The 2011 Arab uprisings were initially heralded as a catalyst for advancing women’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa. Yet “spring” soon turned to winter for women as the hope of improvements in gender equality faded. Demands by the international community that Arab countries do more to conform with the norms of human rights have likely factored into the calculations of Arab regimes taking action to better include women in the political process. Simultaneously, however, increasing internal agitation by the public provided an equally important pressure. It is important to re-evaluate the strategies for advancing women’s rights and to carefully assess what has and has not been effective. This paper takes seriously scholars who argue that Arab women’s rights have been instrumentalized as a way of legitimizing the interests of existing power structures. These strategies of state feminism—the top-down implementation of pro-women policies using governmental power—have produced important gains in women’s rights in many Arab countries, yet these gains often have a formal and hollow character. Frequently, this approach has led to an instrumentalization of women’s concerns by regimes to performatively demonstrate modernization and extract funding from Western donors. The association of feminist struggles with external political influences and elite authority has in turn reinforced populist backlashes against women’s rights. I propose a theoretical framework to explain and compare consequences associated with “top-down” approaches and grassroots democratic efforts to enhance women’s status and participation. While top-down approaches can be vital in setting standards and providing women with the requisite experience and networks to successfully participate in democratic governance, such appointments are only as stable as the regimes that implement them. In comparison, the election of women to positions of power indicates a more profound societal buy-in linked to a more widely distributed and secure female participation Without dismissing the value of the advances that women have made in recent decades through the use of a top-down approach, it is important not to overestimate the gains represented by these political appointments. Not only have these gains failed to “trickle down”, but they may also contribute to active resentment by linking feminism to upper-class interests. These reforms may also sometime lend a veneer of falseness to women’s advocacy when perceived as regime propaganda.

Our research explores whether the presence and influence of political dynasties neutralizes the effects of gender quotas in the Middle East and North Africa. Daniel Smith’s research (2018) reveals that female politicians are much more likely to have dynastic backgrounds than men in OECD states. The likelihood of this being the case is increased in countries of the Global South, many of which tend toward dynastic or proto-dynastic rule. In this paper, we argue that the more women from political dynasties running for office—even with gender quotas facilitating their entry into politics—the less likely there is to be an overall shift in policies meant to benefit women. In this way, dynasties mitigate the potential revolutionary effect of gender quotas and affect the types of women likely to run using them. We evaluate this hypothesis by replicating Smith’s statistical analysis with a new dataset from the MENA.

Wasta, or kin-based favoritism, is well-cited in Jordan as both necessary for resource allocation and undesirable due to its often corrupt impacts of social exclusion and obfuscation of merit. This becomes particularly important in the case of female elected members of parliament (MPs), who experience the opportunities and constraints of wasta-based expectations differently than their male counterparts. These gender-based expectations become particularly important in light of recent anti-corruption protests in Jordan, which often cite wasta as a primary form of corruption that the populace would prefer to see expelled from politics. While the Arab Spring in Jordan was a relatively small event, the region’s recent anti-corruption activities have had large ramifications on the renewal of hope in protest as a means of accomplishing political change. The author participated in a series of interviews of female MPs, public opinion influencers and journalists, and focus group interviews of male and female constituents. The main findings are that female MPs reported often feeling constrained by this system, even if wasta-based patronage is the very mechanism by which they were elected, especially through the quota system. They often denied feeling able to eschew the influence of wasta-based favoritism, which the social media influencers and journalists echoed. The view is often that the populace expects wasta as part of their elected officials’ activities. Contradictorily, many constituents reported believing that female MPs are “less corrupted by wasta” than the male counterparts, and reported desiring wasta less frequently from their female MPs than the male. The paper concludes with a discussion of the possibilities that female MPs in particular have to respond to protests in ways that ameliorate the need and constricting nature of wasta and simultaneously create a new and enhanced space for responding to constituent needs.

From ‘Gender Equality’ to ‘Gender Justice’: Bargaining for Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey Much of the existing literature on women’s rights activism and framing processes in the Muslim world presents the nature of such organizing in terms of dichotomous discourses of egalitarianism (secular) or complementarianism (religious), with little emphasis on the dynamism of women’s campaigning efforts within their often shifting contexts. Addressing this gap in the literature, this paper will analyze the recent framing processes of various elite Islamic women in Iran and Turkey to demand for expansion of women’s rights, in particular women’s increased access to political office, in terms of ‘gender justice’ rather than ‘gender equality’. Based on data gathered from personal interviews as well as a careful study of public statements and publications of elite women, or those with close ties to key political figures, this paper critically examines the political, social, and tactical implications of women’s framing processes that are not conventionally deemed as feminist, given their complementarian undertones. In a comparative research between Iran’s first Vice-President for Women’s Affairs, Shahindokht Molaverdi (2013-2017), under president Hassan Rouhani, as well as the director of the AKP-backed Women and Democracy Association (KADEM) organization in Turkey, Sare Aydin Yilmaz (2013 to present), this paper highlights the nuanced justifications behind adopting a ‘gender justice’ framing. This paper also evaluates the ways in which such public framing on the demand for women’s expanded political roles is received by the political elites as well as the larger public, including women’s rights activists across the ideological spectrum, in each respective country. It argues that Molaverdi’s emphasis on ‘gender justice’ tactfully enables her to find resonance with the Islamic elites while advocating for equal opportunities between genders, including adoption of certain affirmative action measures, given systemic discrimination against women. Such strategic framing has enabled Molaverdi to win the support of a number of secular women’s rights activists, including on the issue of women’s political representation and increased access to the parliament. On the other hand, Yilmaz’s reference to complementarity between genders in her writings and statements on ‘gender justice’ has led to some public backlash against her and her organization among secular Turkish feminists and intensified cleavages between women’s rights groups. Her women’s rights organization, KADEM, however has been able to capitalize on much support from the conservative AKP party in its organizing and campaigning efforts, including in attracting funding from the international community.