This contribution for Political Insight (June 2019, Volume 10, Issue 2) maps gender inequality around the world and argues that the political sphere is often the most resistant to change. Unequal treatment based on gender is deeply embedded in many countries. Gender studies emerged as an important part of academic research in the 1980s. The issue of gender inequality also emerged on the global political agenda, albeit slowly. Gender-related measures became part of the Human Development Index (HDI) by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Tag Archives: political insight
Trading with the Commonwealth: A future perspective for the UK?
Commentators have suggested that the Commonwealth could become more important for UK trade after Brexit. This article for Political Insight (June 2018, Volume 9, Issue 2) maps the current state of British-Commonwealth trade and finds a more mixed picture of UK-Commonwealth trade relations. Continue reading
Fortress Europe?
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“The right to asylum shall be guaranteed with due respect for the rules of the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 and the Protocol of 31 January 1967 relating to the status of refugees and in accordance with the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.” Article 18 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights outlines the European Union’s legal framework for its asylum policies that have come under intense scrutiny and political pressure since the height of the significant number of refugees trying to literally reach the shores of the continent from conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East. While refugee numbers went down again to pre-2015 levels and below due to considerable political interventions, the political debate has not disappeared and continues to heavily influence European politics including major shifts towards the right end of the political spectrum in many member states. In an article for the “In Focus” section of Political Insight (September 2018, Volume 9, Issue 3) I looked at recent developments in Europe’s “refugee crisis”. Continue reading
In Focus: Brexit and the UK General Election
The introductory words by Prime Minister Theresa May in the Conservative manifesto 2017 outlined the main focus for the government’s General Election campaign: ‘Brexit will define us: our place in the world, our economic security and our future prosperity’. But when it came to Brexit, the campaign itself featured little of political substance from either of the two main parties. The impact of the EU-debate on the (quite unexpected) election outcome is very complex, with the anticipated Conservative gains in Leave-voting Labour seats failing to materialise.
In a contribution for the “In Focus” feature of Political Insight (September 2017, Volume 8, Issue 2) I looked at the outcome of the general election from the perspective of Brexit:
In Focus: Trade Inside the European Union
The outcome of the referendum over the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union raises some crucial questions over the country’s economic relationship with the remaining 27 member states. Economic issues over trade were among the most heavily debated issues throughout the campaign. Now that the decision has been made, existing ties with the EU need to be carefully considered in any future trade relationship with the European Union. In a contribution for the “In Focus” section of Political Insight (December 2016, Volume 7, Issue 3) I mapped out Britain’s complex trading relations with the rest of the European Union and created a series of cartograms from the underlying statistics:
In Focus: Where Art meets Science
Public spending cuts have been an important part of the political debate in Britain in recent years. In an article for the “In Focus” section of Political Insight (April 2016, Volume 7, Issue 1) Danny Dorling and I plotted the distribution of funding for the arts and universities in England.
The United Kingdom, and especially England, has become geographically extremely unequal. This inequality is not only seen in growing economic disparities within the population, but also becomes increasing visible across all parts of public life, such as science and education, as well as the arts. A report on arts funding in 2013, highlighted just how concentrated such funding was within London compared to the rest of the country. This represents the continuation of a now long-established trend.
