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Why the number of women legislators has decreased with rise in democratic procedures.

This article focuses on ordinary people's interest in writing and publishing their texts during the first decades of the twentieth century in Argentina. In that period, the demand for participation and self-representation through literary writing founded an auspicious ground in newspapers and magazines "for the people", which had sections devoted to publishing or commenting on the works of readers. This article focuses on the emerging aspirations of a broad readership that was willing to exercise a right to the word, the way in which these demands found a place to be expressed, and how they were read and processed in different areas of the cultural field: the cultural market, left-wing culture and professional writers. ; Fil: Rogers, Geraldine. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educacion; Argentina

This article sketches the process of democratization in Thailand, focusing on shifting relations between civil society and state actors. Environmental discourse and conflicts about natural resources, specifically forests, during the last two decades, have been one of the main fields of social controversy and change. In the context of these controversies, civil society actors, in resistance to and alliance with state agencies, drove forward democratization by intruding into power domains of the state. State agents, increasingly forced to justify their actions according to democratic norms in the expanding space of public debate, had to search for allies and majorities within civil society. The successful establishment of public debate as an integral part of political decision making, on the one hand, resulted in a diversification of civil society, on the other hand, forced powerful segments of society to organize and defend their interests within the new public political space. Strategies of exclusion, referring to nationalism and ethnicism, have become an important instrument to secure positions and power, threatened in the process of democratization and emancipation of discriminated social groups.

Do ethnic federations undergoing democratization promote or discourage regional secessionism? This article argues, based on evidence from the Russian Federation, that when democratization produces a transfer of political accountability from center to region, the incentives of regional leaders shift, forcing them to react to local constituericies in order to retain office. If these constituencies desire autonomy, regional leaders must respond, making separatism not merely an opportunistic strategy but a necessary one for their own political survival. Democratization, then, can transform administrative regions into electoral arenas. However, the case of Russio also demonstrares that regional demands for autonomy are not inevitable and may dissipate after they have begun. Popular support for nationalism and separatism varied significantly among Russia's sixteen ethnic republics in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period. This variation is explained by showing that mass nationalism, contrary to conventional wisdom, is neither a latent attribute of federal regions, nor a simple function of natural resource endowments, nor something summoned into existence by the manipulations of regional leaders. Rather, it is argued that increasing competition for jobs in the Sovier Union's failing economy allowed particular issues articulated by nationalist leaders to resonate with ethnic populations. Through the framing of issues of ethnic economic inequality, nationalist leaders were able to politicize ethnicity hy persuading people to view their personal life chances as dependent on the political fate off their ethnic community. Thus, secession in democratizirig ethnic federations can be best understood by directing attention toward the origins of popular support for nationalism and the role that support plays in the elite contest for power within subfederal regions. (World Politics / SWP)

Do ethnic federations undergoing democratization promote or discourage regional secessionism? This article argues, based on evidence from the Russian Federation, that when democratization produces a transfer of political accountability from center to region, the incentives of regional leaders shift, forcing them to react to local constituencies in order to retain office. If these constituencies desire autonomy, regional leaders must respond, making separatism not merely an opportunistic strategy but a necessary one for their own political survival. Democratization, then, can transform administrative regions into electoral arenas.However, the case of Russia also demonstrates that regional demands for autonomy are not inevitable and may dissipate after they have begun. Popular support for nationalism and separatism varied significantly among Russia's sixteen ethnic republics in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period. This variation is explained by showing that mass nationalism, contrary to conventional wisdom, is neither a latent attribute of federal regions, nor a simple function of natural resource endowments, nor something summoned into existence by the manipulations of regional leaders. Rather, it is argued that increasing competition for jobs in the Soviet Union's failing economy allowed particular issues articulated by nationalist leaders to resonate with ethnic populations. Through the framing of issues of ethnic economic inequality, nationalist leaders were able to politicize ethnicity by persuading people to view their personal life chances as dependent on the political fate of their ethnic community. Thus, secession in democratizing ethnic federations can be best understood by directing attention toward the origins of popular support for nationalism and the role that support plays in the elite contest for power within subfederal regions.