Women, the State, and Political Liberalization

By late 1987 a wave of political changes appeared to be underwayin the Middle East and North Africa. A number of Arab regimes,manifestly incapable of coping with growing problems of debt, unemployment,and corruption, took different measures towards more politicalparticipation. These countries witnessed political openings of various types,some more apparently significant than others but all promising changes thatwould lessen repression and open the way for greater political participation.In 1991 Laurie A. Brand started her project to study the effect of thosechanges on women in the region. She was also interested in studyingthe situation of women under the similar political and economictransformations that swept Eastern Europe in 1989-1990. While the lattercontinue to unfold, the openings that appeared in the Middle East and NorthAfrica have in virtually all cases been closed.Despite that, the author pursued her project on women and politicalliberalization to explore the significance of culture - Islam as theomnipresent independent variable in Middle East politics - as opposedto structure. She also investigated the assumption that vibrant women'sorganizations can be important precursors to more democratic development,to determine what such organizations do and how they relate to thestate, other political actors, and each other during such periods.Brand spotted some phenomena, such as the drop in the number ofwomen legislators in local and national assemblies, changes in labor lawsor their implementation at women's expense, and attempts to restrictwomen's personal or political rights - phenomena that have accompaniedmost of the "democratic'' transitions unfolding in the Middle East & NorthAfrica region (MENA) ...