Gender and candidate selection in a weakly institutionalised party system: the case of Samoa

Women’s political representation has historically been low in Samoa, as in much of the Pacific region. Candidate selection is viewed as a crucial factor in women’s under-representation globally. This article contends that the lack of formalised party selection processes sets Samoa apart from most other countries studied as part of the literature on gender and candidate selection. Yet, as this article shows, pre-selection processes exist at the village level, where a weak level of institutionalisation in the party system gives an inordinate amount of influence to local male gatekeepers. These processes are gendered, but can advantage female candidates that successfully navigate them. The extent to which these pre-election processes affect results depends largely on informal norms of group consensus within communities. This article looks at these processes in the context of the 2016 Samoan election, the first since a constitutional amendment mandating a minimum level of women’s representation in Parliament.     

Was Civil War surgery effective?

During the U.S. Civil War surgeons performed a vast number of surgeries. Whether surgery increased wounded soldiers’ chances of survival has been debated ever since. I analyze a unique observational data set gathered by Dr. Edmund Andrews, a surgeon with the 1st Illinois Light Artillery. I use Dr. Andrews’s data, model selection tools, and doubly robust estimation methods to estimate treatment effects from surgery. I find that surgery increased wounded soldiers’ chances of survival by 0.09–0.16, depending on the specific model of surgical procedure.     

The temper thing

Examines the tempers and uses of anger by various U.S. presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson.     

#WeAreBeneficiaries: Contesting Poverty Stigma Through Social Media

Showcasing stories of welfare beneficiaries in their own words, a recent Aotearoa (New Zealand)-based campaign called “We Are Beneficiaries” used social media to create a space of contestation to the widespread stigmatisation of poverty. While existing literature strongly emphasises the role played by traditional media in constructing and reinforcing stigma, and has more recently begun to explore resistance and contestation, relatively few accounts address efforts, like the We Are Beneficiaries campaign, that seek to destigmatise poverty stigma via social media. Accordingly, this paper argues that social media can serve as a counterpublic space for the destigmatisation of poverty. By discussing how the We Are Beneficiaries campaign refuted stigmatising narratives, critiqued institutions and sought to build solidarity among and with welfare beneficiaries, the paper draws attention to the potential of social media in the development of counterdiscourses as well as new political identities and claims-making.     

Clubs,Spades, Diamonds and Disadvantage: the Geography of Electronic Gaming Machines in Melbourne

Opportunities to gamble, particularly on electronic gaming machines (EGMs) have been rapidly increasing in Australia during the 1990s. The increase in expenditure on gambling and the related problems have subsequently become a growing concern, particularly in relation to disadvantaged sectors of the population. Given this, the development of a geography of gambling is an important step in understanding the implications of this rapidly expanding industry. This paper addresses this issue at two distinct geographical scales in metropolitan Melbourne and considers the distribution of EGMs in relation to levels of economic well‐being. Findings suggest that patterns evident at the wider Melbourne scale of greater concentration of EGMs in less advantaged regions are also reflected at a local level. These findings are related to the wider issues of accessibility to gambling facilities and problem gambling.     

‘But Private Notes for My Own Memory’? Parliamentary Diaries,Parliamentary History and the Politics of Information in Early Stuart England*

Early modern parliamentary diaries are a standard source for historians, and have long been used as a supplement to the official journals in reconstructions of debates and business at Westminster. This article adopts a contrasting approach and examines what diaries – viewed as sources in their own right – reveal about parliament and its members, methods of contemporary note-taking, and the circulation and readership of political information. It begins with a review of the evidence for why, how, and to what ends members kept parliamentary diaries, before exploring the extent of their dissemination in early Stuart England. While recent literature has emphasized the circulation of materials relating to Jacobean and especially Caroline parliaments during the early 17th century, the article recovers the existence of a simultaneous interest in the parliamentary proceedings of the Elizabethan era. At a time when the future of parliament seemed uncertain, it argues that the evident market for, and readership of, Elizabethan material reflects contemporaries’ increasing recognition of parliament's significance within the English state and their changing attitudes towards parliamentary history. Moreover, while Elizabethan parliamentary diaries and journals seemingly reinforced memories of a past ‘golden age’ of parliamentary rule, the article contends that contemporaries’ production, dissemination, and reading of that material was a conscious form of political action in response to the constitutional crisis of their day.