Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: To date there have been few systematic investigations of the role political parties play in women’s recruitment, specifically in more formal candidate nomination processes. Across U.S. states, the strength of political parties to influence candidate nominations varies. I examine how this variation influences women’s candidacies for statewide office. That is, in states where political parties are more powerful, does this increase or decrease the chances a female candidate gains party endorsement or elective office? I investigate to what extent political parties and nomination mechanisms constitute a missing piece of the puzzle of women’s descriptive underrepresentation in statewide offices. To do this, I examine the proportion of and success rates of female candidates between 1988 and 2006 using a unique data set of primary and general election results held in all 50 states. In the aggregate, a significantly higher proportion of women run in primaries and general election contests in states where political parties nominate candidates preprimary. Further, women candidates in preprimary states win at higher, but not significantly so, rates. I find that these results are especially strong in the time period before and just after the “Year of the Woman”; thereafter the rates of women running and winning are more equivalent across states with different nomination systems.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Almost two decades have now passed since the launching of the Mediterranean Action Plan since 1975. A number of similar regional initiatives were launched throughout Europe since then as, for instance, the Barcelona, Helsinki, Oslo and Paris Conventions on coastal areas. Concerning mountain areas, the Alpine Convention was opened for signature in 1991 and it was followed in 2003 by its "sister" Carpathian Convention. This paper proposes an appraisal of the design of the Alpine Convention in the light of how it was written, one decade of implementation and how it is impacting the development of the Carpathian Convention and future multilateral agreements for the protection and sustainable development of other mountain regions. While the former had remarkable effects on the design of both conventions, the latter strongly impacted their respective implementation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In part of the literature, young people are being accused of being less civic minded than previous generations, and thus as responsible for a process of civic decline. Other authors assume that young people adhere to new and different citizenship concepts, thus bringing about a transition toward more postmodern forms of engagement and citizenship. An investigation of the political views of US 14 year olds, however, does not support either of these claims. The analysis (based on the 1999 IEA-survey among 2,811 9th graders in the US) shows that youngsters adhere to quite traditional and conventional citizenship concepts. A vast majority of them intends to vote or to volunteer. More innovative forms of expected political behavior appeal to a substantial group of pupils as well, but they certainly do not replace conventional and/or electoral participation. Both hypotheses from the civic education as well as social capital schools could be confirmed with regard to factors determining the likelihood of future participation: intensity of civics classes (both with regard to topics as to methods being used) prove to be influential, just as engagement in youth associations, but also informal discussions about politics with friends and media consumption. Non-school related experiences are just as important for political socialization as what is happening in schools and classrooms.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper explains why, among a group of relatively similar states, certain states but not others would comply with the same international legal commitment. Drawing on concepts from the ‘ideas’ literature in comparative politics, the literature on global norms in IR, and analyses of reasoning and adjudication in legal philosophy, the paper develops a theoretical framework with which to explain variations in compliance by the US, Germany, France, and the UK with the 1997 OECD anti-bribery Convention. The central argument is that state compliance with an international commitment is a function of the effectiveness with which the global norm at stake in that commitment is articulated in a state’s domestic politics. Effective norm articulation can create the conditions under which a state is unable to produce justifiable reasons for non-compliance, and can provoke compliance despite important countervailing material interests. In the case of the OECD Convention, both powerful strategic trade interests and a powerful international anti-corruption norm are at stake. An analysis of state compliance with the OECD Convention in light of strategic trade theory, however, reveals the limitations of a materialist explanation based on the rationalist framework. Instead, an analysis of norm articulation in the four cases shows the importance of non-materialist variables, having to do with features of the actor that is doing the norm articulation in the domestic political context – the norm entrepreneur – and of the domestic political and normative context into which the global norm is introduced. These features generate four key variables: the legitimacy of the domestic norm entrepreneur; whether the norm entrepreneur enjoys access to the relevant political institutions and policy makers; whether the norm is framed as an element of a high priority policy area, with this framing the result of strategic, instrumental rationality on the part of the norm entrepreneur; and whether the norm resonates in the domestic public policy context, with this resonance a function of public sentiment.