What can political parties do to involve more women in party politics?

In most political parties the majority of members are men, which has implications for achieving equal representation at all levels of politics. Aldo F. Ponce, Susan E. Scarrow and Susan Achury find that this gender gap varies considerably between parties, and that having more women MPs helps to increase women’s participation at the grassroots level

Political Corruption: Accountability And Party System Institutionalization

Providing a definition built on the agency relationship between voters and public officials, this study presents an institutional approach to the causes of political corruption. I argue that higher levels of political party institutionalization reduce political corruption. Institutionalized political party systems help to overcome collective problems among voters within democracies. By increasing levels of accountability, institutionalized political party systems alter public officials\u27 incentives towards a cleaner exercise of the public power. Focusing on different strategies adopted by political parties, I analyze the effectiveness of the constraints imposed on public officials\u27 corrupt behavior within democracies. On the one hand, institutionalization of political party systems increases the incentives for political parties to monitor public officials\u27 performance due to their need to create and protect brand-name capital. On the other hand, institutionalization of the political party systems, by supplying low cost information, allows the constituencies to exercise retrospective and prospective voting, strengthen credible commitments in sanctioning abuses in the public officials\u27 use of power. Characterization of the party system in terms of institutionalization demonstrates how having a democratic system does not ensure effectiveness of political controls against political corruption. The analysis provides a quantitative analysis based on a cross-national sample of eighteen Latin American countries, and a qualitative analysis of the causal relationship in Colombia

The Impact of Formal Authority in Latin American Constitutional Justice

This dissertation provides a comparative study of Latin American systems of constitutional adjudication and a case-study of Peru to explore when and how the institutional design of constitutional review affects the ability of high courts to influence public policy. This study focuses on how rarely studied judicial institutions shaping the type of cases that courts hear and affecting courts’ discretion to respond to constitutional challenges account for differences among levels of courts’ assertiveness. I argue that these rules, conjunctively, encourage courts’ assertiveness and moderate the negative effect of government concentration of power. In the first part of the dissertation, I present the index of Formal Authority for Constitutional Adjudication which I created by aggregating 12 different characteristics of constitutional review, using Multiple Correspondence Analysis. To construct this index, I collected original data on multiple instruments through which constitutional review operates within countries in a sample of 18 Latin American countries. This index improves the existing literature, capturing the full range of within-country variance as well as using an aggregation method that allows the data to inform the model about the weight of each component into the final index. Next, I re-examine previous literature related to the constraining effect of power concentration on the willingness of courts to influence public policy. I use case outcomes of the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal to show that power concentration in government affects the likelihood of unconstitutionality through three different causal mechanisms. I find that executive control over the legislature and its partisan support within the court decreases courts’ assertiveness, while concentration of power in the legislature has the opposite effect. Finally, I use constitutional review decisions adopted by courts of last resort from nine Latin American countries to show that granting courts greater formal authority increases judicial assertiveness and moderates the effect of power concentration on courts’ behavior. These findings suggest that choices in the design of courts generate costs and benefits affecting when and how courts assume active roles as policymakers. This research identifies a combination of rules that encourage courts to check other political actors and protect constitutional rights, and in so doing, it suggests the best practices for institutional design.Political Science, Department o

The consequences of membership incentives: Do greater political benefits attract different kinds of members?

In recent decades, parties in many parliamentary democracies have radically reshaped what it means to be a party member, making it easier and cheaper to join, and giving members greater direct say over party decisions. This article explores some implications of such changes, asking whether membership costs and benefits influence which supporters take the step of joining their party. In particular, it considers the impact of net membership benefits on membership demographics and on members’ ideology. The investigation examines patterns of party membership in 10 parliamentary democracies, using opinion data from the European Social Survey and data on party rules from the Political Party Database project. Our analysis shows that party supporters are more sensitive to political benefits than to financial costs, especially in terms of the ideological incongruence of who joins. As a result, parties offering higher benefits to their members have lower ideological and demographic disparities between members and other party supporters. This is a positive finding for party-based representation, in that it suggests that trends toward more inclusive decision- making processes have the potential to produce parties with memberships that are more substantively and more descriptively representative of their supporters.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The Consequences of Membership Incentives: Do Greater Political Benefits Attract Different Kinds of Members?

In recent years, parties in many parliamentary democracies have radically re-shaped what itmeans to be a party member, most importantly by giving them more direct say over partydecisions. This article explores some of the implications of these changes, asking whether thecosts and benefits of membership have an effect on which supporters take the step of joiningtheir party. In particular, it considers the impact of net membership benefits on membershipdemographics and on members’ ideology. The article investigates these questions looking atpatterns of party membership in 10 parliamentary democracies, using opinion data from theEuropean Social Survey and data on party rules from the Political Party Database project. Ouranalysis shows that party supporters are more sensitive to political benefits than to financialcosts, especially in terms of the ideological incongruence of who joins. As a result, partiesoffering higher benefits to their members have lower ideological and demographic disparitiesbetween members and other party supporters. This is a positive finding for party-basedrepresentation, in that it suggests that parties which adopt more inclusive decision-makingprocesses tend to have memberships which are more substantively and more descriptivelyrepresentative of their supporters.info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe

ImmunoChip Study Implicates Antigen Presentation to T Cells in Narcolepsy

Contains fulltext : 118596.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Recent advances in the identification of susceptibility genes and environmental exposures provide broad support for a post-infectious autoimmune basis for narcolepsy/hypocretin (orexin) deficiency. We genotyped loci associated with other autoimmune and inflammatory diseases in 1,886 individuals with hypocretin-deficient narcolepsy and 10,421 controls, all of European ancestry, using a custom genotyping array (ImmunoChip). Three loci located outside the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) region on chromosome 6 were significantly associated with disease risk. In addition to a strong signal in the T cell receptor alpha (TRA@), variants in two additional narcolepsy loci, Cathepsin H () and Tumor necrosis factor (ligand) superfamily member 4 (, also called ), attained genome-wide significance. These findings underline the importance of antigen presentation by HLA Class II to T cells in the pathophysiology of this autoimmune disease