THE LECTORAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 10000 words

THE LECTORAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY - Essay Example The parliament is usually given fourteen days to elect its chancellor officially after the final election results. Normally, elections happen after every four years and the same process begins all over again. There are no by-elections in Germany - if members of the Bundestag die or resign in office, those next on the list of the party in the appropriate State/Land automatically succeed them (Welle, 2009, para13). 30 Like all countries in Western Europe that have adopted the proportional system, Germany has more than twenty percent female parliamentarians, which clearly indicates a strong correlation between the type of electoral system and the level of female representation. As expounded earlier on, Germany uses a mixed or double electoral system with both a proportional representation system and single member constituencies and each of them selects half of the Bundestag members. However, the election of the majority of German female politicians is through the proportional representation list. Unlike in other countries such as the United Kingdom where voters and local parties object to having imposition of all-women shortlists on them, the list system in Germany has enabled parties to increase the proportion of female members of parliament in the Bundestag quickly.   38 The system of proportional representation also includes a quota that requires from each province, a minimum of two female delegates. This means that the parliament body will be at least twenty-five percent women. In full representation, there is an increase in the access of greater number of candidates. Sun argues that holding all other factors constant, under proportional representation system, the likelihood of electing women is almost twice as compared to majoritarian systems. Furthermore, under full representation system, measures such as quotas for minimum number of candidates aimed at increasing the representation of women are much easier to implement since the

No need Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

No need - Essay Example After taking the introduction to conflict and resolution class, I learnt that there are many theories that one can use to understand the reason of conflict such as the nested theory, which reasonably analyses the reason of conflict. Indeed, I learnt the importance of culture and religion in the field of conflict and resolution as well as how they relate with the idea of peace building. This paper will be about the ideas, theories, and readings that I believe are important to conflict and resolution. Indeed, one can notice that the field of conflict and resolution contains various theories and ideas that are sometimes different yet they all try to answer the same questions such as why countries conflict. They also seek to explain human behavior. Furthermore, to me culture is very important in conflict and resolutions. This is because culture is deeply rooted in one’s past experiences, and as such, we can view it as a derivative of one’s own experiences (Avruch 20). Indee d, any person worldview is determined to a big extent by his/her culture, and therefore, culture is quite important in conflict resolution. In fact, from personal experiences, a person can build his/her new opinions and believes or become more attached to his/her pervious opinion. As a result, when two people have different opinions over an idea and none of them has enough information about the other side background, this will lead to conflict. Ideally, the two will conflict because each will try to convince the other side with his/her opinion and not being aware of the reasons that made the other side reject his/her opinion. One of the theories I learned this semester in the conflict resolution class is the Nested theory that I believe helps to explain the reason why conflict exist. The Nested model of conflict is based on the structural nature of the conflicts. In the nested model, Dugan identified three levels of conflict. These levels include the issue specific level, relational level, structural subsystem level, and structural system level. The levels are interrelated and adopt a pattern where the narrow types or levels of conflict nest within the broader level (Dugan 14). We can view these levels as the spider web where it starts with small circles surrounded by larger circles (Kotev paragraph 1). In the middle of the web, we have the individual surrounded by the community and then the larger circles represent the society (Kotev paragraph 1). In order to understand the reason of conflict, one should first look at the individual and what is around him/her to determine what kind of intuitions and community can affect his/her way of thinking. In addition, one can use the larger circle to see how the society affects the communities and the individuals. According to this theory, in resolving conflicts, we should first critically analyze the conflict and locate it within the category of conflicts where it fits. Having done that, we should then proceed to find the best way to resolve the root causes of the conflict. The reason why I mainly focused on culture, religion, and the nested theory is that I come from a religious country to a western country, which is the United States. I noticed that many American students and citizens do not know a lot about the Arab countries culture and religion. In fact, many think that Qatar, UAE and KSA are one country. For example, many westerns view the Arab women as oppressed women and that they are forced by men