This paper is part of a book project studying women in the executive branch in presidential democracies. In the book and other papers we examine the education, career, political experience, and interest group connections of more than 400 female and male cabinet ministers from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and the United States and our analysis of minister backgrounds indicates that, in the aggregate, men and women in these cabinets have resumes that are extremely similar. However, gender differences in background traits are apparent that correlate with the likelihood that a minister will be appointed to a portfolio in the masculine vs. feminine policy domains. In this paper we explore whether the backgrounds of ministers help to predict their success in office in two of our cases - Argentina and Chile - measuring success as the percentage of bills initiated by the minister that are passed into law. We find that female ministers initiate fewer bills than their male colleagues, but that women are just as successful as men at getting their bills passed into law. Political experience and connections, in the form of being a “political insider” or a “friend of the president” and having a primary career in government increase bill initiation and success, but experience related to the policy area of the minister's portfolio and connections to clients of the ministry do not have an impact on either bill initiation or success passing bills into law. These findings indicate that, at least in Argentina and Chile, there is no negative gender bias in inter-branch relations hampering the ability of female ministers to achieve their legislative agenda.

Plurality-led congresses are among the most pervasive and least studied phenomena in presidential systems around the world. Often conflated with divided government, where an organized opposition controls a majority of seats in congress, plurality-led congresses are characterized by a party with fewer than fifty percent of the seats still in control of the legislative gates. Extensive gatekeeping authority without plenary majorities, this book shows, leads to policy outcomes that are substantially different from those observed in majority-led congresses. Through detailed analyses of legislative success in Argentina and Uruguay, this book explores the determinants of law enactment in fragmented congresses. It describes in detail how the lack of majority support explains legislative success in standing committees, the chamber directorate, and on the plenary floor.

The primary objective of the manual is to foster a gender perspective in national statistics. Recognising that systematic integration of gender in regular statistical activities is still missing in many countries, the manual has been designed to guide a sustainable development of gender statistics. The manual provides concrete information needed to accomplish three main goals: (a) achieve a comprehensive coverage of gender issues in data production activities; (b) incorporate a gender perspective into the design of surveys or censuses, by taking into account gender issues and gender-biases in measurement; and (c) improve data analysis and data presentation and deliver gender statistics in a format easy to use by policy makers and planners.

Legislatures are the core representative institutions in modern democracies. Citizens want legislatures to be decisive, and they want accountability, but they are frequently disillusioned with the representation legislators deliver. Political parties can provide decisiveness in legislatures, and they may provide collective accountability, but citizens and political reformers frequently demand another type of accountability from legislators – at the individual level. Can legislatures provide both kinds of accountability? This book considers what collective and individual accountability require and provides the most extensive cross-national analysis of legislative voting undertaken to date. It illustrates the balance between individualistic and collective representation in democracies, and how party unity in legislative voting shapes that balance. In addition to quantitative analysis of voting patterns, the book draws on extensive field and archival research to provide an extensive assessment of legislative transparency throughout the Americas.

The World's Women 2010 uniquely reviews and analyses the current availability of data and assesses progress made in the reporting of national statistics, as opposed to internationally prepared estimates, relevant to gender concerns. Published every five years, the World's Women sets out a blueprint for improving the availability of data in the areas of demographics, health, education, work, violence against women, poverty, decision-making and human rights.

There is an increasing awareness that gender equality is not something that just "is" in unproblematic and natural ways, but that it may be understood and packaged in several ways, with quite different consequences. It therefore makes good sense to ask, with the authors in this book, how gender equality is understood and practised in the Nordic countries, with their avowedly good record on gender equality measures. It makes especially good sense to look closely at the consequences and difficulties that arise out of the many-faceted meanings attached to "gender" and "equality" in politics and policies, as well as in daily life. In this book, eleven Nordic scholars offer critical analyses of current dislocations, dilemmas and contradictions in the field of Nordic gender equality. They have studied issues to do with constructing state and nation, regulating political practices and producing gendered subjectivities. The authors are affiliated with universities in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and united in seeing the need for a critical scholarly stance on Nordic gender equality policies and practices.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.