Thursday 28 October 2010

Elections and women recommended starting points for research

One of the recent issues raised by the elections in Bahrain was the political participation of women
Ypu can consider how bahrain compares with other nations by looking at the Gender gap report which is prepared by the World Economic Forum The Report examines four critical areas of inequality between men and women:
1. Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment
2. Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher level education
3. Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
4. Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio

The IPU women in parliaments website has statistical data on gender breakdowns

Other good starting points for information on women and political participation include:
The women in Politics bibliographic database
which is compiled by the Interparliamentary union (IPU) This enables you to search for references to journal articles and papers about all aspects of women and politics worldwide. unfortunately the full text is not on line.
The UN Womenwatch gateway draws together the latest statistics, reports and papers from Un agencies on all aspects of female political, social and economic life.
International IDEA is an organisation which works more specifically for women in politics. Its website has publications, details about projects and links to support networks. This includes worldwide statistics on voter turnout by gender and a global database of materials about electoral quotas for women
Iknow Politics - an international Knowledge network of women in Politics which has a wealth of resources including discussion of recent elections and interviews with women.

Friday 22 October 2010

Bahrain elections- are human rights a concern?

Parliamentary elections are due to take place in Bahrain on 23rd October.
Recently Human Rights watch raised concerns about their conduct. Other monitors hve focussed on the lack of women in politics.
Here are some more useful starting points for getting more information.
There is an official Bahrain government election site (Arab only)
Government body Supreme Council for Women has some basic facts in English about the role of women in decision making in Bahrain.

The ACE Project has facts about the electoral system , electoral laws and recent results.
IKnow International Network for Women in Politics has issued appeals for more women to be involved. Read their news and reports Likewise the Womens Learning Partnership also has discussion of sex discrimination in Bahrain politics.

The Arab Reform Bulletin from the Carnegie Endowment has articles on politics, human rights, democracy and women which you may find useful.

The Project on Middle East Democracy also discusses the state of politics.

The Bahrain Human rights monitor is a monthly newsletter on all aspects of human rights. Its website has some recent news on the elections.

Other sources of information on Human rights are Freedom House
and the Bahrain Human Rights watch Society which is hoping to create a new site to cover events. (to date this had not appeared).

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Czech elections 2010 - useful sources for background information

Parliamentary elections are due to take place on the 15th October. Here are some useful links for tracing background information on the lectoral system and past elections. The IFES election calendar has basic facts about the electoral system and information on past elections from 1998 onwards.

The Ace Electoral Network project encyclopedia also has a good collection of basic facts Plus useful RSS news feeds from good resources.

If you are looking for past election results a good starting point is the European Elections database from 1990 onwards.

The Czech republic also has a web archive. This contains a number of thematic collections coverign previous elections. Here you can find archived versions of websites.

The Electoral Commission has its own website which contains reports and results from the mid 1990s onwards.

Political Transformation and the Electoral Process in Post-Communist Europe was a joint project of the University of Essex, ACEEEO (Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials) and IFES (International Federation of Election Systems). It aimed to provide access to information on the legal and political transformation of the electoral systems of former communist nations. The section on the Czech republic include laws, statistics and reports from 1990-2002

The OSCE has monitored past elections. Find reports on their conduct from 2002-2010

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Bosnia elections october 3rd 2010

Bosnian elections also took place this week
Here are some resources where you can find out more about the winner and research elections in general.
Firstly you can check basic news stories from the Balkan insight round up.a news service maintained by Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
Le Courrier des Balkans is a French association which seeks to develop solidarity with journalists in Balkan nations and to translate articles from the free press in the Balkan nations See summaries of French news and articles about the region.
The Central Election committee provides information on legislation and news of events. The site appears to be down at the moment but hopefully will reappear soon.
Other sources of information on the conduct of the elections and electoral system include:
The OSCE which sent an observation mission.. You can also consult other reports from 1996 onwards.
The Association of Election Officials in Bosnia Herzegovina was established in 1999 under the auspices of OSCE. It is a non-governmental organisation which seeks to encourage democratic elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its website provides information on the purpose of the organisation and its activities. It includes access to its newsletters, reports of meetings and reviews of recent elections
related to this it might also be worth taking a look at the more broader Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEO) which has some reports on voter registration and procedures in Eastern European nations.
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs is a non-profit organisation which works to strengthen and expand democracy worldwide. This section of its website provides basic background information on Bosnia & Herzegovina plus access to full-text reports, surveys and papers published by NDI about it from 1996 onwards.