Milica G. Antic is currently Reader in the Faculty of Arts (Sociology Department and Women’s Studies) at the University of Ljubljana, in Slovenia. She is also a researcher at the Peace Institute. She has published widely in English and Slovenian on a range of contemporary women’s issues and feminist thought. She is co-founder of the interdisciplinary graduate studies program in Feminist Theory at the University of Ljubljana; has served as a specialist for the Governmental Office of Women’s Politics and the Parliamentary Commission for Women’s Politics; and holds memberships in several women’s and professional organizations. She is currently engaged in research projects dealing with strategies for enhancing the position of women in Slovene politics, a comparison of equal opportunity policies in East and Central Europe, and a detailed examination of the effects of the Slovene model of proportional representation on the electoral prospects of women.

Olga Bakova graduated from the Department of Journalism (1970) at Comenius University, Bratislava. She has worked as a journalist in newspapers, Slovak Television (Foreign News Section), and on Slovak Radio (since September, 1994). She was awarded the Slovak Literary Fund Prize in 1995, for the radio program, "The Role of Women in the World," a program devoted to the 50^th anniversary of the foundation of the United Nations.

Sarah Birch is currently Lecturer in Ukrainian Politics, Department of Government, University of Essex. Her research interests include electoral systems and democratization and Eastern European politics (with special attention to Ukraine). She has published widely on these topics. Her most recent publications include Elections and Democratization in Ukraine (Macmillan, 2000), "Political Stability and Electoral Change" (with Andrew Wilson) in Europe-Asia Studies (1999), and "Elections and Representation in Post-Communist Eastern Europe" in Kenneth Newton and Hans-Dieter Klingemann (eds.), Founding Elections in Central and Eastern Europe (Berlin: Sigma, forthcoming). She has published numerous other articles and book chapters and was awarded the Lord Bryce Prize for best doctoral dissertation in Comparative Politics by the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom (1999).

Joanne Bay Brzinski is currently Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her research and teaching interests include comparative political parties, public opinion and elections, the European Union, and German politics. She has recently co-edited special issues on federalism and representation in Western Europe in Publius: The Journal of Federalism (December, 1999) and West European Politics (April, 1999). Her own article, "Changes in Federalism and Party Electoral Strategies: Belgium and the European Union," appears in Publius. She has also published "Political Group Cohesion in the European Parliament: 1989-1994" in Carolyn Rhodes and Sonia Mazey (eds.) The State of The European Union, Vol 3 (Longman, 1996).

Gabriella Ilonszki is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences. She specializes in legislative politics, parliamentary elite behavior in Central Europe, and Comparative Politics. Her most recent publications include "Legislative Recruitment: Personnel and Institutional Development in Hungary, 1990-1994" in G< bor T\ ka and Zsolt Enyedi (eds.), Elections to the Hungarian National Assembly, 1994 (Berlin: Sigma, 1999) and "Representation Deficiency in a New Democracy: Theoretical Considerations and the Case of Hungary" in the Journal of Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 1998. She is also author of numerous articles and book chapters in both Hungarian and English. In 1999, she served as Mellon Research Fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences, Vienna. From 1997-1999 she held a NATO Research Grant.

Algis Krupavicius is Associate Professor at the Kaunas University of Technology and Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. From 1991-1995 he served as President and co-founder of the Lithuanian Political Science Association. He has been a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University in the United States, and in 1998 he was a guest researcher at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute. His research interests include comparative politics, post-communist transitions (especially in the Baltic and East European countries), and research methodology. He has published in Political Studies, Electoral Studies, and the European Journal of Political Research. He has also written and edited books on Lithuanian politics. His most recent book is Party Systems in Central East Europe: Dimensions of System Stability (University of Strathclyde, 1999).

Darina Malova is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. She specializes in the study of Slovak politics and focuses mainly on institutional changes in the post-communist period. Her research interests include development of the national parliament, constitution-making process, institutionalization of the party system, and representation of organized interests. She has published widely in Slovak and English and has contributed to monographs comparing democratic transition and consolidation processes in Eastern Europe.

Richard E. Matland is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston and adjunct Professor in the Department of Administration and Organization Theory at the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway. He has written extensively on Women and Politics with an emphasis on institutional factors affecting the level of women’s representation in national legislatures. His work on women and politics has been published in the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Political Research Quarterly, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. Among these works are "The Contagion of Women Candidates in Single-Member District and Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Canada and Norway" Journal of Politics (1996). and "Women’s Representation in National Legislatures: Developed and Developing Countries" Legislative Studies Quarterly(1998). He has also served on the executive committee of the Women and Politics section of the American Political Science Association’s and presently serves on the editorial board of Women and Politics.

Irmina Matoynte is Associate Professor of Political Science at Kaunas University of Technology. She received her doctorate in political sociology in 1999 for Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunus, Lithuania. Among her research interests are questions of women’s integration in politics in the Baltic region, the democratization process in the Baltic states and the role of economic and political elites in the newly democratizing countries.

Kathleen A. Montgomery is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois. Her research focuses on legislative politics, particularly institutional development in the new post-communist democracies. She has published on models of post-communist transition and on the development of interest groups, representative roles, parliamentary rules, and the party system in Hungary. She recently contributed a chapter on Hungary to Gabriel A. Almond, Russell J. Dalton, and G. Bingham Powell, Jr. (eds.), European Politics Today.

Robert G. Moser is Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department, University of Texas at Austin. His primary research interests are electoral systems, political parties, and representation in Russia and other post-communist states. His articles have appeared in World Politics, Comparative Politics, Electoral Studies, and Post-Soviet Affairs. He has also contributed chapters to several edited volumes and just finished a book manuscript entitled, Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Representation: Russia in Comparative Perspective. The manuscript is currently under review. He presently holds a Ford Foundation Grant.

Dawn Nowacki is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. Her research interests include the recruitment and representation of marginalized groups (women and minorities) in the regional parliaments of the Russian Federation and comparative nationalism in the post-Soviet states. She formerly worked as a research analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and as the assistant editor of Central Asian Survey.

Karolina Ristova is presently completing graduate studies in law at Georgetown University in the United States and a doctoral program in law and political science in the Law Faculty at St. Cyrill and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia. In 1999 she won a Ron Brown Fellowship in support of her studies. She has published in the scholarly and popular presses on a range of topics including gender issues, democratization, public and private law, and the media. Her gender-related publications include: "Once Again About the Woman Question," Demonstrant (Skopje, March 1994); "Women By Themselves and For Themselves," Demonstrant (Skopje, 1995); and "Political Culture and Women’s Participation in Politics" based on a paper presented at a seminar sponsored by the Women’s Organization of Macedonia (Skopje, 1998) on "More Women in Government and Power Through the Electoral System".

Steve Saxonberg received his Ph.D. from Uppsala University in Sweden (1997). His dissertation was awarded second place in the International UNESCO competition for the Stein Rokkan Prize for best book in the social sciences; a revised version will soon be published by Gordon & Breach. He is currently finishing a book on Czech politics and working on another about gender and social welfare policy in Eastern Europe. He was a guest researcher at the Central European University (1995) and the Charles University (1997-98). Presently he holds a post-doctoral scholarship to be a guest researcher at Jagellonian University in Krakow and Leipzig University in Leipzig, Germany.

Renata Siemienska is Head of the Department of Sociology of Education and Schooling, Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw. She also holds the titles "UNESCO Chair of Women, Society, and Development" and "Head of the Interdisciplinary Research Division of Gender Studies" at the Institute of Social Studies. She has been a frequent visiting professor in the United States and Canada, holds memberships in a variety of cross-cultural research groups, and has served on the editorial boards of journals in Poland, the United States, and Britain. She publishes widely on gender issues and Polish politics in journals, edited volumes, monograph series, and reports for international organizations (UNESCO, United Nations, Council of Europe, and OECD). Recent works in English include: "Women’s Political Participation in Central and Eastern Europe: A Cross-Cultural Perspective" in Wejnert, Spencer, and Drakulic (eds.), Research on Russia and Eastern Europe, vol. 2 (1996); "Consequences of Economic and Political Changes for Women in Poland" in Jacquette and Wolchik (eds.), Women and Democracy: Latin America and Eastern Europe (1998); and "Does Gender Make a Difference in Elites’ Value Orientations? Interplay of Culture and Politics" in Vianelli and Moore (eds.), The Sound of Breaking Glass (Macmillan, forthcoming).

Beth Stark is an American government doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. Her dissertation research focuses on the role of civic culture in women’s political participation.

Sue Thomas is Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and immediate past Director of Women’s Studies at Georgetown. Her research focuses on legislative behavior with special emphasis on women officeholders. Recent works include How Women Legislate (Oxford University Press, 1994) and (with Clyde Wilcox) Women and Electoral Office: Past, Present, and Future (Oxford University Press, 1998). She is also author of numerous articles and book chapters. Dr. Thomas is currently working on a project entitled Legislative Careers: The Personal and the Political.

Clyde Wilcox is Professor of Government at Georgetown University. He has written and edited numerous books and published articles on gender politics, religion and politics, and campaign finance. His work in the gender politics area includes research on gender differences in public opinion, abortion rights, and feminism in both the American and the comparative European areas. Some comparative works include: "The Causes and Consequences of Feminist Consciousness in West Europe" in Comparative Political Studies (1991), "Support for Gender Equality in West Europe: A Longitudinal Analysis" in European Journal for Political Research (1991), and "Anti-Feminism in Western Europe, 1975-1987" (with April Morgan) in West European Politics (1992). He presently serves on the editorial board of Women and Politics (1990-present).