In this paper, I study gender-based voting behavior in the Belgian proportional electoral system. In particular, I investigate two possible causes for why voters experience the need to simplify their voting decision by using a gender-cue. First, in line with the findings of previous studies, I find that voters with lower levels of political sophistication who are less able to collect and process political information, are consequently more likely to use the sex of a candidate as a shortcut. However, the effect of political sophistication on gender-based voting behavior is limited. Second, based on the literature, I expect that the low information context of the second-order European elections would cause both high and low information voters to become more reliant on gendercues to simplify their voting decision and by extent would cause the effect of political sophistication on gender-based voting to diminish. Against theoretical expectations, I find that the effect of the electoral context is negligible.

This paper analyses ministerial expertise of senior ministers and junior ministers (in Dutch: staatssecretarissen) who held office in the Netherlands between 1967 and 2015. Expertise is differentiated between two independent dimensions: technical knowledge with respect to the subject matter of the portfolio, and political knowledge and skills. Results indicate that both types of ministers have considerable political and technical expertise, but junior ministers have relatively and significantly more often technical expertise and senior ministers more often have political expertise. Furthermore, the complete outsider (lacking both technical and political skills) is a rather rare phenomenon in both types of ministers. Besides, although it follows from the watchdog junior minister theory that political expertise is needed to function effectively as a watchdog, there is not a significantly higher frequency of political expertise in the junior ministers when the junior minister and the senior minister are from different parties than when they are from the same party.

According to asymmetrical Kantianism, humans, but not animals, should be granted certain inviolable moral rights, including the right to be treated as ‘ends-in-themselves’. By limiting the application of Kantian principles to humans, we effectively demote animals to the status of mere means to (non-)human ends and pave the way for the justification of unwarranted practices of animal exploitation. In this article, I will attempt to refute asymmetrical Kantianism by arguing against its underlying idea that the possession of personhood is a necessary requirement for having moral rights. I will do so by showing that the possession of selfhood should be considered a necessary and sufficient requirement for having such rights. I will argue that at least some animals should be seen as possessing selfhood, which makes their treatment as mere means to an end morally untenable.