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This article takes up the issue of women's political participation in village committees in China. Of interest is the decline in and continuing low level of women's political participation in village governance structures in the reform period, and particularly following the widespread introduction of competitive village elections since 1988. The dominant explanation given for women's numerical under-representation in village committees, and in politics more generally, focuses on women's lack of self-confidence, which inhibits them from standing as candidates, and on the enduring drag of 'feudal' attitudes, which construct women as inferior to men, and therefore not capable of leadership. These two factors combined have in turn a material effect, as son-preference advantages boys in access to basic schooling, who thus, particularly in poorer rural areas, end up with higher levels of education, and greater opportunities in waged employment. The common solution adopted by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), China's largest women's organisation, lies in a two-pronged attack: first in the ideological realm, targeting men and women's sexist attitudes and concomitantly promoting a discourse of equality, and second, in the material realm by raising women's skills. It is argued here that this dominant text on women's under-representation in village committees masks a more complex conjuncture of variables that shape women's position in local politics. Social practices, economic structures, institutional norms and procedures, and political culture all prey on, revitalise and reproduce gendered notions of the appropriate place of women and men in political life. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

This article examines elections for local executive heads in post-Soeharto Indonesia, particularly in relation to the reactivated and decentralized political corruption in democratic political institutions. Money politics preferred by many Indonesians, including scholars and even ordinary citizens, to differentiate from the corruption of the authoritarian past still dominates political discourse despite the early hopes for responsive and accountable government, which underpinned the reformasi movement. The author uses the 2001 Yogyakarta mayoral election as a case study to examine how such undemocratic and corrupt practices as local assembly members vote selling in elections for regional heads has emerged as an actual pattern of the revitalized multi-party parliamentary politics in Indonesia. (Contemp Southeast Asia/DÜI)

This article addresses the concern that democratization may contribute to the reproduction of neo-patrimonialism, rather than to counteract it. The article reports the result of a survey among members of parliament in Ghana regarding their election campaigns. Total spending, sources of funds, and their usage are analysed in the context of the consolidation of liberal democracy. The survey results are supplemented with data collected in 34 interviews with MPs. The data show that MPs are involved in patron-client relationships to a significant degree to reproduce their political power. Furthermore, the prevalence of patronage politics among MPs in Ghana has increased throughout the period of democratic rule. This persistent pattern of patronage politics threatens the very heart of democratic consolidation. Vertical accountability and legitimacy is threatened by alternative pacts of loyalty, expectations of corruption, and tendencies to delegative mandates. Horizontal accountability risks pervasion by "big man" interventions, and by insufficient allocation of time to monitoring the government and legislative activities. (Democratization - www.frankcass.com/DÜI)

This article examines the relationship between the legislature and the public administration in postwar Italy (understood as the period from about 1948 through 1994). Italian public administration is normally chacterized as badly designed and inefficient, and government performance is usually classed as poor. I argue by contrast that bureaucratic inefficiency, excessive legislation and widespread bureaucratic corruption were features of Italian public administration that were deliberately designed by legislators and intended to enhance the re-election prospects for incumbents by providing them with opportunities for extensive constituency service. The underlying incentives stemmed from the candidates' search for the personal vote, essential for retaining public office. Differences in the laws regulating the financing of political campaigns explain why excessive bureaucratization in the Italian context also resulted in extensive political corruption. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)