Transforming Women's Citizenship Rights within an Emerging Democratic State

Fallon, Kathleen M.

doi:10.1177/0891243203253657

Cited by 24 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Immediately after the transition, many Ghanaian women's organizations continued to fear the government and the DWM, and thus chose to remain focused on economic, rather than political, issues (Fallon 2003). However, in the late 1990s, because President Rawlings was constitutionally required to step down in 2000, women's organizations began to challenge the government more openly.…”

Section: Women's Democratic Mobilizationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Democratization, Women's Movements, and Gender-Equitable States: A Framework for Comparison

2008

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W ith the recent wave of democratization across Eastern Europe, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa, scholars have begun to explore how democratic changes affect women. Like other analyses of gender and the state (Brush 2003;Eisenstein 1988;MacKinnon 1989;Orloff 1996;Pateman 1988), these studies examine how states create and govern gender relations among their citizens through institutions, laws, and legal discourses (Jaquette and Wolchick 1998;Stephen 1997;Waylen 1994Waylen , 2000. Importantly, they extend previous gendered state literature by asking what happens to the political institutionalization of gender when a state is transformed by democratic transition.There are strong theoretical reasons to anticipate that democratic transitions will create more gender equitable states. First, democratic transitions provide women (and men) with new opportunities for political participation. Second, new participatory opportunities typically coincide with the negotiation and implementation of new state institutions and policies.There is a rich collection of case studies examining the relationship between democratization, women's movements, and gendered state outcomes, but the variation across cases is still poorly understood. In response, this article develops a theoreticallygrounded comparative framework to evaluate and explain cross-national variations in the gendered outcomes of democratic transitions. The framework highlights four theoretical factors-the context of the transition, the legacy of women's previous mobilizations, political parties, and international influences-that together shape the political openings and ideologies available to women's movements in transitional states. Applying the framework to four test cases, we conclude that women's movements are most effective at targeting democratizing states when transitions are complete, when women's movements develop cohesive coalitions, when the ideology behind the transition (rather than the ideology of the winning regime) aligns easily with feminist frames, and when women's past activism legitimates present-day feminist demands. These findings challenge current conceptualizations of how democratic transitions affect gender in state institutions and provide a comparative framework for evaluating variation across additional cases.

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Section: Women's Democratic Mobilizationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Democratization, Women's Movements, and Gender-Equitable States: A Framework for Comparison

2008

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“…They intimated that she had encouraged them to mobilize their communities to form groups because it was only through that means that they could gain formal recognition and take part in decisions that affected them. These ideas of focusing on social rights and economic prosperity were in consonance with the agenda of the women's movements (Fallon 2003) and in accordance with their personal aspirations and their roles queen mothers. It added fuel to the urgency for them to come together.…”

Section: How Do the Mkta Queen Mothers Perform Their Duties?mentioning

confidence: 87%

Queen mothers, NGOs, and orphans: Transformations in traditional women's political organization in an era of HIV and orphanhood in Manya Klo, Ghana

Drah

2014

Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography

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“…Two decades after independence, one of Botswana's first two women MPs, G. K. T. Chiepe, who later was the foreign minister, cited the two organizations as still the main women's organizations in the country (Novicki 1985:15). 8 Unlike many other African countries such as Ghana (see Fallon 2008), Botswana at independence did not find itself with one all-powerful national women's organization in service to the state.…”

Section: "When Women Started Talking": Emergence Of the Women's Movemmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…I also consulted primary and secondary sources in libraries and archives in Gaborone, including those of the National Archives, the BDS Collection at the University of Botswana, the Botswana Society, SADC, the IEC, and the Women's Affairs Department. The article utilizes the grounded theory approach, uncovering reoccurring themes in order to analyze the data (see Fallon 2003).…”

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confidence: 99%

Update on the Women's Movement in Botswana: Have Women Stopped Talking?

Bauer¹

2011

Afr. Stud. Rev.

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Abstract:Across Africa in the early twenty-first century, autonomous women's movements have transformed the political landscape. With their support, African women are lobbying for constitutional reforms, entering political office in unprecedented numbers, and initiating legislation to expand women's rights. African women's movements have been emboldened by changes in international and regional norms concerning women's rights and representation, a new availability of resources to enhance women's status, and in many places, an end to conflict. In Botswana, the 1980s and 1990s were a period of heightened women's mobilization. Led by the women's organization Emang Basadi, the women's movement accomplished many significant victories, including winning a landmark citizenship case, prompting a comprehensive review of laws to identify instances of gender discrimination, issuing the first women's manifesto in Africa, and organizing workshops for political parties and women candidates. Some scholars have suggested that Emang Basadi's work was responsible not just for increasing women's representation in parliament, but also for broadening democracy in Botswana. Since 2010, however, a once vibrant women's movement has gone quiet. This article seeks to understand this development and to explore how the movement might be revitalized. The article concludes by drawing comparisons with other women's movements in the region and suggesting that the women's movement in Botswana, like others in the region, may be, in the words of one scholar, “in abeyance.”

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Transforming Women's Citizenship Rights within an Emerging Democratic State

Cited by 24 publications

References 18 publications

Democratization, Women's Movements, and Gender-Equitable States: A Framework for Comparison

Democratization, Women's Movements, and Gender-Equitable States: A Framework for Comparison

Queen mothers, NGOs, and orphans: Transformations in traditional women's political organization in an era of HIV and orphanhood in Manya Klo, Ghana

Update on the Women's Movement in Botswana: Have Women Stopped Talking?

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