This study offers a case study of women’s political participation and representation in pro-Kurdish politics in Turkey since 1990s. Kurdish women have been double oppressed in Turkey due to both their ethnic identity and gender identity. They have been mobilized by the Kurdish national movement for the Kurdish national cause and joined both Kurdish armed and political struggles from the early 1990s. From the foundation of the first pro-Kurdish political party, the People’s Labour Party [Halkın Emek Partisi- HEP] in 1990, Kurdish women have actively been involved in pro- Kurdish party politics. However, the pro-Kurdish party failed in promoting egalitarian gender values, policies and supporting women’s inclusion in decision-making until the end of 1990s except the election of the first Kurdish woman deputy, Leyla Zana in 1991. Women’s participation and representation in pro-Kurdish party politics have significantly advanced numerically since 1990s. In contrast to the general picture of women’s underrepresentation in Turkey’s politics, the proportion of Kurdish women representatives has been increasing in representation bodies. Therefore, this research aims to examine the Kurdish case through conducting an intensive field research in order to explain the reasons and factors behind these developments. This research is an empirical case study, primarily based on qualitative analysis of face-to-face in-depth semi-structured interviews of female political activists and participant observations held during field research. On the basis of empirical data gathered from field research and an analysis of pro-Kurdish party characteristics, its gender policies and female political activists’ roles in representation bodies, this study argues that the pro-Kurdish politics has gradually been feminizing which refers to an increase in women’s both descriptive and substantive representation since the beginning of 2000s. The changes and developments in terms of women’s representation in pro-Kurdish politics are framed as a process of feminization; which can simply be defined as a process for women to be included in political decision-making both in numbers and ideas for representing women’s interests. In this regard, this thesis searches for answers for two essential questions: how has the pro-Kurdish party politics been feminized and what difference has been made in pro-Kurdish politics since women are increasingly taking part in decision-making processes. Thus, this study assesses whether descriptive representation links to women's substantive representation in pro-Kurdish politics. The examination of Kurdish women’s representation based on the feminizing politics approach does not only theoretically contribute to broaden the scope of feminizing politics but it also broadens the scope of the concepts of descriptive and substantive representation included in this approach. In this respect, this thesis will demonstrate that the analysis of the Kurdish women case in the context of feminizing politics presents several insights about the women‘s political representation and put forth how political parties and actors strategically interact in changing women‘s political representation.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / Great Britain has adopted two definitive yet different political goals in Africa, each of which has been controlled in large part by the internal situation of the territories. In West Africa, colonial policy has granted power of decision to African political leadership, while in Central Africa, political authority has been given in large measure to the local European minority. Contrasted to these two major decisions, Britain has not adopted specific definitive policy goals for Kenya. The general goal of self-government is too vague to be meaningful to the different members of its disparate multi-racial population. The immediate question is "self-government for whom?" To what racial or ethnic group does the 'self' refer? In West Africa it certainly meant Africans and in Central Africa it has meant Europeans. What accounts for the unwillingness of Britain to define specific and immediate policies in Kenya? It is believed that an answer to this problem through analysis of the internal political and social situation will reveal not only the distinct problems that Kenya poses for policy, but will suggest that the present policy of traditional empiricism may not be able to meet the critical problems of this territory. [TRUNCATED]

<p>This dissertation examines the political representation of non<&ndash>citizen Latinos in the U.S. states. Specifically, it investigates why lawmakers, seen as primarily driven by the goal of reelection, would be compelled to vote for or sponsor legislation to favor this non<&ndash>citizen, non<&ndash>voting population.</p><p>Using newly collected data on bill sponsorship and roll call voting, combined with data collected from an original survey of current state lawmakers, I test a more nuanced version of David Mayhew<&rsquo>s reelection theory. I examine the short<&ndash>term and long<&ndash>term reelection goals of lawmakers finding that both current and potential future voting populations in a district (including non<&ndash>citizens) have significant effects on voting and sponsorship decisions. In addition, I find evidence to suggest that personal characteristics of a lawmaker, most notably ethnic identity, also affect legislative behavior. In line with an alternative <&ldquo>good public policy theory,<&rdquo> my results demonstrate that even when electoral pressures are low, Latino lawmakers remain significantly more likely to support non<&ndash>citizen interests when compared to all other lawmakers. The broader implication of this finding is that descriptive representation matters and the identity link between Latino legislators and non<&ndash>citizen Latinos in society encourages behavior that is not fully explained by standard reelection theories.</p> / Dissertation

This qualitative case study focuses on the development of women’s political representation in national legislation, from 2000 to 2021 in Mexico. To examine the development of women’s political representation, this study will use Hanna Pitkin’s (1967) four interconnected diminutions of representation: formal, descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation. The result of this study has revealed a predominantly positive development trends in Mexican women’s political representation in the Congress of the Union, from 2000 to 2021 in terms of formal, descriptive, substantive representation. While the implantation of a gender quota system has had an overall positive impact, the unwavering scepticism and lack of trust of the democratic and representative political institutions, among women is still persistent.

Both feminist and mainstream political science has taken an institutional ‘turn’, opening up possibilities for dialogue between the two fields. Yet, despite sharing a number of common interests and preoccupations, there has been little interplay between mainstream new institutionalist scholars and feminist political scientists working on institutions. This thesis attempts to fill this gap and evaluates the potential for theoretical synthesis between feminist gender analysis and new institutional theory. It argues that there is potential for mutual benefit from a synthesis of these two approaches, and that a ‘feminist institutionalism’ offers a promising theoretical approach for the study of gender and institutions. The thesis evaluates the potential of a feminist institutionalist approach in the context of the comparative literature on gender and political recruitment. It critically evaluates the supply and demand model (Norris and Lovenduski, 1995), one of the only models that attempts to systematically integrate gender into the dynamics of the recruitment process. The thesis contends that a feminist institutionalist approach offers a way to take the supply and demand forward, developing the theoretical interconnections that are present implicitly in Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski’s work on political recruitment and reintegrating and reformulating the key features of the model into a feminist and institutionalist framework. The thesis develops this theory-building project through an illustrative case study – the institutions of political recruitment in post-devolution Scotland. Using a multi-method approach – including discourse analysis, process tracing, and political interviewing – the thesis combines a macro-level analysis of gendered patterns of selection and recruitment in Scottish political parties over time with a micro-level case study of a Scottish Labour Party constituency seat selection contest in the run-up to the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections. The case study finds some evidence of institutional innovation and reform in the candidate selection process, but also highlights underlying continuities in the institutions of political recruitment. The case study illustrates the specific and gendered difficulties of institutionalizing a ‘new’ more gender-balanced politics within a pre-existing institutional context. Findings from the case study suggest that the ‘success’ of institutional innovation in candidate selection is a complex and contingent question, and that elements of the ‘old’ continue to co-exist with elements of the ‘new’, constraining and shaping each other. The Scottish case, then, underscores the need to rethink conventional models of political recruitment, illustrating the difficulties of reforming and redesigning the institutions of political recruitment in the face of powerful institutional and gendered legacies. As such, the thesis generates new theoretical and empirical insights into the gendered dynamics of institutional power, continuity and change that contribute to the growing body of research on gender and institutions and inform the wider literature on both new institutional theory and feminist political science.

Political representatives’ democratic legitimacy rests on their ability to cover the distance between themselves and citizens. Representatives must avoid being perceived as distant and aloof from the needs and wishes of those they represent. The aim of this thesis is to increase the understanding of how new forms of communication with citizens, through participatory initiatives as well as political blogging, are used by politicians in their roles as representatives. Underlying this aim is the question of whether new forms of communication can contribute to reducing the distance between representatives and citizens. The central argument of this thesis is that such types of communication aid representative democracy only to the extent that they offer representatives efficient channels for performing functions related to political representation. This study presents a theoretical framework that identifies potential functions of communication between representatives and citizens for political representation. Its empirical analyses, presented in five articles, find that representatives widely communicate with citizens through participatory initiatives and political blogging to aid their roles as political representatives. Furthermore, results show that representatives’ communication is significantly determined by strategic, practical, and normative factors. The representatives are found to act strategically as communication practices are adapted to accommodate their particular situations, needs and normative orientations. Keywords:

The long line of representation studies posits that proportional representation systems, with larger electoral districts, have a representational advantage over majoritarian systems. However, over the last decade, scholars have challenged this longstanding nding (Blais & Bodet 2006, Golder & Stramski 2007). Additionally, Golder & Stramski (2007) initiated a debate over the conceptualization and measurement of congruence, arguing that the most common practice of assessing congruence is flawed. They call for an improved measure of congruence. In the light of this recent debates, the purpose of this thesis is to inspect the relationship between institutional designs and political representation in the European context, using Voting Advice Application generated data. Three main research questions are explored. The first question relates to institutional designs such as district magnitude, and electoral system characteristics such as disproportionality or polarization, investigating the conditions necessary for a country to present high levels of congruence between its citizens and their representatives. Looking at party level characteristics, I will investigate what are the effects of niche party status and governmental status on issue congruence in European democracies? Last but not least, what is the role of individual characteristics? These questions will be addressed by studying the impact of different features of electoral systems, party and individual characteristics have on political representation conceptualized as issue congruence. Congruence is measured as the degree of matching of the common policy preferences of citizens and parties as indicated by the Voting Advice Applications EU Pro filer 2009 and EUvox 2014. The present work contributes to the stream of research on political representation understood as congruence. The strength of this work lays in its comparative approach, and the use of VAA generated data to measure congruence. While most of the studies on political representation using congruence focus on the Left-Right dimension, this thesis uses the concept of issue congruence. Based on the 28 common statements of the VAA tool, the measure of congruence is metric-free, allowing for cross-country comparisons. Although there is a wide range of research on the effects of electoral systems on political representation, most of these studies are limited in their use of comparative approaches. The lack of extensive comparative research on issue congruence is due to insufficient data. The 2009 EU Profi ler and 2014 EUvox address this issue, providing the necessary framework for testing the predictors of congruence at a system, party and individual level. Political representation can be operationalized through congruence, as the distance between the citizen and the representative (Huber & Powell 1994, Powell 2004). Issue congruence is the correspondence between party electorates and their representatives across a set of salient policy dimensions (Powell 2004). VAA generated data provides a new means of measuring congruence. I propose two new measures of congruence, based on the distance between the citizen and the party the citizen intends to vote for. Unlike other comparative studies that measure congruence with the help of the Left-Right scale, the present work focuses on issue policies. Issue congruence is the outcome of the match between the citizen and the party she intends to vote for on a series of 28 and 22 political statements. Additionally, the focus on issue congruence is important because issue representation is mostly inferred from the alternative interpretations of congruence. The measures of issue congruence therefore contribute to a better understanding of political representation in the EU political space, tackling the recurrent crisis of representation.

This paper investigates to what extent voters and politicians have the same preferences for locally provided welfare services. We make use of two different types of survey questionnaires; one directed towards voters and one directed towards politicians. We reach two main conclusions in the paper. First, we find that politicians have preferences for significantly different spending on locally provided welfare services compared to voters. Second, this difference remains even after controlling for politicians and voters having different socio-economic characteristics. For example, when analyzing female representation, we find that female politicians have significantly different preferences for spending than female voters. One implication of the latter result is that an increase in the ratio of female to male politicians may not be the only way to deal with the desire to increase the political representation of women.

<p>This thesis deals with political representation in EU multi-level governance. The European Union and its political system is quite complex, due to its unusual and multi-level governance.</p><p>It has gained the reputation of capturing professionalism, and conforming to elite governance to a point where it is seen as an elite political game.</p><p>The thesis wish to examine the European political system, and ask the questions, how important is the degree of consent between the political elite and the public in the European Union? Does it necessarily have an effect on the system of political representation as such, and if is does, does it influence legitimacy? Or in other terms, is it necessary for a degree of consent between the political elite and the public for political representation and legitimacy?</p><p>The European Union has a tendancy to gain critique for its focus on professionalism and elitism, and I wish therefore to state that it is important to generate an evident relationship between political representation and legitimacy in EU multi-level governance. It is necessesary to create a functioning relationship between the political elite and the public, but it does not necessarily mean that it influence political representation and legitimacy. It is important to view the opportunities for political representation and legitimacy in a situation such as this. The degree of consent is not to create an impossibility for sufficient political representation and legitimacy in the European Union, is it?</p>

In advanced democracies, many citizens abstain from participating in the political process. Does low and unequal voter turnout influence partisan election results or public policies? If so, how can participation be increased and how can the electorate become more representative of the greater population? / Government