Governing Affects explores the neoliberal transformation of state governance in Europe towards affective forms of dominance exercised by customer-oriented neo-bureaucracies and public service providers.By investigating the rise of affective labour in contemporary European service societies and the conversion of state administrations into business-like public services, the authors trace the transformative power of neoliberal political thought as it is put into practice. The...

This book provides a timely and unique contribution to current debates on how effectively voluntary party quotas address the persistent underrepresentation of women in legislatures. Using a most similar case design and a mixed-methods approach, the authors draw attention to the ways in which electoral systems and party regulations interface with voluntary party quotas in Germany and Austria. All quota parties in these countries support the goal of equal participation of women and men in el...

Gendering the State is a ground-breaking collection of studies that examines the efforts of women in countries all over the world to frame public policy debates on nationally critical issues in gendered terms. This is the latest volume in the Research Network on Gender and the State (RNGS) collaborative studies. Using the RNGS model of women's movement and women's policy actor strategies to influence public policy debates and state response, the book looks at data gathered from ten Europea...

Unaccompanied minor migrants are underage migrants, who for various reasons leave their country and are separated from their parents or legal/customary guardians. Some of them live entirely by themselves, while others join their relatives or other adults in a foreign country. The concept of the best interests of a child is widely applied in international, national legal documents and several guidelines and often pertains to unaccompanied minor migrants given that they are separated from pa...

Heated debates about Muslim women's veiling practices have regularly attracted the attention of European policymakers over the last decade. The headscarf has been both vehemently contested by national and/or regional governments, political parties and public intellectuals and passionately defended by veil wearing women and their supporters. Systematically applying a comparative perspective, this book addresses the question of why the headscarf tantalises and causes such controversy over is...

This edited collection explores how party politics impacts the implementation of gender quotas in political representation across Europe. Contributors identify actors, institutions, and cultural legacies shape how quotas are put into practice. The volume’s subtitle, Resisting Institutions, points to the myriad ways in which parties and other institutions in Europe over time have resisted the inclusion of women into politics. As voluntary party quotas and legislative quotas gained ...

The Web plays an increasingly important role in the communication strategies of political parties and movements, which increasingly utilize it for promoting ideas and ideologies as well as mobilization and campaigning strategies.This book explores the role of the Web for right-wing populist political parties and movements across Europe. Analyzing these groups’ discourses and practices of online communication, it shows how social media is used to spread ideas and mobilize supporters...

This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the opportunities and challenges of the complex field of synthetic biology, which combines various scientific disciplines. The emerging field of synthetic biology employs biotechnological approaches to recreate and enhance basic biological structures, intracellular processes and whole organisms. The book addresses a broad range of topics, including redesigning complex metabolic pathways, DNA/RNA and protein engineering, as well as ...