Sustaining Participation

2019 ◽  
pp. 298-329
Author(s):  
Shirin M. Rai ◽  
Carole Spary

This chapter addresses the questions of why women stay on in politics and why they leave it. It examines the issue of sustainability of political participation—something that is rarely focused on in the studies in representative politics. It explores the party’s support of women’s parliamentary careers by examining the re-nomination and re-election of incumbent women members of Parliament over successive parliamentary terms. It shows that pressures of work, the conditions of work, the levels of political and the institutional support available to women members by political parties and Parliament, the pressures of expectation of constituencies, travel, and life–work balance all contribute to the sustainable participation of women in Parliament. It concludes that the sustainability of women’s participation in parliamentary politics is very largely affected by party, institutional, and leadership norms, and suggests that treating the Parliament as a place of work can open up avenues for gender-based reform.

Author(s):  
Ishaq Ahmad ◽  
Shahida Aman

This study aims to evaluate the religious and the alternate discourses on women’s political rights in Pakistan; such debates were heightened and intensified as a result of General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization vision and policies implemented between 1977 to 1988. Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization is argued to have polarized women’s participation in politics and challenged the standing of feminist groups, Islamic feminists, and secularists, which made Islam and women’s political participation the subject of debates that are still relevant in the case of Pakistan. The paper argues that Pakistani state’s Islamic disposition in general and Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization in particular provoked religious conservatism and promoted gender-based discrimination that deeply affected women’s political participation. This study seeks to reconcile the different perspectives of Islamic and secular feminism for realizing the goals of effective participation of women in politics. The paper uses a qualitative research method concentrating on thematic analysis, which employs for identifying and analyzing patterns or themes within qualitative data analysis approaches. The findings suggest that in the case of women rights, Islamic feminism and secular feminism are compatible and complementary, and a synthesis of both is imperative to realize the effective participation of women in politics.


MUWAZAH ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Nurbaity Prastyananda Yuwono

Women's political participation in Indonesia can be categorized as low, even though the government has provided special policies for women. Patriarchal political culture is a major obstacle in increasing women's political participation, because it builds perceptions that women are inappropriate, unsuitable and unfit to engage in the political domain. The notion that women are more appropriate in the domestic area; identified politics are masculine, so women are not suitable for acting in the political domain; Weak women and not having the ability to become leaders, are the result of the construction of a patriarchal political culture. Efforts must be doing to increase women's participation, i.e: women's political awareness, gender-based political education; building and strengthening relationships between women's networks and organizations; attract qualified women  political party cadres; cultural reconstruction and reinterpretation of religious understanding that is gender biased; movement to change the organizational structure of political parties and; the implementation of legislation effectively.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 843-860
Author(s):  
Itziar Mujika Chao

AbstractThis article analyzes women’s socio-political participation and activism within the nonviolent civil resistance movement in prewar Kosovo between 1989 and 1997, as well as the movement’s gender dynamics. This Albanian-led resistance movement emerged during the early 1990s with the principal goal of building a parallel state, seeking independence from Serbia, and offering means of survival for the population. This project required the participation of all Albanian citizens, and although the participation of women was massive, this has gone largely unrecognized. This article will explore the principal features of women’s participation and activism within this movement, what kind of gendered dynamics were developed, and the principal forms of resistance they encountered against their full and active participation through an analysis of women’s activism both within the Women’s Forum of the Democratic League of Kosovo and within independent women’s organizations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 3175-3183
Author(s):  
Ida Wahyuni Iskandar

The struggle of women to actualize themselves in the political arena is very difficult since the situation that always accompanies is even an obstacle for them to move freely. Meanwhile, political reform which occurred in Indonesia has certainly given great opportunity to women to participate. In this study, the sampling technique is purposive sampling. The analysis technique used in this study is using interactive model analysis. The results of the research are vote casting the most basic of political participation which women are already involved in general election to vote for governor of East Kalimantan. They have realized that their vote determines the future of their region. For this the simplest form of political participation, most of the women in East Kalimantan have performed their right.The role of the participation of women activists is important in inviting women in East Kalimantan to participate in general elections. To increase activist women's participation is not only the responsibility of one party. Political education for women needs to be held more widely, not only for certain groups. Efforts to increase women's participation in politics certainly need systemic collaboration from various parties from the government, political parties, and community organizations.


Author(s):  
Shirin M. Rai ◽  
Carole Spary

In the Introduction we outline the major themes and arguments of the book and cover some theoretical debates on gender and representation. Evaluating how gender inequality runs through Parliament, its practices and norms, and its institutional frameworks and the forms that representation takes as a result are the areas on which we focus in our book. We note that the consistent under-representation of women in Parliament affects our reception of the performance of representation and the claims that the Indian Parliament makes to being the premier democratic institution of the country. The Introduction outlines the politics and performance framework that allow us to make an innovative and informed empirical analysis of continuities and changes in women’s participation in parliamentary politics. The framework focuses as much on rules and norms of the Parliament as on the corporeality and speech, stage and script of politics and political life that are witnessed in its practices. The Introduction then elucidates the main arguments and empirical focus of each chapter of the book.


2019 ◽  
pp. 421-438
Author(s):  
م.م.انور اسماعيل خليل

Abstract Since 2003. Iraq has begun a new phase in its modern history, which was after a long period of tyranny, repression of freedom of expression, and women were no better off than men; they suffered marginalization and exclusion, but after the fall of the former regime and the adoption of a parliamentary system of government, The level of participation in the government; where it approved the share of women in the legislative authority called "quota" which reflects the legislative level of a certain proportion of the seats in Parliament, amounting to 25%, and this is approved by the Iraqi constitution for 2005. But it is noticeable that women in parliament did not work within the quota; in other words they belonged to the political parties or blocs, and therefore their decisions were not independent of these parties or blocks and the women serve independently, and did not succeed any attempt to form a unified feminist bloc within Parliament, reflect their political orientation, and on the other hand, the parties to which these women belong did not have a role in leading any of their women electoral lists, as well as the presidency of a party or bloc, and this of course may be due to several reasons, the most important: those values or community Altawilat Which prevent women from taking over Leadership, and other reasons, but it is generally observed that there is inequality in favor of the subsequent phase after 2003. From the previous that there is an escalation towards this political participation in general as well as its share in the seats in parliament, "quota." This has been addressed in the framework of the two studies that are starting from the study because of the existence of a research problem, centered on the following question: Is the woman, has been able to invest the approved percentage of "quota" within the political processThe first topic and the scientific necessity dealt with several issues. First, the concept of political participation, especially the political participation of women, which touched upon several definitions, can give a clear picture of this concept. The second, The participation of women political, in terms of those conventions and international conventions and treaties that approved this participation, and the system of kota, the third topic, has dealt with the politicalparticipation of Iraqi women in the permanent Iraqi constitution in 2005. The second topic dealt with the reality of such participation in the framework of parliament authority after 2003. The conclusion was to answer the research question that was behind the Study


2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (7) ◽  
pp. 1043-1061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aboobacker Rameez

Although Sri Lanka has 51% women, their participation in local governance as well as in the national parliament is 5% in total. The strong social development indicator of women in areas such as health and education has not translated into their increased political participation. As such, this study focuses on the level of women’s participation in local governance and explores why there is a low level of political participation of women in local governance. Both quantitative and qualitative methods comprising of questionnaire survey, interviews and focus group discussions were employed in this study. The findings show organized collective involvement of women was effective only in social welfare, livelihood and social security than political participation. The study also reveals that the low level of political participation by women is attributable to biological, economic, psychological, religious and political factors. Overall, it was found that although women are interested in participating in local governance, they have a lack of space for political participation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-207
Author(s):  
Brown Chomba

Issues to do with gender imbalances and inequality of women in general and single women in particular in the political arena and entrepreneurship are nowadays a burning issue in all the countries worldwide. This is a major aspect of modern democratic governance such that low levels of female participation in politics are a major concern worldwide. The steps were taken by the United Nations Convention on stopping all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other international organizations have laid the concrete basis for the emergence of women’s participation in politics and entrepreneurship. In Lusaka, Zambia, women’s political participation is not proportional to the 50% of the country’s population which women represent, thereby not translating into equal representation in political leadership positions. The study employed questionnaires to collect data. The findings demonstrate that there exists a significant gender gap in the political participation of women in all the wards in the Lusaka district and that factors affecting their effective participation were social, economic, political, cultural, and religious-based. The study, therefore, recommended the change of perception of the people, equal representation in governance, support from everyone, and also stopping of discriminatory practices to ensure the equal and full participation of women.


Author(s):  
Mashood Omotosho

In the last two decades, Africa has witnessed series of wars and ethno-religious conflicts with devastating impact on women. Various atrocities against women have been recorded during these conflicts and these developments have created a dangerous dimension against non-combatant women in the continent. In an attempt to resolve the conflict and armed conflict on women in the areas of sexual and gender-based violence, series of peace missions and peace building mechanism were put in place. Despite the various peace negotiations, evidence has shown that women are largely absent from formal peace negotiations and their voices are not heard both at local and continental levels especially within the modern-day challenges and post conflict development. In fact, the transformation agenda of post-conflict peace negotiations routinely failed to consider the gendered causes and consequences of armed conflict and post-conflict reconstruction. It is against this backdrop that this paper attempts to reassess the ambivalent role of women in conflict management in Africa. More importantly, the paper argues that there is need to increase women’s participation in peace talks, planning of demilitarisation, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) and determining governance and security structures, especially in conflict prone areas. Ultimately, the paper seeks to also identify challenges hindering the role and the participation of women in post conflict development in Africa.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reed M Wood ◽  
Jakana L Thomas

Despite the frequent participation of women in armed groups, few studies have sought to explain the variation in their roles across different rebellions. Herein, we investigate this variation. We argue that the political ideology a group adopts plays a central role in determining the extent of women’s participation, particularly their deployment in combat roles. Specifically, we link variations in women’s roles in armed groups to differences in beliefs about gender hierarchies and gender-based divisions of labor inherent in the specific ideologies the groups adopt. We evaluate hypotheses drawn from these arguments using a novel cross-sectional dataset on female combatants in a global sample of rebel organizations active between 1979 and 2009. We find that the presence of a Marxist-oriented ‘leftist’ ideology increases the prevalence of female fighters while Islamist ideologies exert the opposite effect. However, we find little evidence that nationalism exerts an independent influence on women’s combat roles. We also note a general inverse relationship between group religiosity and the prevalence of female fighters. Our analysis demonstrates that political ideology plays a central role in determining whether and to what extent resistance movements incorporate female fighters into their armed wings.


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