When: Summer 2015. – Vol. XXI, No. 73

Deadline: 15 April 2015.

More information: http://cirr.irmo.hr/en/instructions-for-authors/

The Croatian International Relations Review now receives articles for its summer 2015 issue. CIRR, published in English by the Institute for Development and International Relations since 1995, is a peer reviewed journal in the social sciences. It welcomes submissions from political science and international relations, sociology, economics, law and related fields. Articles that develop theoretical arguments or offer strong empirical evidence as either comparative or single-case studies are welcome.

Along with articles within the regular thematic scope of the journal, this issue will include a thematic block on the topic Women in European Politics.

Croatia, the newest EU member state, recently elected its first female president – Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović from the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Another female political leader – German chancellor Angela Merkel – is widely considered as the central and most influential political personality in the Union. Altogether, there are six female heads of state or government in the EU – four of them are from the new member states and only one does not belong to the People’s Party bloc. This fact opens many intriguing questions: can we say that Europe’s East progressed further on the emancipatory path than the West of the continent (and is this a result of revolutionary emancipationist policies conducted by the former communist authorities)?

Further on, can we speak of a gradual return to the long-lost matriarchate in which the lea ding rol e in society was assigned to a powerful mother figure? Do we see different politics in relation to a different gender? Is the election of female candidates just a statistical necessity because of the growing number of women in politics or does it reflect a deeper shift in preference of electorates to allow for changes in politics, be it the election of female candidates or political newcomers? These and other questions concerning the role of women in European politics are discussed in the next issue of CIRR. We welcome articles which address one or more of the following topics:

• From suffragettes to prime ministers and chancellors. The long road of female political emancipation.
• Iron Lady: an inescapable (role) model for women in leadership positions?
• March 8th ‒ has socialism/communism contributed to the emancipation of women in Eastern Europe?
• European and North American female politicians in comparison. What happened to Hillary Clinton (and Sarah Palin)?
• Yulia Tymoshenko as Ukraine’s Marianne? Was the Ukrainian ex-prime minister more a symbol than an actor of the Euromaidan revolution?
• Multiple discrimination – being female and black or female and Muslim in European politics.
• Sex appeal as advantage? Can women profit from good looks in the political process?
• Female leaders as “mothers of the nation”.
• Kurdish female fighters – can a Europe an model of radical emancipation work in a Middle-Eastern context?
• Postgender politics – is there any chance that sex and gender have or will soon become irrelevant?