Women in German politics: still jobs for the boys?

Today the proportion of German politicians who are female is at an all time high. This has largely been achieved via quotas and most of the main parties now operate some kind of quota system. But have quantitative improvements in female representation in been matched by qualitative improvements? This article seeks to answer this question by looking not only at the number of women in parliaments and other collective bodies, but also in the highest echelons of power. It outlines each party's policies regarding the promotion of women and the factors which enhance or hamper their impact. A brief comparison of female political representation in eastern and western Germany is also provided. The author argues that measures such as quotas have increased the number of female German politicians but still do not guarantee them equal access to positions of real power. Furthermore, the incorporation of pro-equality principles into party statutes has not automatically led to their assimilation into party cultures, especially in the case of well-established parties which only recently addressed the gender imbalance in their ranks

The Berlin land election 2006

This article examines the 2006 Berlin Land election, including the election campaigns of the main parties, the results, and the process of post-election coalition formation. While few doubted that the Social Democratic Party (SPD) would emerge as the largest party, and that the highly popular Klaus Wowereit would continue as Berlin's governing mayor; the big questions were what coalition he would lead and whether Berliners would vote for a continuation of the (initially controversial) red-red coalition comprising the SPD and the Left Party. Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS)

From pariah to power: the Berlin election of 2001 and the PDS question

In 2001 Berlin's grand coalition collapsed in dramatic circumstances, leading to a Land election which attracted unprecedented attention within the Federal Republic and beyond. The entire campaign was dominated by one question, namely could the post-communist PDS gain a share of power in the city that embodied the victory of the capitalist west over the communist east? This article outlines the background to the election, and examines the campaigns of all the main parties. It then analyses the results, with comparisons between the east and west of the city, and examines the process that finally resulted in the formation of a Red-Red coalition government. It concludes with a consideration of the significance of the election results for all the parties concerned and for German politics. Overall, the election suggests that 'inner unity' may well be unattainable in Berlin, and that an acceptance of the city's diversity may be the way forward for its politicians

The PDS tests the West: the party of Democratic Socialism's campaign to become a Pan-German socialist party

Since German reunification the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) has been widely regarded as the articulator of eastern German interests within the political system of the Federal Republic. However, the party's leadership does not want it to be merely a regional interest party, but a 'modern socialist party' with nationwide support. It faces difficulties in this, however, associated with its perceived identity as an 'eastern', leftist party, and its ability to attract largely idealist leftist supporters in the west. The reunited city of western Berlin provides the PDS with a testing-ground for its strategies for western expansion in general. However, the party is unlikely to achieve a breakthrough in the west of Germany unless it abandons its self-proclaimed special responsibility to serve eastern interests. Furthermore, an east-west conflict prevails within the PDS which has both cultural and ideological dimensions, and this could prove divisive in such a heterogeneous party

Women MPs and the socio-environmental preconditions for political participation in the Federal Republic

With the election of Germany's first woman chancellor in November 2005 it would appear that equal opportunities have finally been achieved in German politics. Furthermore, most parties in the Federal Republic are committed to increasing or maintaining certain levels of female representation within their ranks, and many use quotas to achieve this. This article looks not only at the formal mechanisms employed by the German parties to help women enter politics, but also at whether the practice of politics is conducive to women's working methods and lifestyles. Its focus is on the compatibility of a political career with family responsibilities. The author argues that while quotas have helped increase the number of female politicians, party cultures and practices have not been completely transformed. Many problems remain for current and potential female politicians, especially those whose family circumstances make it hard to adapt to the male norms of behaviour which still characterise political life in the Federal Republic

On conjectures of Foulkes, Siemons and Wagner and Stanley

Let A = (AI, ... ,Ar ) be a partition of n. An unordered A-tabloid is a partition of the set {I, 2, ... , n} into r pairwise disjoint sets of sizes AI, ,Ar . Let F denote the field of complex numbers and C the symmetric group of {I, 2, , n}. Define HA to be the permutation module of FC whose basis is the set of unordered A-tabloids. Foulkes conjectured in [13] that there exists an injective FC-homomorphism H(b a ) -t H(a b ) when a ::; b. Independently Siemons and Wagner [27] and Stanley [29] generalized this conjecture to ask if there exists an injective map HA -t HA'. In this thesis we investigate these conjectures.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

N=2 Gauge Theories: Congruence Subgroups, Coset Graphs and Modular Surfaces

We establish a correspondence between generalized quiver gauge theories in four dimensions and congruence subgroups of the modular group, hinging upon the trivalent graphs which arise in both. The gauge theories and the graphs are enumerated and their numbers are compared. The correspondence is particularly striking for genus zero torsion-free congruence subgroups as exemplified by those which arise in Moonshine. We analyze in detail the case of index 24, where modular elliptic K3 surfaces emerge: here, the elliptic j-invariants can be recast as dessins d'enfant which dictate the Seiberg-Witten curves.Comment: 42+1 pages, 5 figures; various helpful comments incorporate

Olivines in angrite LEW 87051: Phenos or xenos

Nyquist et al. recently reported the presence of live Mn-53 in angrite LEW 86010 when it crystallized. Hence, melting must have occurred within approx. 10 Ma of the accretion of the angrite parent body, and LEW 86010 is the oldest known differentiated meteorite. This discovery has made it even more desirable to understand teh petrogenesis of angrites, which presumably were all formed at a similar time. As part of the continuing work on angrite petrogenesis, crystallization experiments were conducted on LEW 87051, the other Antarctic angrite, to clarify its petrogenesis. Several aspects of the experimental work is reported. Although the details are not understood, it is clear that the Cr abundance in the experimental olivines must be controlled by spinel crystallization