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The preferences of major stakeholders in the Fijian public sector reporting process as to who should set government accounting standards and monitor their application are investigated by comparing the preferences of Parliamentarians, internal and external users, and preparers. There is support from all groups for the introduction of accounting standards but perceptions of the relativity of benefits exhibit diversity. There is disparity in choices of auditors for different types of entities, but there is strong support for the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) as the monitor for departments and for private sector auditors to compete for audits of statutory bodies.

The purpose of this paper is to present the challenges female parliamentarians in Ghana face in their attempt to balance their professions and families.

This is a qualitative study which explores the nature of strain female MP’s in Ghana encounter in their struggle to achieve a work-life balance.

It is concluded that most female parliamentarians in Ghana go through tough times in trying to juggle career with family life. The study revealed that the MPs adopt strategies such as prioritizing roles, limiting official duties at home and using social support to help them cope with the pressures of their roles. The organizational policies put in place to aid female employees to achieve a healthy work-life balance did not yield much result for the participants in this study.

The originality of this paper lies in it being the first study that qualitatively explores the complex challenges female parliamentarians face in their political careers and family lives in Ghana.

The main purpose of this paper is to lighten a very big dark room of research regarding parliament and parliamentarians in the Arabic environment. The two researchers of this study tried to investigate the information seeking behavior of Members of the Kuwaiti Parliament (MKPs) in terms of their thoughts, perceptions, attitudes, motivations, techniques, preferences, ways, tools and problems encountered by them towards accessing information.

The authors employed a questionnaire, with a response rate 42 percent.

The study found that MKPs were mainly seeking information to make a parliamentary request/inquiry, to make a speech, and to make a decision. The study showed that the most important sources of information MKPs were seeking for were minutes of sessions, mass media, personal letters and information networks. It was also found that MKPs preferred printed formats, with a very good use of the internet and computers. This study showed MKPs' confirmation of using the English language, beside the use of the Arabic language, as the most dominating foreign language used to access information. The study found that consultants, secretaries and colleagues were the most important assistants of information to MKPs. The currency of information, the limited nature of the library's role to deliver information, and the use of technology tools were the most significant problems encountered by MKPs when they were seeking information.

The paper investigates the topic of parliamentarians' use of information, and as such highlights a topic that has limited previous research.

The paper provides valuable insight into the information behavior of a very important client group.

Being the first study in the Arab world concerned with the issue and topic of information seeking behavior and needs of Arab parliamentarians, it is considered a pioneering and unique study among many studies conducted in the field of both information access and information seeking, especially with this category of information users.

Formal and informal interactions in the political elite and between the political elite and other actors have attracted a great deal of research (Petersson, 1996; Munk Christiansen, Möller, & Togeby, 2001; Moore, Sobieraj, Whitt, Mayorova, & Beaulieu, 2002). However, such research has mainly been concerned with the contacts of leading politicians once they have already become part of the elite, not the role that contacts might have played in their recruitment.

This study aims to understand, from the analysis of the work of a Brazilian network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), how advocacy on human rights issues is developed to defend causes before the legislative branch, identifying its contributions and effectiveness. For this, were observed, the strategies and tactics employed in the implementation of two advocacy campaigns promoted by a Brazilian NGOs network.

The research adopts the method of inductive investigation with a qualitative approach and uses the techniques of semi-structured in-depth interviews and documentary research. The paper is developed within the scientific field of public relations (PR), uses as reference the critical theory and the rhetorical theory of PR, and is based on the concept of advocacy.

Some results of the advocacy are observed, such as the greater awareness of political decision-makers, in addition to the influence on the definition of the political agenda and on the action of the political decision-makers.

Among the limitations of this study are the time span for analyzing the campaigns' actions, which could be extended to observe long-term results, as well as the dedication of the study exclusively to the legislative branch since the campaigns also sought to influence decision-making in the executive branch.

The results found encourage the strengthening of the democratic environment since it increases the power and influence of civil society in the political decision-making of the legislative branch.

The study showed that advocacy, as a PR activity, increases civil society participation in political decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the information needs and information-seeking behaviour of Members of Parliament (MPs) in Bangladesh. It aimed at determining the information sources, preferred information format, frequency of seeking information and access to information and communication technology and online information services by the MPs. The study also intended to assess the role of parliament library for satisfying the information needs of the MPs.

A survey method was adopted for data collection; the respondents were interviewed by the researchers with the guidance of a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was read out for the respondents and filled up by the interviewers based on the answers they received. Fifty MPs were selected for the study using simple random sampling. The data were analysed with the help of weighted mean.

The study found that the MPs mainly seek information to make a parliamentary request/inquiry, to make a speech and to make a decision. The most important sources of information were minutes of sessions, mass media, personal letters and information networks; and they preferred printed formats rather than online documents. The result also showed that only a few MPs were aware of the information services provided by the parliament library and were satisfied with the services they received.

There has been no study carried out on the information needs and information-seeking behaviour of MPs in Bangladesh prior to this research. The study will help the policymakers to improve the library services for MPs in Bangladesh.

Gender empowerment measure (GEM) is an assessment about inequalities between men's and women's opportunities in a country. The concept of empowerment can be explored through three interrelated dimensions: agency, resources and achievements. Agency refers to processes by which choices and abilities are made, resources are the medium through which agency is exercised and achievements are the outcomes of agency. Specifically, this paper seeks to examine an indicator of GEM specifically in the achievements in politics based on data from selected developed and developing countries.

A GEM indicator based on percentage of female parliamentarian taken from secondary sources such as United Nations Development Programme was used in the analysis of empowerment. The developed countries were represented by Norway, Australia and Japan; while the developing countries are Malaysia, the Philippines and China.

There are variations in the achievement indicator in terms of percentage of female parliamentarians in the two groups of countries. Reasons for variations are explained.

Although the analysis was limited to the secondary data of the selected countries only, the results may have valuable implications to women's studies and human resource development practitioners particularly at institutional and policy‐making levels of the respective countries.

GEM is a concept which is lacking in terms of definition. Thus, the study could contribute to a fuller understanding of one of the GEM indicators, inevitably towards constructive solutions to improve the participation of women in public function.

Traces the relationship between democracy and access to information among parliamentarians. Investigates the South African parliamentary situation concerning information‐seeking patterns among parliamentarians, as well as their ability to trace information sources. The paper concludes that democracy can only be sustained if information is freely available, and utilised to its fullest potential by the legislators so as to be enabled to actively participate in all the parliamentary functions.

The EU harmonisation has created changes in the military's formal and informal influence in the directions of decreased formal and informal military influence in civilian politics. The EU reforms have created changes in the mindset of the citizens, by creating changes in the security culture of the citizens and in the civil-military related political culture. The desired level of alignment has not been reached. Therefore, the study examines the areas where further alignment is required. Moving from Rebecca L. Schiff's concordance theory, the article examines the relationship between the Turkish military, the civilian politics and the society before and after the EU harmonisation process. It examines the effects of the EU harmonisation process on the changes in the civil-military balance of power, and on the related security culture and political values. The analysis focuses on: (i) increased civilian control and consequent changes in the policy of accountability; (ii) transparency building in the defence sector; (iii) parliamentary oversight; and (iv) the change in the political culture related to the civil-military issues. It also investigates the extent the EU harmonisation has achieved in building democratic civil-military relations in order to align with the EU standards.

To investigate the association between country-level differences in childcare enrollment, the presence of affirmative action policy, and female parliamentary representation and individual-level conflict between work and family.

This study applies data from the 2002 International Social Survey Program (n = 14,000 + ) for respondents in 29 countries and pairs them with macro-level measures of childcare enrollment, the presence of affirmative action policy, and female parliamentary representation. I estimate the model using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM 7) and also assess cross-level interactions by gender and parental status.

The models show that female parliamentary representation has a robust negative association with individual-level reports of work–family and family–work conflict. These associations do not vary by gender or parental status. Also, mothers report less family–work conflict in countries with more expansive childcare enrollment, indicating that this welfare policy benefits the intended group.

This research implies that greater female parliamentary representation has widespread benefits to all citizens’, rather than just women’s or mothers’, work–family and family–work conflict. Additional longitudinal research would benefit this area of study.

This research suggests that increasing female parliamentary representation at the country-level may promote work–life balance at the individual-level. It also indicates that public childcare enrollment benefits women through lower family–work conflict which may encourage continuous maternal labor force participation and reduce economic gender inequality.

This chapter builds on an emerging area of work–family research applying multilevel modeling to draw empirical links between individual work–family experiences and macro-level structural variation.