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The term performance - a temporary and active presentation, expression, or act - has a presence in all cultural media and genres, and has repercussions for taking on, experiencing, and enacting an identity as well. Performance reaches beyond theatre, ballet and music to any human behaviour that is constantly performed through personal acts that contradict stereotypes - not just with regard to gender, but equally so with regard to class and ethnicity or race. The theme Gender and Performance focuses upon the performative strength of gender through various media: feminist and political theatre, an online 'private' novel turned radio play, protest movements, internet beauty blogs, dressing and fashion and the performativity of the word slut. Gender and performativity will take the reader to the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Mexico and the Philippines

Women and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in national parliaments around the world. Interestingly, in the Netherlands ethnic minority women are better represented than ethnic minority men and ethnic majority women. The Netherlands did not adopt gender quotas, but some parties implemented target numbers. Drawing on document analysis and interviews, this article explores whether parties that encourage women's representation are also likely to increase the number of ethnic minority representatives. It finds that party-specific factors such as a left or social democratic ideology, the institutionalization of gender and/or ethnicity within the party and the party's vision on group representation are intertwined. Parties that actively encourage women's representation are more inclined to openly acknowledge the importance of ethnic diversity. This especially favours ethnic minority women, who benefit from the strong embedding of gender. In the end gender determines the success of the ethnic card in political representation. Adapted from the source document.

Deliberative democrats claim that political deliberation among citizens increases the legitimacy of and support for democratic decision-making. The question is, however, whether deliberative democracy can realize its added value in the real world of politics where political discussion is characterized by persisting inequalities. This paper tries to contextualize the gender gap in political talk by taking into account the social (i.e., discussion networks) and political context (i.e., campaign effects) in which political debate takes place. Based on previous research we argue that women prefer to discuss politics in relatively like-minded, cohesive networks, while men prefer more confrontational networks. Moreover, we expect the gender gap to depend on the electoral context, in that the gender gap disappears in later campaign phases. These two arguments were tested and confirmed using data gathered in the Partirep Regional Election Survey in 2009. Adapted from the source document.