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The main concept of this research is to explore the type and extent of women political participation during the thread democracy. The main objective is to discuss the factors that influence women participation in politics and to find out the efforts done by women political leaders to enhance women participation in politics as well as to encourage women of the grass roots to participate in politics. The researcher conducted intensive interviewees with purposively selected groups of political leaders as well as women actively participating in politics. The study main findings proved that there are many factors that influence the Sudanese women political participation; these factors are socio-economic and cultural ones. The researcher recommended policy makers and political party leaders as well as women groups and organizations to take action and exert more efforts to integrate women within the political processes of the society., Supervision: Asia Makawi & Balghis [...]

Cell-phone use apparently influences political views. Or at least that's one way of interpreting the results of a new Pew study of telephone users. It turns out the landline-only crowd [...]

WE SEE the headlines all too often: 'Youth Tune Out Politics.' 'Study Shows Youth Vote Down.' 'College Students Not Drawn to Voting.' News articles have described students' lack of political [...]

Numerous studies have demonstrated that blacks tend to participate in political activities at higheer levels than whites. In this study data from the 1968 and 1980 American National Election surveys are used to assess the ethnic community and compensatory explanations of this pattern, and a structural public arena model is advanced. The results suggest the fruitfulness of further research on the influence of interpersonal contacts and social networks on black political participation.

This research note updates earlier work that focused on electoral behavior among the urban poor in Lima, Peru. The previous research stopped with the 1983 municipal elections. The data used here extend the analysis through the 1985 presidential election and the 1986 municipal election. The results largely reinforce the hypotheses originally proposed for explaining the observed vacillating support for the left by low-income urban voters.

Five types of political activity in which corporate entities involve themselves are: (1) building constituencies, (2) contributing to political action committees, (3) conducting advocacy advertising campaigns, (4) participating in lobbying activities, and (5) building political coalitions. The effectiveness of each activity when used to address single issues with perfect and imperfect information available, as well as to address multiple issues with perfect and imperfect information available, is determined. Corporations participating in a constituency program that generates communications with legislators at a grass roots level are more effective politically than corporations that do not participate in a constituency program.

This study of voting in presidential elections in 12 central cities from 1920 to 1996 shows that cities played a crucial role in the New Deal realignment that dominated presidential elections from 1932 to the 1960s. Since then, cities have declined as a share of the total electorate, but they still provide crucial votes for successful Democratic presidential candidates. As cities have increasingly deviated from national voting trends, however, their turnout rates have increasingly fallen behind the national rates. A call is issued for researchers to break down the suburban vote and to examine contextual effects on voting behavior.

Race is often identified as uniquely defining and influencing electoral processes in the United States. However, little empirical research has investigated the consequences of racial diversity for levels of voter turnout or for the nature of mobilizing institutions. On the basis of historical analyses of U.S. politics, we hypothesize that greater racial diversity is associated with lower levels of voter mobilization, weaker mobilizing institutions, and higher barriers to voter participation. Cross-sectional models for the 1950s, the 1980s, and the 1990s are tested with ordinary least squares regression techniques, using states as the unit of analysis. We find that racial diversity is a potent negative predictor of turnout levels, in each time period and in non-Southern, as well as Southern, states and that it has an especially strong relationship in presidential elections. Racial diversity is also associated nationwide with weak state and national mobilizing forces, and more difficult voter registration requirements.

This article examines the processes through which home society politics affect Greek immigrant incorporation into the host society's political structures. The argument made is that immigrant concern with the home society's territorial sovereignty prompt immigrant incorporation into the American polity. Following Turkey's invasion of Cyprus in the summer of 1974 and numerous Turkish claims on Greek islands since then, Greek and American-born activists and leaders have engaged in an 'Americanization project' characterized by two levels of mobilizing activity: activists and leaders have sought to first create formal relations with local and national level American politicians and parties and second to mobilize immigrants to enter American political structures (by becoming naturalized citizens, voting and contributing funds to political campaigns) so that they may this way influence American foreign policy in the Aegean. To foster the process of 'Americanization,' activists and leaders have relied on the construction of binational identities., The straight line assimilation theory assumes that assimilation (entry into and identification with host society institutions) is an either- or process so that immigrants assimilate into American society as they [...]

The persistence hypothesis holds that core political predispositions tend to be highly stable through the life span. It has rarely been tested directly, given the scarcity of long-term, large-sample longitudinal studies. We address it using the Terman longitudinal study, in which the party identification and ideology of 1,272 respondents were measured on four occasions between 1940 and 1977, from roughly age 30 to retirement age. These partisan attitudes were highly stable over this long period, yielding continuity coefficients of about .80 between each measurement (separated by at least 10 years), and .65 for the full 37-year span. Examination of the trajectories of individual attitudes reveals that the most common pattern was constancy across time. A substantial minority changed in small but consistent ways, but changes from one partisan side to the other were not very common. Surprisingly, early-life racial attitudes had a resurgent effect on partisan attitudes in the 1970s. There was evidence of increasing attitude crystallization through the life span, infusing core predispositions with increasing psychological strength over time. Limitations of the study include the high intelligence of the respondents and the 'steady state' of the party system through most of this period.

This article explores, criticizes, and extends John Dewey's arguments about art in relation to public life in a democracy. Dewey believed that art is a potent form of communication through which community is developed and political action undertaken. Although correct, Dewey erased conflict, negotiation, and contestation from art, and failed to address the crucial role of power in the world of art. Three distinct kinds of political action through art are developed: pragmatic, deliberative, and confrontational.

A study was conducted to test an axiom posited by deliberative democratic theory that group deliberation abets the development of political sophistication among the citizenry. To test the hypothesis, political sophistication of participants in discussions sponsored by the National Issues Forums was measured before and after their participation. Results indicate that participants develop more differentiated and integrated views as well as less attitudinal uncertainty, at least in the short-term.

In this research, I use the ANES 1992 to examine the distribution and dimensionality of feminist and traditional values among women. I find a group of moderate women who hold mixtures of both types of values. The characteristics of this group are compared with feminist and traditional women. I then conduct a factor analysis of women's values and use the resulting factors to determine the influence of feminist and traditional dimensions of evaluation on the probability of voting for female Senate candidates. I find that protection against sexual harassment and feminist identity represent important feminist dimensions, and protection of the family constitutes an important traditional dimension. In 1992, moderate women were feminist leaning and their votes created a large majority with feminist women. KEYWORDS. Feminist values, traditional values, moderate women, female electorate

This article outlines three dimensions of a multi-dimensional standpoint analysis designed to generate knowledges about women's political praxis and highlights the dilemmas of this multi-dimensional standpoint approach for comparative analysis. I illustrate the three dimensions: standpoint as embodied in social identities, as a communal or relational achievement, and as an axis point of investigation, with research on the political perspectives and political practices of urban community workers from low income neighborhoods interviewed in the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s and community workers in two towns in rural Iowa interviewed between 1990 and 1996. KEYWORDS. Women's political activism, women's community activism, feminist standpoint epistemologies, feminist ethnography, institutional ethnography, rural community study, urban community study, racial formation theory, racialization, race, class, gender

Women represent a broad segment of society, more than half of the population of Sudan. In spite of that they face many challenges that hinder their participation in decision-making within the political institutions, especially within political parties, and particularly at their higher levels. Political parties' role is not only in the electoral competition, but in organizing and activating the forces of the society to play their role to organize democracy. This study looks at the possibility of identifying these challenges to take appropriate measures to ensure women's equal access to full participation in power and decision-making positions, to ensure improvement of women's capacity in politics and leadership. The research relies on a qualitative approach through personal interviews of members of two political parties of long tradition in Sudan: the Umma Party and the Communist Party, based on a review the political parties' profiles in the Political Parties Affairs Council and some researches on women's participation in political decision-making to find out the extent to which women reach high positions and the official and unofficial challenges they face in doing so. The researcher found out that women do not participate actively in decision making, because their participation is not commensurate with their number. Despite this fact the study assured that women's participation in decision making is very important and necessary and their participation makes a big difference in the quality of the decisions as they become more comprehensive, gender sensitive and more acceptable. The study suggests some recommendations to address the problems and challenges of women's access to decision-making positions., Supervision: Nuria Brufau [...]

The strengthening of local governance is very important to enhance citizen's participation and guarantee more and better responses to people's needs at the local level. Governance hierarchy in Sudan is structured as a federal system with four levels. The States are divided into localities and the latter are divided into several Popular Committees. Popular Committees are the bodies responsible for monitoring services at the local level in Sudan. Building on the belief that working for effective women's political participation at the lower levels will guarantee increasing in the quality and quantity of the women's representatives the main goal is to show the current picture of women's work within Popular Committees and confirm whether women's quota is implemented at the local level. Findings of this research will help the groups interested in women's empowerment to find out how they can support women's representatives. Collecting data for this research includes interviewing men who are heads of popular committees, and women participants who identified the factors that limit women's participation. Findings that explain the criteria of the women's representatives are presented in a quantitative way. The research does not only examine the importance of supporting women to join decision-making bodies in order to raise women's needs but also women's empowerment and engenderment of the political sphere and information on gender inequality. The research confirms that lack of training, lack of financial support and the absence of a unified women's vision towards their issues as some of the reasons which affect women's performance. The dissertation also discusses the successfulness of quota implementation, despite the fact that most of the people understand quotas as maximums not minimums as they should, and it shows the debate on the participation of housewives and women with low education to participate in popular committees. Based on the results of the research and participants claims, some recommendations are provided: Enhancing partnership between local bodies, political parties and women's organizations, ensuring the representatives received adequate financial support, and strengthening the advocacy on the importance of having more women at local level., Supervision: Nuria Brufau [...]