is multifaceted and complex, and that to study informal territorial actors as well as direct political processes is indispensable to understand how power is actually distributed in federal political systems.

Minding and not minding your own business: What justifies attempts to assess the democratic quality of political systems? IHS Political Science Series No. 139, May 2015

Founded in 1963 by two prominent Austrians living in exile ��� the sociologist Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the economist Oskar Morgenstern ��� with the financial support from the Ford Foundation, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, and the City of Vienna, the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) is the first institution for postgraduate education and research in economics and the social sciences in Austria. The Political Science Series presents research done at the Department of Political Science and aims to share ���work in progress��� before formal publication. It includes papers by the Department���s teaching and research staff, visiting professors, graduate students, visiting fellows, and invited participants in seminars, workshops, and conferences. As usual, authors bear full responsibility for the content of their contributions.

Government by constitution; the political systems of democracy. -

Includes bibliography.

The Socioeconomic Background of the Divergence of Belarusian and Ukrainian Political Systems

The aim of this paper is to analyze the political, social and economic background of the divergence of Belarusian and Ukrainian transitions. We focus on Belarus in order to find explanation for questions such as why could Lukashenko remain the authoritarian leader of Belarus, while in Ukraine the position of the political elite had proved less stable and collapsed in 2004. On the theoretical framework of elite-sociology, we seek to determine whether the internal factors (as macroeconomic conditions, standard of living, the oppressive nature of the political system and the structure of the political elite) play a significant role in the operation of the domino effect. This article emphasises the determining role of immanent internal factors, thus the political stability in Belarus can be explained by the role of the suppressing political regime, the hindrance of democratic rights and the relatively good living conditions that followed the transformational recession. Whilst in Ukraine, the markedly different circumstances brought forth the success of the Orange Revolution.

Self-organized sociopolitical interactions as the best way to achieve organized patterns in human social systems: going beyond the top-down control of classical political regimes

La monograf��a presenta la auto-organizaci��n sociopol��tica como la mejor manera de lograr patrones organizados en los sistemas sociales humanos, dada su naturaleza compleja y la imposibilidad de las tareas computacionales de los reg��menes pol��ticos cl��sico, debido a que operan con control jer��rquico, el cual ha demostrado no ser ��ptimo en la producci��n de orden en los sistemas sociales humanos. En la monograf��a se extrapola la teor��a de la auto-organizaci��n en los sistemas biol��gicos a las din��micas sociopol��ticas humanas, buscando maneras ��ptimas de organizarlas, y se afirma que redes complejas an��rquicas son la estructura emergente de la auto-organizaci��n sociopol��tica.

Latinos and political advocacy for cancer control in a United States-Mexico border community

Health policy interventions provide powerful tools for addressing health disparities. The Latino community is one of the fastest growing communities in the United States yet is largely underrepresented in government and advocacy efforts. This study includes 42 Latino adults (M age 5 45 years) who participated in focus group discussions and completed a brief questionnaire assessing their experiences with political health advocacy. Qualitative analyses revealed participants considered cancer a concern for the Latino community, but there was a lack of familiarity with political advocacy and its role in cancer control. Participants identified structural, practical, cultural, and contextual barriers to engaging in political health advocacy. This article presents a summary of the findings that suggest alternative ways to engage Latinos in cancer control advocacy.

Transforming aquatic agricultural systems towards gender equality: a five country review

Aquatic agricultural systems (AAS) are systems in which the annual production dynamics of freshwater and/or coastal ecosystems contribute significantly to total household income. Improving the livelihood security and wellbeing of the estimated 250 million poor people dependent on AAS in Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Zambia is the goal of the Worldfish Center-led Consortium Research Program (CRP), ���Harnessing the development potential of aquatic agricultural systems for development.��� One component expected to contribute to sustainably achieving this goal is enhancing the gender and wider social equity of the social, economic and political systems within which the AAS function. The CRP���s focus on social equity, and particularly gender equity, responds to the limited progress to date in enhancing the inclusiveness of development outcomes through interventions that offer improved availability of resources and technologies without addressing the wider social constraints that marginalized populations face in making use of them. The CRP aims to both offer improved availability and address the wider social constraints in order to determine whether a multi-level approach that engages with individuals, households and communities, as well as the wider social, economic and political contexts in which they function, is more successful in extending development���s benefits to women and other excluded groups. Designing the research in development initiatives to test this hypothesis requires a solid understanding of each CRP country���s social, cultural and economic contexts and of the variations across them. This paper provides an initial input into developing this knowledge, based on a review of literature on agriculture, aquaculture and gender relations within the five focal countries. Before delving into the findings of the literature review, the paper first justifies the expectation that successfully achieving lasting wellbeing improvements for poor women and men dependent on AAS rests in part on advances in gender equity, and in light of this justification, presents the AAS CRP���s conceptual framew

'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.

Politics and Gender in Ireland: The Quest for Political Agency

This book explores the relationship between women, the state and democratic politics in Ireland today. It highlights the conservatism of the political culture shared by all traditions on the island, and how this culture circumscribes women���s political agency in Northern Ireland and Ireland. The book explores the opportunities and obstacles to women���s participation and representation on each side of the border. The chapters take the view that public decision-making institutions and processes are subject to rules and practices that reinforce the gendered foundations of democratic politics. They document women���s continuing quest for full participation and equal representation in these male-gendered arenas. The contributors focus on the marginalised experiences of women in modern politics in Ireland and detail their efforts to challenge the masculinized status quo. The book addresses the classical issues of citizenship, participation, representation and equal rights in a sustained analysis of the political systems on the island. It also deals with modern issues ��� multiculturalism, peace-building, the male-gendered legislature and the unequal nature of women���s citizenship in constitutional, institutional and policy contexts. The book is completed by a comprehensive appendix of all women elected to political office on the island from 1918-2013.

Federalism and the Concept of Political Territoriality: Towards an Analytical Framework for Comparative Territorial Politics

The core issues comparative territorial politics addresses are how and why territory is used to delimit, maintain, or create political power; and with what kind of consequences for efficiency (output) and legitimacy (input). The aim of this article is to integrate various research strands into the comparative study of territorial politics, with federal studies at its core. As an example of a conceptual payoff, ���political territoriality��� refers the observer to three dimensions of the strategic use of areal boundaries for political power. By focusing on territory as a key variable of political systems, the actors, processes and institutions are first analytically separated and continuously measured, enhancing internal validity, and then theoretically integrated, which allows more valid external inferences than classic, legal-institutionalist federal studies. After discussing the boundaries and substance of comparative territorial politics as a federal discipline, political territoriality is developed towards an analytical framework applicable to politics at any governmental level. The claims are modest: political territoriality does not serve so much as an explanatory concept as rather an ���attention-directing device��� for federal studies.

The Eurasian Economic Union ��� more political, less economic. OSW Commentary Number 157/20.01.2015

The Eurasian Economic Union is undoubtedly the most comprehensive form of economic integration of the post-Soviet countries since the break-up of the Soviet Union. However, the way in which the integration process has been unfolding, as well as Russia���s aggressive policy over the last year, are indications that the EEU has become primarily a political project, and the importance of its economic aspects has eroded. This has triggered a change in the way Kazakhstan and Belarus treat the EEU. Initially, the two countries viewed integration as an opportunity for the development of genuine economic co-operation. However, Russia���s annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Ukraine have revealed the real significance of the EEU project ��� as a tool to reinforce Russian influence in the post-Soviet area and isolate the post-Soviet countries from the West and China. While the Kremlin presents the EEU as the Eurasian equivalent of the European Union, the project is in reality an imitation of integration. The reasons for this include the nature of the political systems in the participating countries, which are authoritarian, prone to instrumentalise law, and affected by systemic corruption; the aggressive policy that Russia has been pursuing over the last year; and Russia���s dominant role in defining the shape of the EEU. The EEU appears to be based on forceful integration, and is becoming less and less economically attractive for its member countries other than Russia. Moreover, it is clearly assuming a political dimension that those other member countries perceive as dangerous. For these reasons, its functioning will depend on the power and position of Russia. In the longer term it is likely that the other member states will try to ���sham��� and delay closer integration within the EEU. This means that if Russia becomes politically and economically weaker, the EEU may evolve into an increasingly dysfunctional organisation ��� a development that will be reinforced by the low standards of legal culture in its member states and their reluctance to integrate. Should Russia���s power increase, the EEU will become an effective instrument of Russian dominance in the area of the former USSR.