Gender quota is seen as the result of a affirmative action policy, focused on reducing gender bias and women underrepresentation. Proportional representation of both sexes in the public sphere, especially in politics and decision-making bodies of organisations, is seen as a democratic and economic necessity, an essential condition for developing gender sensitive policy. The paper presents analysis of initiatives to legislate gender quatas in Lithuania, by discussing the accounts used for proposals to adopt gender quatas, representing the standpoints of main political actors and identifying the obstacles of quata's legitimation.
Gender quota is seen as the result of a affirmative action policy, focused on reducing gender bias and women underrepresentation. Proportional representation of both sexes in the public sphere, especially in politics and decision-making bodies of organisations, is seen as a democratic and economic necessity, an essential condition for developing gender sensitive policy. The paper presents analysis of initiatives to legislate gender quatas in Lithuania, by discussing the accounts used for proposals to adopt gender quatas, representing the standpoints of main political actors and identifying the obstacles of quata's legitimation.
The paper analyzes the descriptive representation of women in post-communist countries, that is, the factors determining the representation of women in parliaments in postsocialist states. The main problem is that women are underrepresented in the analyzed sample of countries. With the average of 17 percent, the number of women falls behind the world's average and lags severely behind Western countries. The paper sets its primary goal: to test a set of theories developed from studies of women's access to political power in Western democracies. I wished to see how those theories fared in a significantly different context, the newly developing democracies of post-communist space. Three hypotheses were raised: 1. The main factor, determining the representation of women in parliaments of post-communist states is the design of electoral system; 2. The prevailing patriarchal attitude towards the role of women in the society is important, but not the essential factor; 3. Socioeconomic conditions do not explain the variance of the proportion of women found in legislative institutions of post-communist countries. Three last elections of 17 electoral democracies of post-communist countries have been included in the analysis. The model of legislative recruitment process has been used as the main theoretical framework. This process is highly influenced by cultural, political and socioeconomic contexts within which it occurs. The dependent variable in the research is the number of women legislators in parliaments. 3 independent variables – political, socioeconomic and cultural factors – have been divided into subfactors. Statistical analysis has been undertaken: correlation coefficients have been calculated and multivariate regression analysis has been made. Results demonstrate that the first hypothesis cannot be confirmed, but its statement is close to the truth. It appears that the main factor, determining the representation of women in post-communist countries, is fertility rate per woman. The higher the rate of fertility, the less women will be found in the legislatures. Electoral system is a very important variable. The proportional representation electoral system, characterized by high district magnitude and high electoral thresholds, is highly favourable to representation of women in parliaments. The second hypothesis, stating that patriarchal attitude towards women is important, but not the essential factor, has been confirmed. Countries where patriarchal attitude is prevalent, fare worse in representation of women. However, considering the remarkable differences between the attitudes of Western and post-communist countries, it could have been reasonable to expect that this factor would be the main determining the number of female legislators. However, this is not the case. Such attitude is common to all post-communist countries, so it probably operates as a main factor determining the relatively low number in post-communist states as a whole, and not as important in explaining the variation across the region. The third hypothesis, stating that socioeconomic factors do not affect the representation of women, has not been confirmed. Fertility rate, unemployment, and participation in labor force are all important factors explaining the variance of female MPs. The only factor that proved to be unimportant was level of development. So it can be stated, that the theories, developed in Western countries, with little nuances, are able to explain the variance of women MPs in post-communist states. The only difference is that fertility rate plays a particularly important role in post-communist context, and the relation between the participation of women in the labor force and the number of women in parliaments is negative. This can be due to the fact that participation in labor force refers to completely different things in Western and Eastern societies.
The paper analyzes the descriptive representation of women in post-communist countries, that is, the factors determining the representation of women in parliaments in postsocialist states. The main problem is that women are underrepresented in the analyzed sample of countries. With the average of 17 percent, the number of women falls behind the world's average and lags severely behind Western countries. The paper sets its primary goal: to test a set of theories developed from studies of women's access to political power in Western democracies. I wished to see how those theories fared in a significantly different context, the newly developing democracies of post-communist space. Three hypotheses were raised: 1. The main factor, determining the representation of women in parliaments of post-communist states is the design of electoral system; 2. The prevailing patriarchal attitude towards the role of women in the society is important, but not the essential factor; 3. Socioeconomic conditions do not explain the variance of the proportion of women found in legislative institutions of post-communist countries. Three last elections of 17 electoral democracies of post-communist countries have been included in the analysis. The model of legislative recruitment process has been used as the main theoretical framework. This process is highly influenced by cultural, political and socioeconomic contexts within which it occurs. The dependent variable in the research is the number of women legislators in parliaments. 3 independent variables – political, socioeconomic and cultural factors – have been divided into subfactors. Statistical analysis has been undertaken: correlation coefficients have been calculated and multivariate regression analysis has been made. Results demonstrate that the first hypothesis cannot be confirmed, but its statement is close to the truth. It appears that the main factor, determining the representation of women in post-communist countries, is fertility rate per woman. The higher the rate of fertility, the less women will be found in the legislatures. Electoral system is a very important variable. The proportional representation electoral system, characterized by high district magnitude and high electoral thresholds, is highly favourable to representation of women in parliaments. The second hypothesis, stating that patriarchal attitude towards women is important, but not the essential factor, has been confirmed. Countries where patriarchal attitude is prevalent, fare worse in representation of women. However, considering the remarkable differences between the attitudes of Western and post-communist countries, it could have been reasonable to expect that this factor would be the main determining the number of female legislators. However, this is not the case. Such attitude is common to all post-communist countries, so it probably operates as a main factor determining the relatively low number in post-communist states as a whole, and not as important in explaining the variation across the region. The third hypothesis, stating that socioeconomic factors do not affect the representation of women, has not been confirmed. Fertility rate, unemployment, and participation in labor force are all important factors explaining the variance of female MPs. The only factor that proved to be unimportant was level of development. So it can be stated, that the theories, developed in Western countries, with little nuances, are able to explain the variance of women MPs in post-communist states. The only difference is that fertility rate plays a particularly important role in post-communist context, and the relation between the participation of women in the labor force and the number of women in parliaments is negative. This can be due to the fact that participation in labor force refers to completely different things in Western and Eastern societies.
Innovation activities are among the main drivers of intensive economic growth. However, they are affected by market and system failures. Therefore, they require government intervention, which can lead to a government failure, thus affecting the intensity and effectiveness of innovation policy. The latter failure can be at least partially determined by political institutions, such as electoral systems. The importance of such institutions is demonstrated by their effect on public investment in regionally bounded public goods and social transfers. Consequently, the electoral systems should also affect innovation policy. The research aim is to reveal the theoretical aspects of the relationship between innovation policy and economic growth and the expected role of electoral institutions, and to propose and empirically test a model for the assessment of the impact of innovation policy on economic growth in the context of such institutions. Three main innovation channels were identified in the thesis. They include knowledge creation, knowledge absorption, and technology transfer. Using factor and panel data analysis, the research found that innovation policy is more intense in countries with majoritarian electoral systems. Contrariwise, it has a stronger positive relationship with economic performance in countries with proportional representation electoral systems in terms of government supported knowledge creation and technology transfer.
Innovation activities are among the main drivers of intensive economic growth. However, they are affected by market and system failures. Therefore, they require government intervention, which can lead to a government failure, thus affecting the intensity and effectiveness of innovation policy. The latter failure can be at least partially determined by political institutions, such as electoral systems. The importance of such institutions is demonstrated by their effect on public investment in regionally bounded public goods and social transfers. Consequently, the electoral systems should also affect innovation policy. The research aim is to reveal the theoretical aspects of the relationship between innovation policy and economic growth and the expected role of electoral institutions, and to propose and empirically test a model for the assessment of the impact of innovation policy on economic growth in the context of such institutions. Three main innovation channels were identified in the thesis. They include knowledge creation, knowledge absorption, and technology transfer. Using factor and panel data analysis, the research found that innovation policy is more intense in countries with majoritarian electoral systems. Contrariwise, it has a stronger positive relationship with economic performance in countries with proportional representation electoral systems in terms of government supported knowledge creation and technology transfer.
The Swiss Confederation is characterised by a long constitutional evolution that can be divided into several important periods: the Old Swiss Confederacy (13–14 C.), Helvetica (1798–1848), Mediation (1803–1814), Restoration (1815–1830), Regeneration (1830–1848) and development since 1874. It can be stated that Switzerland adopted a modern, democratic constitution early; this state is the oldest democratic republic in Europe. In 1874, many amendments to the effective Constitution were made and a lot of gaps in legal regulation came to light, which led to the opinion that in order to remove those shortcomings, a few specific amendments were no longer sufficient; therefore, it was decided to make substantial changes to the Constitution. The new Constitution was approved by the people and the cantons in the referendum of 18 April 1999 and came into effect on 1 January 2000. The most significant features of this Constitution include the entrenchment of the principles of democracy, federalism, and of the state of law and social welfare. Pursuant to the principle of division of governmental powers, the governing of the state is carried out by the following federal institutions: the Federal Assembly, the Bundesrat and the Federal Court. The Federal Assembly, which takes into consideration the rights of the people and the cantons in its decision-making, is the supreme governing power of the Federation; it is granted superiority over the other powers, the Bundesrat and the Federal Court. This can be explained by the fact that its members are elected by the people in direct and democratic elections, and that it is assigned exclusive powers in the fields of legislation and supervision of other institutions. Nevertheless, the aforementioned position expressing the superiority of the Parliament does not change the essence of the principle of division of governmental powers that has long been the foundation of the Swiss Constitutions.elected according to the proportional representation system. The term of office is four years. The Council of States is made up of 46 canton deputies. Their term of office and system of election is determined by the individual cantons. The Federal Assembly can only exercise its assigned powers when matching decisions are made by the councils meeting separately. To exercise certain powers (election of members of the Bundesrat, the Federal Chancellor, Federal Court judges and the General; resolution of conflicts of competence between the supreme institutions of the Federation; granting clemency) they meet together and act as the United Federal Assembly. Activity of the members of the Federal Assembly is based on the principle of the free mandate. It is notable that the members of the Federal Assembly may retain their previous position during their term of office but, in order to ensure transparency in non-parliamentary ties and activities, they must disclose their interest ties. The Federal Assembly together with the Bundesrat are institutions that are fairly independent from each other, governing the state with regard to strategic issues, legislation, planning and formation of the budget and implementation of foreign policy; together they allow to describe Switzerland's form of government as exceptional, having some features of both the parliamentary and the presidential form of government. ; Straipsnyje analizuojama Šveicarijos Konfederacijos parlamento teisinė padėtis pagal šiuo metu šalyje galiojančią 1999 m. balandžio 18 d. referendume priimtą Konstituciją, įsigaliojusią 2000 m. sausio 1 d. Trumpai apžvelgus konstitucionalizmo raidą šalyje, pirmiausia aptariami pagrindiniai Konstitucijoje įtvirtinti valstybinės santvarkos ir politinės visuomenės pamatus grindžiantys principai, be abejo, lemiantys ir parlamento statusą šalyje, konstatuojant, kad Šveicarija yra demokratinė, federalinė, socialinė ir teisinė valstybė. Remiantis Konstitucijoje implicitiškai įtvirtintu valdžių padalijimo principu, atskleidžiama parlamento vieta valstybės valdžią įgyvendinančių institucijų sistemoje, akcentuojant jo viršenybę kitų institucijų atžvilgiu. Aptarus palamento – Federalinio susirinkimo – struktūrą, apžvelgiami jį sudarančių rūmų – Nacionalinės tarybos ir Kantonų tarybos – ypatumai. Toliau straipsnyje apžvelgiami parlamento įgaliojimai, pagrindiniai jo veiklos principai bei narių teisinio statuso esminiai bruožai.
