Bloomsbury Women in Politics and Media: Perspectives from Nations in Transition

Although women constitute half of the world's population, their participation in the political sphere remains problematic. While existing research on women politicians from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada sheds light on the challenges and opportunities they face, we still have a very limited understanding of women's political participation in emerging democracies. Women in Politics and Media: Perspectives From Nations in Transition is the first collection to de-Westernize the scholarship on women, politics and media by: 1) highlighting the latest research on countries and regions that have not been 'the usual suspects'; 2) featuring a diverse group of scholars, many of non-Western origin; 3) giving voice through personal interviews to politically active women, thus providing the reader with a rare insight into womens agency in the political structures of emerging democracies. Each chapter examines the complex women, politics and media dynamic in a particular nation-state, taking into consideration the specific political, historic and social context. With 23 case studies and interviews from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Russia and the former Soviet republics, this volume will be of interest to students, media scholars and policy makers from developed and emerging democracies. Review The editors, Maria Raicheva-Stover and Elza Ibroscheva, are to be congratulated on bringing together a collection of essays on the women/politics/media nexus which eschews the usual ‘Western’ suspects in favour of scholarly explorations of a wide range of under-researched regions including South East Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. This book will quickly become the must-have text for anyone interested in developing a more nuanced and richer understanding of how those relations work in different parts of the world, including the patterns of similarity and instances of difference made manifest by a comparative edition such as this one. ― Karen Ross, Professor of Media, Northumbria University, UKAided by the increasing prevalence of the Internet, democratization of knowledge and information, women are actively participating in the political, social, and economic sectors in the US and developing nations. This highly thought-provoking, multi-cultural, and multi-dimensional book sheds the needed light on the complex and impactful role of women in politics and media across the world. The editors are to be commended for their timely and superb contribution to the existing literature in women, media and politics. ― Yahya R. Kamalipour, Professor of Media and International Communication and President of the Global Communication Association, Purdue University Calumet, USAWomen in Politics and Media: Perspectives from Nations in Transition is a timely and important book on the changing status of women in local, national and global politics and the central role that media play in shaping and framing them as 'gendered' political actors. Responding to calls for work on women politicians and media beyond an American orientation, editors Maria Raicheva-Stover and Elza Ibroscheva have assembled a superior collection of essays on gender, media and politics in emerging and transitioning democracies, many from scholars living and working in the Global South. This book should be of great value for anyone interested in media, representation, and political agency in non-Western countries in the era of 'globalization.' ― Patrick D. Murphy, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Media and Communication, Temple University, USA About the Author Maria Raicheva-Stover is Professor of Mass Media at Washburn University, USA. Her research focuses on the study of media systems in Eastern Europe, various aspects of the gender problematic, and, most recently, the social impact of new communication technologi