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This chapter focuses on legislators’ backgrounds, exploring whether legislative quotas in Argentina lead to the nomination of unrepresentative or unqualified female parliamentarians. Susan Franceschet and Jennifer M. Piscopo compare male and female legislators’ demographic data, including age, marital status, and number of children; their education and professional backgrounds; and their extent and type of political experience prior to holding office. While all female legislators are “quota women,” differences between men and women in the Argentine parliament show that quotas have not eliminated gendered political career patterns. As compared to men, the women are similar in age, less likely to be married, and tend to have fewer children; are equally highly educated, but with distinct educational and professional backgrounds; and much less likely to have held executive-level office previously. These differences do not reveal an innate inferiority of female politicians, but rather reveal that quotas enhance the overall diversity of legislators.

This chapter addresses the impact of reserved seats in Morocco. Implemented in the 2002 and 2007 electoral cycles, these measures account for most of the women elected to parliament. To categorize the women benefiting from quotas, James N. Sater draws on two sets of data: an original questionnaire to reveal the educational and class backgrounds of female MPs and data from candidate nomination lists and news coverage to uncover their political status as party loyalists and their links to prominent male leaders. The evidence suggests that dynamics of political patronage play a major role in shaping who gains access to parliament, as illustrated by the elite backgrounds and political connections of quota women. Quota women’s ties to elite networks may affect their willingness to identify with women as group, shaping broader prospects for women’s empowerment.

This chapter evaluates the common criticism that quotas violate the principle of “merit.” Comparing women elected after the passage of a legislative quota in France with their male counterparts and with women elected prior to 2002, Rainbow Murray separates quota women, non-quota women, and men. She examines indicators of political background, including age, profession, and levels of prior political experience, as well as measures of legislative activity, including the number of bills, reports, and parliamentary questions. This dual focus produces intriguing insights: the distinct profiles of male and female MPs suggest that quotas may help women overcome barriers to a political career, while similar levels of legislative activity demonstrate that quota women are as competent as men once elected. These findings support the need for quotas to overcome barriers to women’s access to politics, at the same time that they negate charges that quotas produce second-rate parliamentarians.

This chapter studies the personal and political characteristics of women elected to reserved seats in Uganda to assess whether quotas promote inexperienced and unqualified female party loyalists. Using biographical sketches, Diana Z. O’Brien compares the profiles of quota women and their non-quota counterparts, both male and female. Although the earlier mode of selecting women to the reserved seats via an electoral college did not contain checks on candidate quality and clearly promoted elitism and patronage, the direct election of candidates implemented in 2006 has altered these patterns in significant ways. The statistical data suggests that, on the vast majority of measures, quota women do not differ significantly from other MPs. Indeed, on some indicators they appear to be better prepared for office than non-quota legislators. The evidence thus demonstrates that quotas have not advanced women that are less qualified or more elite than other MPs.

This chapter evaluates social realism in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives Of Others, 2006). It is a near-universally praised film which claims to expose the murky dealings of the East German (GDR) secret police and its thick blanket of informers before the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and of the Iron Curtain itself. In doing so, it tells the redemptive tale of a Stasi agent, Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), who 'turns', finds a redemptive truth, and works against the corrupt ideology that employs him in order to save East German playwright Georg Dreymann (Sebastian Koch) from Stasi persecution. How realistic is the film to the social-political background it claims to depict? And if it departs from that background, what difference does it make? A film successfully engaging the code of social realism needs to build a very convincing picture of its chosen historical environment. The Lives of Others does this to the satisfaction of an overwhelming majority of its audience.

This chapter outlines the structure of the book. It also details the political background in Northern Ireland which led up to the introduction of internment without trial in Northern Ireland in August 1971.

The Lisbon Treaty rendered the Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding, thereby resolving an issue that had been left open since the Charter was initially drafted almost a decade earlier. The discussion begins with a brief account of the evolution of fundamental rights in the EC, followed by the genesis and drafting of the Charter. The status accorded to the Charter in the Lisbon Treaty is examined, as is the EU’s obligation to accede to the ECHR.