This paper analyses how the Moroccan Family code reforms of 1993 and of 2003 have created a new type of politics in Morocco. Using the democratic transitions literature as the theoretical framework, it questions how a social movement, which was absolutely marginal in the first phase of political liberalization, was able to obtain significant policy reform after the democratic transition had essentially failed. The Family Code offers an insightful opportunity to analyse not only the issue of women’s rights promotion but, especially, the democratization process of the Moroccan political system and the debate concerning it. The paper argues that in order to successfully obtain the reforms it was demanding, the women’s movement had to isolate itself from political parties and transform itself from a prodemocracy movement to an advocacy movement focusing strictly on issues related to women’s rights. The literature on Morocco largely attributes Morocco’s democratic reforms to King Mohamed VI’s commitment to the Family Code reforms and refers to the reforms’ opponents as traditionalists, ultraconservative or Islamists. An analysis of the women’s movement provides an interesting and at times counter-intuitive picture of this description and of the relationship between democracy and women’s rights in Morocco. The inclusion of the rhetoric of women’s rights by the monarchy dates back to King Hassan II and the opposition cannot be reduce to a simple dichotomy of traditionalists versus modernists. The structural and strategic changes that occurred within the women’s movement are useful to investigate not only how the movement has appropriated the civil society label but how, and to what extent, the policies promoted by different international organisations have taken concrete form. This research is based on interviews with representatives of the women’s movement, Islamist, political and civil society leaders between 2008-2010.

What explains the variation in women’s election to lower houses of parliament (or similar institutions) in Muslim majority states worldwide? I test several theoretical perspectives found in the general literature on women’s representation, as well as in the literatures from predominantly Muslim regions, in order to explain the percentages of women legislators in lower houses, which ranges from 0 to 31%. I consider theories of modernization (Norris and Inglehart, 2004; Lipset, Seong and Torres, 1993), petroleum rent dependence (Ross, 2008), cultural norms about women’s participation in the public sphere (Rizzo, Abdel-Latif, and Meyer, 2007), the institutionalization of Islamic law in the state (Spierings, Smits and Verloo, 2009), the role of civil society groups and women’s organizations in promoting women’s political activism (Moghadam, 2009; Kandiyoti, 2007; Sadiqi, 2006), and political structural factors (Matland, 1998), such as regime type, electoral system type, and the presence or absence of quotas guaranteeing women’s representation (Tripp and Kang, 2008; Dahlerup, 2006). In order to test these theoretical perspectives, multivariate regression analysis is employed to gauge the relative importance of measures derived from data published by internationally reputable organizations, such as The World Bank. In line with the general literature, I find that political structural factors are most important in explaining women’s election, particularly in countries with quotas. Even in countries without quotas electoral system type (i.e., proportional representation), performs well in explaining much of the variance in women’s election. In countries without quotas, however, general levels of development, such as women’s literacy and urbanization are better predictors of women’s election than political factors (but interestingly, per capita GDP and political freedom are negatively associated). In contrast to other studies, oil rent dependence and predominant Arab ethnicity are not found to be negative predictors of women’s election. The constellation of political factors, as well as their interactions with their contexts are undertheorized and researched in countries of the global South, and particularly in the Muslim world. I make a contribution toward specifying general conditions that facilitate women’s election in 50 Muslim majority states. While this project has not yet addressed the question of whether women’s descriptive representation translates into their substantive representation (i.e., whether women legislators work to introduce and pass legislation that will make positive impacts on women’s lives), it establishes an important baseline from which to gauge progress in women’s political representation in Muslim majority societies, and moves the discussion beyond simplistic “civilizational” arguments.

Important literature on civil society and women’s protests in Islamic Middle Eastern countries has focused on Arab and Turkish women, studying their different demands, messages and modes of socio-political participation. Iranian scholars have also documented historically unique role of women in civil society and women’s protests including their political proclivities against inequalities in the twentieth century. Yet a comprehensive study of the One Million Signatures Campaign (the Campaign) as a democratic women’s organization and their involvement in Iran’s Green Movement remains to be accomplished. Since its inception in 2006, the Campaign’s aim has been to “promote democracy from below” by building new linkages among various actors in civil society. It purports to contest the system of gender asymmetry and promote legal gender equality within the Shi’i state. It utilizes traditional strategies of mobilization and rely on the cyberspace to register discontent, raise gender awareness, lobby for legal reform and build alliances locally and globally. But in response, in particular since the contested June 12, 2009 presidential elections and the Green Movement protests, the government has taken severe measures to curtail or neutralize Campaigners, and further, has charged the Campaigners with “threatening” its national security. This study explores the Campaign as a civil society organization and its drive for change. It assesses its prospects and potentials, as well as its limits to augment change on behalf of women. It asks: how does the network of the Campaigners instigate change in view of state authoritarianism? What does women’s participation in the civil society organization suggest for the relationship of women to politics and more generally, women’s quest for equal rights in Iran? What are the likely future channels of access for the Campaigners to sustain change and help reform discriminatory gender laws? This project explores the Campaigners as active agents of political and social change. It explores their philosophical dispositions, multiple strategies to reform discriminatory gender laws, alliances with various groups and their transformative strategies to promote equality and democracy internally across the country and to communicate its grievances globally. Importantly, it delves into state-gender relations and considers the slow modification of the Campaign from a local protest network to a national civil society organization with a global reach. This paper will utilize primary materials gathered from field research, interviews, oral history collections, weblogs, email messages from and direct interactions with Campaigners and secondary sources in Persian and English.

As Islamists engage in ideological moderation, they tend to move away from doctrinaire positions on the economy and foreign policy. Even a cursory examination reveals evidence of the Islamist transformation: Many Islamist groups that previously criticized elections are now interested in electoral participation, and some groups have already adopted certain aspects of neoliberal economic policies and moved away from their earlier anti-capitalist rhetoric. However, this moderation is less apparent with respect to issues regarding women. What explains this variation? By examining four case studies, namely the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi) of Turkey, Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslumiin-MB) of Egypt, The Islamic Action Front of Jordan (Jabhat Al-Amal Al-Islami-IAF), and the Justice and Development Party of Morocco [Hizb al-Adala wa al-Tanmiyya-MJDP], this essay has two principal objectives: to explain why Islamist groups have characteristically resisted moderation concerning gender, and to account for the variations among the four cases. Two explanations for the resilience of gender dominate the existing literature: Those based on the assertion that Islam is inherently gender-biased (Inglehart and Norris 2003; Landes and Landes 2001) and those that reject the notion of ideological moderation, implying that Islamists have not really changed but have only strategically adopted the appearance of moderation (Kramer 1997; Tibi 2009). Dissatisfied with the existing explanations, this essay applies an alternative conceptual framework, historical institutionalism, and employs the method of process tracing. It argues that the Islamist resilience to moderation concerning gender has roots in historical, strategic and institutional factors. Sources: Inglehart, Ronald and Pippa Norris, “The True Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Policy 135 (2003): 64-5. Landes, David S. and Richard A. Landes, “Girl Power: Do Fundamentalists Fear Our Women?” New Republic. (8 October 2001): 20-2. Kramer, Martin. “The Mismeasure of Political Islam,” in Martin Kramer (ed.), The Islamism Debate (Tel Aviv: the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 1997), pp.161-73. Tibi, Bassam, “Islamists Approach Europe: Turkey’s Islamist Danger,” Middle East Quarterly (2009): 35-54.