Research Library

Women in Egypt achieved a historic increase in their legislative representation in 2015, securing 14.9 percent of seats in parliament. In this brief, Cairo University professor Mazen Hassan analyzes transcripts of parliamentary sessions to determine whether this increase in female parliamentarians had a noticeable impact on Egypt’s legislative agenda.

By Mounira M. Charrad and Maro Youssef The authors discuss the evolution of women’s associations in Tunisia from the Ben Ali regime to the post-Arab Spring period in this Baker Institute blog: https://bit.ly/2NyRZjl

The current leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are trying to assert much more political control over their respective country's religious institutions. The lesson both regimes seem to have taken away from the Arab upheavals is not the necessity of pluralism, but instead the need for more regimentation, hierarchy, control, and exclusion.

By Tahani Al Terkait, Durham University Two recent examples of gender politics in Kuwait reveal the challenges with women's integration in the socio-religious sphere of Kuwaiti society, writes the author. This is the fourth brief resulting from a May 2018 workshop held in Kuwait by the Baker Institute in partnership with the Alsalam Center for Strategic and Developmental Studies. This work is part of a two-year project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York on “Building Pluralistic and Inclusive States Post-Arab Spring.”

Procedural reforms can further advance the development of start-ups in Bahrain, writes the author in this evaluation of the country’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

In a new survey, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Episcopal Health Foundation sought to gauge Texans’ views on health policy priorities at both the state and national level. Overall, the survey finds that health care is a priority for Texans, with over half saying the state legislature should increase spending on health care programs, while roughly two-thirds of Texans say the state should expand its Medicaid program.

In June 2018, Saudi Arabia finally put an end to its legal ban on women driving, opening the way for millions of new drivers to navigate across a country three times bigger than Texas. While the long-overdue policy shift provides relief to women who lacked freedom of mobility, the onset of so many new drivers has enormous consequences for transportation and the energy sector, as well as labor market participation and public health.

By Laila Elimam Protests erupted in Jerada, Morocco, after the deaths of two brothers who were killed in the nearby abandoned mines. Research associate Laila Elimam examines this event and the response of the Moroccan legislature.

Morocco's Justice and Development Party attempts to preserve its leading political position by presenting itself as an alternative to a system that, according to the PJD, is corrupt and morally bankrupt.

The authors examine new legislation in Tunisia aimed at increasing protections for women, such as repealing the country’s “marry-your-rapist” law as well as criminalizing marital rape and domestic violence.