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Diversity of representation is important for the democratic principles of equality, effectiveness, fairness, justice and legitimacy. However, the lack of good quality and consistently defined data for most protected characteristics considerably hampers the monitoring of the diversity of political representation in Britain.The aim of this report is to assess the quality of the available data on the diversity of candidates and elected officials at UK, national and local election levels and to identify where there are data gaps and limitations.The report draws together the best currently available data on the protected characteristics of candidates standing in the 2016 and 2017 elections in Great Britain. The report also sets out recommendations for improving the monitoring of diversity of political representation.Few data are available for most of the protected characteristics defined in the Equality Act 2010, and what is available is often drawn from reduced sample sizes. This reveals a fragmented picture with many gaps, making it difficult to assess confidently the diversity of political representation in Britain. Much of the current evidence relies on observation or self-reporting in surveys, and low response rates to those questions highlights the challenge of collecting this sort of information. However, the data that are available indicate that elected representatives in Great Britain remain unrepresentative of the population in their socio-demographic characteristics.Our assessment of diversity is drawn from information available on the diversity of candidates and elected representatives in the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and local elections. The focus is on six out of the nine protected characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010 for which data were available: age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. No data were available for gender reassignment.Section 106 of EA 2010 places a statutory obligation on political parties to ...

Diversity of representation is important for the democratic principles of equality, effectiveness, fairness, justice and legitimacy. However, the lack of good quality and consistently defined data for most protected characteristics considerably hampers the monitoring of the diversity of political representation in Britain.The aim of this report is to assess the quality of the available data on the diversity of candidates and elected officials at UK, national and local election levels and to identify where there are data gaps and limitations.The report draws together the best currently available data on the protected characteristics of candidates standing in the 2016 and 2017 elections in Great Britain. The report also sets out recommendations for improving the monitoring of diversity of political representation.Few data are available for most of the protected characteristics defined in the Equality Act 2010, and what is available is often drawn from reduced sample sizes. This reveals a fragmented picture with many gaps, making it difficult to assess confidently the diversity of political representation in Britain. Much of the current evidence relies on observation or self-reporting in surveys, and low response rates to those questions highlights the challenge of collecting this sort of information. However, the data that are available indicate that elected representatives in Great Britain remain unrepresentative of the population in their socio-demographic characteristics.Our assessment of diversity is drawn from information available on the diversity of candidates and elected representatives in the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and local elections. The focus is on six out of the nine protected characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010 for which data were available: age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. No data were available for gender reassignment.Section 106 of EA 2010 places a statutory obligation on political parties to ...

First published in 1997, this volume responded to the peace process of the 1980s and 1990s between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, emerging just prior to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. It constituted one of the first major academic examinations of the attempts to bring peace to Northern Ireland in the 1990's, and explores the historical origins of the process, before moving towards a critical account of the role of political parties in the development of the peace process. Critics have argued equally that the process was a sham, tactically repositioning Irish republicanism, and that it provided a framework for reconciliation or even conflict resolution. This book outlines the political changes which allowed the peace process to develop, along with analysing specific themes divided into three broad sections: the general aims of the peace process, the political perspectives and the issues under discussion. Aiming to promote discussion, these contributors explore the origins and function of the peace process, followed by an analysis of political perspectives including the Unionists, the SDLP and Irish Republicanism. Finally, they consider key issues of interest for the peace process, including the ever-present border debate, security strategies, education, and economics, whilst Rachel Ward makes the case for the skilled contributions of women available to formal politics.

Drawing on the work of Arend Lijphart, this book focuses on consensus democracies. These democracies entail a complex set of democratic institutional and conventional arrangements and can be regarded as a product of path-dependent development towards a national culture of compromise and bargaining. Taking a multi-dimensional and multi-spatial approach, this book examines the West central European consensus democracies of Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Switzerland, over the past 40 years. Magone examines how these democracies have been transformed by Europeanization thrusts and global turbulence yet are able to maintain political stability. It provides historical context including the different phases of transformation: the golden period (1945-1979); disorganised capitalism (1979-1993); and re-equilibration (1993- ). It includes chapters on political culture, government, parliament, the rise of populism and political parties, subnational government, and the political economy and concludes deliberating on the relevance of consensus democracies' experiences for the future of European and global governance. Based on original research, this book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, European government, West European politics, the politics of small states in Europe, and those with a particular interest in the politics of Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.--

Parliamentarians fighting corruption / Rick Stapenhurst, Martin Ulrich, and Severin Strohal -- Corruption : a key challenge for development / Daniel Kaufmann and Phyllis Dininio -- On the political nature of corruption : institutions matter / Daniel Lederman, Norman V. Loayza, and Rodrigo R. Soares -- Political will / Sahr Kpundeh and Phyllis Dininio -- Parliament and anti-corruption legislation / Jeremy Pope -- Case study on the role of Parliament in the fight against corruption : the case of the Kenyan Parliament / Fred Matiangi -- Effective financial scrutiny / Joachim Wehner -- Case study on the performance of public accounts committees : a review of the Canadian PAC, 37th Parliament / Martin Ulrich -- Parliament and supreme audit institutions / Rick Stapenhurst and Jack Titsworth -- The role of the media in curbing corruption / Rod Macdonell and Melica Pesic -- Case study on the role of Parliament and the media in the fight against corruption / John Smith -- Anti-corruption commissions / John Heilbrunn -- Case sutdy : the European Parliaments's role in the resignation oft the Santer Commission / Katia Stasinopoulou -- Building coalitions : parliaments, civil society, and corruption control / Michael Johnston -- Political parties / Riccardo Pelizzo -- Party political funding / Michael Pinto-Duschinsky -- Legislative ethics and codes of conduct / Rick Stapenhurst and Riccardo Pelizzo -- Case study of the House Of Commons : how can Parliamentary codes and registers of member's interests help? / Sir Philip Mawer -- Building Parliamentary networks / John Williams

AbstractAs a global problem with diverse local and regional impacts, climate change is an inherently multilevel issue. Focusing on Atlantic Canada, we examine regional‐local dimensions of Canadian climate politics, drawing on data from six legacy newspapers (two national outlets, four regional outlets). Claims about the importance of provincial governments and municipalities have low levels of media visibility and are more salient in regional news outlets. However, federal, provincial, local government and political party sources articulate the ideas that regional and local actors have important roles to play in climate action. While these ideas are not highly visible, they are diffuse and high consensus across multilevel political, civil society, and other actors. Articulations of the importance of regional and local climate governance tend to connect this with issues of carbon pricing and other economic dimensions of climate governance. While a few municipal actors are highly visible in the mediated policy network, local policy actors tend to receive little visibility in either national or regional media spheres. By contrast, regional actors from provincial governments and political parties are among the top tier of actors in both national and provincial media. Our analysis highlights the significance of regional political arenas and actors that have received less attention than national governments or municipalities as sites of climate governance.

Since the Second World War, the Labour Party has alternated between periods in which it has been positioned further to the left and others when it has been further to the right. The standard explanation for those oscillations is electoral–ideological. Labour moves to the right (towards the political centre) when it prioritises electoral considerations, usually after a period in opposition. It moves to the left when it prioritises ideology, usually after periods in government. Against this we propose a political economy–policy explanation. Labour moves to the right and a redistributive economic strategy when the economy is performing reasonably well. It moves to the left and adopts a structural economic reform programme when the economy is perceived to be in crisis. We argue that the political economy–policy explanation offers a more satisfactory account of when and why Labour has changed its spatial policy positioning in this period. By acknowledging the role of what we term 'policy reasoning' in the processes by which political parties (and the public) adopt and change spatial policy positions, our approach provides an alternative to the mechanistic models deriving from Downsian rational choice theory. It suggests that, contrary to general expectation, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer does not need to react to its 2019 election defeat by shifting significantly to the right.

Over the last two decades, many developed countries have experienced notable changes in house prices. This explanatory study considers if house price movements in the UK can be linked to the political cycle as governments realize homeowners represent a large portion of the voter base and their voting decisions could be influenced by the magnitude and direction of house price changes. Specifically, the paper investigates whether house prices behave differently before and after elections and under different political regimes. To examine this relationship, the study analyzed quarterly UK national house price data since 1960, along with data on the results of UK parliamentary elections during the same period. Over this period, real annual UK house prices increased by an average of 2.84%. While there is no evidence that house prices in the UK performed significantly differently under different political parties, we observed that house prices performed much better in the last year before an election, compared to the first year after an election. On average house prices increased by 5.3% per annum in the last year before an election compared to 1.3% per annum in the first year following an election. The study, thus, highlights significant variations in the performance of UK house prices around election times. It is imperative, therefore, that the political cycle is given adequate consideration when making residential property investment decisions.

When regional autonomy was implemented in 1999, many questioned whether there would automatically be a fundamental and structural paradigm shift. By critically examining various dimensions of regional development problems in the era of decentralization, the main objective of this study is to analyze development achievements in Indonesia during the implementation of regional autonomy policies (1999-2021). This study uses a qualitative method with a descriptive-analytical approach. The results of this study can be viewed from the four dimensions of decentralization: Political, Administrative, Fiscal, and Economic. Regional autonomy has encouraged a democratic culture amid people's lives from the political dimension. However, the biggest problem in political development is the weak performance of democratic institutions such as parliaments and political parties. From the dimension of government administration, there is a shift from vertical to horizontal accountability, where information and accountability are not given in one direction vertically but also to the people. From the fiscal dimension, regions have not fully optimized regional original revenue and regional economic potential. Fiscal decentralization has not yet had an optimal impact on development in the education, health, and social service sectors. From the economic dimension, there are still very few regions that are serious about using the potential of their natural resources and human resources to increase the competitiveness of their regions in the context of economic development.

From the second-half of the twentieth century, a nascent Tamil cinema became increasingly influential in Tamil society and more prominent in political life. The Dravidar Kazhagam, founded by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy in 1944, morphed into the DMK and AIADMK, two dominant state political parties in Tamil Nadu. Through the medium of film, some of its leading lights, C. N. Annadurai, M. Karunanidhi, M. G. Ramachandran and Jayalalitha, cultivated cinema audiences and the voting public in the political ideologies of the Dravidian movement and subsequently became Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu. The symbiotic relationship between politics and Tamil cinema has meant that political and social commentaries and the assertion of Tamil nationalistic ideas was commonplace in Tamil films. In recent years, Tamil cinema has become the vehicle for raising a wide range of concerns ranging from caste, class and gender and state/nation politics, marking a shift that focusses on everyday politics in the state. In this article, we present a critical survey of the role of Tamil cinema in disseminating particular realities and politics of identity that speak to an essentialised notion of Tamil cultural and linguistic identity, the concomitant disavowal of broader conceptions of Indian-ness or belonging to the Indian nation, as well as the use of cinema to address everyday politics in the State.

A Conflict can be resolved when there is an adequate understanding of its causes. The objective of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the contributory factors of the Bawku chieftaincy conflict as a case study and explore the lasting solutions to the conflict which contributes to the political, cultural, and socio-economic development. The study surveyed 200 householders using systematic and snow-balling in five spatial locations in the Bawku Traditional Area. Subsequently, face-to-face interviews were conducted with the Traditional Authorities, the Police, and the Belim-Wusa Development Agency to verify the claims made in the survey and to obtain further insights into the conflict. The responses obtained from the interviews were analyzed for patterns and themes and used as narratives in the work. The geographical location and socio-economic activities such as population growth, farming, and poverty have made the Bawku Traditional Area more prone to persistent conflicts. Again, other contributory factors included; political interference, freedom from fear, a proliferation of small arms, and inadequate access to social services. The empirical findings support the proposition that political interventions sowed the seed of the Bawku conflict. The study recommended that the National Peace Council should organize a workshop to educate the political parties on the need to stay away from chieftaincy matters.

Greek political leadership in the 2nd half of the 20th century: context and character
Over the centuries, difficult living conditions in Greece contributed to the development of the client‑patron system as a way of providing subsistence for the generally poor population. Following the establishment of the independent Greek state in 1830, clientelism was absorbed into the nation's political life. Greek political leadership in the 2nd half of the 20th century remained under the pressure of this time‑honored heritage. The state's social role was regarded as a priority for the Greeks by both the right of Konstantinos Karamanlis and the left of Andreas Papandreou. The leaders did not break away from clientelism even in the context of the stabilization of democracy after 1950. Quite the contrary, they developed it by transforming former clientelist relations into the system of sociopolitical control over the state, with the political parties and their administrative apparatus becoming the principal instrument for exercising this control. As a result, partisan clientelism emerged with electorates as its beneficiaries. Their attention focused on the perfecting of the system to which the state and national economy would eventually fall victim. In the later 1990s, with the deaths of K. Karamanlis and A. Papandreou, the time of charismatic leadership in Greek politics came to an end but the system they created has continued.

Over the past several decades, the neoliberal paradigm has dominated global economics and has marked a period of privatization, the supremacy of finance capital and the centrality of unaccountable global financial organizations. Since 2011, the world witnessed an increase in protests across the globe, as citizens have expressed their discontent with the political structures and policies that led to inequalities and the erosion of democratic institutions. Together with millions of people from Ecuador, Colombia, Lebanon, Brazil, Hong Kong or France, different groups of civilians also participated to mass-gatherings in Chile since October 2019 to nowadays. In this paper, I will try to elaborate on how protesters are answering to global challenges through local cultural resistance in order to build counter-identity. By tracing the history of Cueca, a traditional Chilean dance, this article aims to understand how the performance of these cultural practices had been submitted to various levels of re-constructions and re-appropriations of meanings, becoming both an instrument of politicization and a form of activism. Transversally, this analysis will examine how new political actions are shaping the dynamics of protests by different actors and instruments of propagation, specific to post neo-liberal societies: the dominant role of youth, the absence of political parties as main organizers and the widespread use of social media as means of political action.

Only a year after the first election in which women were able to vote and stand as members of parliament (MPs) the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act became law. Among its other provisions, this legislation allowed women to become Justice of the Peace (JPs) for the first time. In December 1919 the Lord Chancellor convened a committee of advisors (the Crewe Committee), drawn from different parts of the United Kingdom and the various political parties, and in 1920 the appointment of the first large group of women to become JPs was announced. Among the early women JPs were several individuals who also feature in the list of the country's first women MPs, and some others who stood unsuccessfully for parliament. This article concentrates on the careers in public and political service of a few of these women, with particular focus on their engagement with criminal justice reform and connections to the women's movement. It considers examples both of women who were successful in becoming MPs and those who were not. Among the issues considered will be the extent of these individuals' interest in the political and judicial aspects of their work and an assessment of their extra-parliamentary careers. The paper concludes that women could and did lead important and satisfying political lives outside as well as inside the House of Commons.

Este trabajo busca ampliar el conocimiento sobre las juventudes políticas durante la última apertura democrática. Para ello, se propone estudiar el Movimiento de Juventudes Políticas, una experiencia transversal que reunió a las juventudes de los principales partidos políticos del país entre 1983 y 1987. Con este objetivo, se intenta reconstruir las condiciones de emergencia del movimiento, identificar los espacios en los cuales se canalizó el activismo político juvenil para reconocer y comprender las ideas y las prácticas que nutrieron su cultura política. ; This paper seeks to broaden knowledge about the political role of youth since the comeback of democracy in Argentina (after the dictatorship period). In order to do so, the paper proposes to study the role of youth in politics, a transversal experience that brought together the youth of the country's main political parties between 1983 and 1987. As a result, there is an attempt to reconstruct the emergency conditions of these historical facts. And also there is an attempt to identify how youth political activism was born, so as to be able to recognize, and understand which were the ideas and lines that turned the involvement of the youth in politics into one of the most salient features of today's Argentinian political culture. ; Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación