scholarly journals Democratic Backsliding and the Instrumentalization of Women's Rights in Turkey

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Yeşim Arat
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
And Gender ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
Conservative Women

Abstract This article examines the instrumentalization of women's rights and the transformation of the gender rights regime in the context of democratic backsliding in Turkey. I show how the Islamically rooted Justice and Development Party governments and their allies used women's rights in constructing authoritarian rule and promoting a conservative gender agenda. The governing elites had different needs at different political stages and instrumentalized women's rights to meet those needs. First, they needed to legitimize their rule in a secular context, so they expanded liberal laws on women's rights. Second, in the process of backsliding, they sought to construct and legitimize their conservative ideology, so they reinterpreted existing laws to promote conservative goals. Finally, they wanted to mobilize conservative women in support of the newly authoritarian regime, so they built new institutions and marginalized existing women's NGOs. The article contributes to the literature on regime types and gender rights by shifting the focus from regime type to regime change.

UN-Women

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanina Bloch
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Initial Assessment ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Recommendations For Action ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
And Gender ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
United Nations System

UN Women – a successful reform with regard to the issue of gender equality within the United Nations or another missed opportunity? An initial assessment after seven years shows where initial successes could be achieved and which challenges will perhaps fatally contribute to the failure of the new institutions for women’s rights and gender equality. This work takes a look back into the institutional and political history of the United Nations to help the reader understand which innovations were introduced into the United Nations’ system by the founding of UN Women, in order to shed light on the development of women’s rights since the founding of the UN. Furthermore, it analyses in detail the existing failings of international law with regard to the rights and protection of women. Finally, the author gives a concrete assessment of the institutional, political and legal progress and the existing shortcomings in this respect as well as her own recommendations for action.

State, Islam, and Gender Politics

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Dress Code ◽  
Main Site ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Personal Rights ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Economy And Education

The existing literature on women’s rights and Islam falls short of addressing the relationship between the religious debate on women’s rights and the existing rules of law in Muslim-majority countries. This chapter will bridge this gap by analyzing the status of women in the legal systems of Egypt, Turkey, and Morocco. It will evaluate the influence of Islam on the shaping of these laws, compared to other factors like culture, socioeconomic development, and education. Except in marginal cases like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban, women’s rights in politics, the economy, and education have advanced in all Muslim countries. But there are some limitations placed upon women’s rights using religious arguments. Everywhere, personal rights about family life, sexuality, and dress code remain discriminatory against women. In this regard, the woman’s body has become the main site of the politicization of Islam, by state and non-state actors alike.

Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Shed Light

This volume reframes the debate around Islam and women’s rights within a broader comparative literature. It examines the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality. Part I addresses the nexus of religion, law, gender, and democracy through different disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, law). Part II localizes the implementation of this nexus between law, gender, and democracy, and provides contextualized responses to questions raised in Part I. The contributors explore the situation of Muslim women’s rights vis-à-vis human rights to shed light on gender politics in the modernization of the nation and to ponder over the role of Islam in gender inequality across different Muslim countries.

Women and Gender

2008 ◽  
pp. 495-510
Author(s):  
Charlotte Bunch
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Women And Gender ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
And Gender

This article discusses women and gender, and first identifies the differences between the concepts. It moves on to a critical examination of the norms and their institutional manifestations, along with selected UN system efforts to promote women's rights in development, peace and security, human rights, and health. The article also provides a balanced evaluation of how much things have changed for girls and women over the last sixty years.

The stubbornness of authoritarianism: autocracy-to-autocracy transitions in the world between 2000 and 2015

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianni Del Panta
Keyword(s):  
Regime Change ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
The World ◽  
Case Assessment

AbstractWhilst much of the contemporary debate on regime change remains concentrated on transitions to and from democracy, this paper focuses on autocracy-to-autocracy transitions, a relatively understudied but particularly relevant phenomenon. Building on an updated typology of non-democratic regimes and through a qualitative case-by-case assessment, the present paper identifies 21 transitions from one dictatorship to another, out of 32 cases of autocratic breakdown during the 2000–15 period. Hence, after the fall of a dictatorship, the installation of a new authoritarian regime was almost twice as likely as democratization. Accordingly, the paper focuses on the 21 recorded autocracy-to-autocracy transitions and examines in which non-democratic regimes a transition from an autocracy to another is more likely to occur, which peculiar forms of authoritarian rule tend to be installed, and the specific ways in which the dismantling of the previous existing authoritarian rule is achieved.

scholarly journals Notes on Race and Gender in the USA: Women’s Rights

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-179
Author(s):  
Prisca Castanyer
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Violencia Domestica ◽  
And Gender

Ésta es la segunda de varias notas multidisciplinares con un objetivo en común: describir el panorama general de los derechos de la mujer en los Estados Unidos de América. Para ello, presentaremos datos estadísticos de varios estudios y del censo de los Estados Unidos. Examinaremos los derechos de la mujer en general en los Estados Unidos, comparando los datos de este país a nivel global en materias como la mortalidad materna, el matrimonio de menores de edad, los permisos de maternidad, la violencia doméstica y el asalto sexual. Desafortunadamente, esta nota mostrará que los Estados Unidos de América no está a la altura de otros países desarrollados en términos de igualdad de género, lo que se traduce en importantes repercusiones a nivel socio-económico tanto a corto como a largo plazo para la mujer en general. La primera nota se centró en la persistencia la pobreza en base a raza y género en los Estados Unidos de América. Próximas notas lo harán en los derechos reproductivos de la mujer, siempre teniendo en cuenta la importancia de la interseccionalidad en la sociedad norteamericana.

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