Research Library

Whereas the royal decree granting Kuwaiti women the right to vote and run for elections in May 2005 raised hopes for political recognition, the glass ceiling remains intact, blocking females’ access to the decision-making process, write fellow Marwa Shalaby and research associate Adan Obeid. The authors examine the factors affecting women's political representation in the Kuwaiti parliament in this article published by the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Nonresident fellow Valentine Moghadam argues that women’s legal status, social positions, and collective action prior to the Arab Spring helped shape the nature of the 2011 mass protests as well as the political and social outcomes of individual countries.

Using the work of the women’s caucus in Iran’s Sixth Parliament as a case study, the authors examine women’s struggles to obtain a voice and influence within an authoritarian polity and a male-dominated political body.

The authors analyze why conservative Eastern European voters are more likely to vote for female populist candidates than for candidates from leftist parties.

Women have been central to the events that have shaken Tunisian politics since the Arab Spring. This article addresses how Tunisia came to occupy a premier position in regard to women's rights and discusses some of the current debates on women's rights in Tunisia following the Arab Spring.

Starting in the 1950s and ever since, Tunisia has implemented gender legislation expanding women's rights in family law. This article documents the two major phases of reforms in favor of women's rights in Tunisia and outlines the conditions that permitted or encouraged the continuity over the last half century.

The authors in this special issue discuss how women's voices are excluded, silenced and marginalized in settings and processes such as war, displacement, democratization, labor market, judicial system, state bureaucracy, nonprofit organizations and national debates on citizenship. They also discover how women found their voices, channeled them, modified them, and gained a measure of empowerment.

The lower participation of women in the paid labor force in the Muslim Middle East relative to other world regions raises the question: What is the culprit of gender inequality in the Muslim Middle East? Could it be Islam or is it something else?