Wednesday, February 21, 2018
12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute
Registration is at capacity. Lunches will be held until the start of the event and thereafter distributed on a first-come, first-served basis to those on standby.
The Arab world has one of the lowest rates of women’s political representation at 17 percent, compared to 40 percent in Nordic countries and 27 percent in both Europe and the Americas. Whereas previous explanations for women’s political underrepresentation in the region has mostly focused on socio-economic and cultural factors, our understanding of the effect of the existing autocratic structures on women’s access to political power continues to be fairly limited. Little or no scholarly attention was paid to the impact of the politics of authoritarianism on shaping not only women’s numerical presence in national legislatures (i.e., descriptive representation), but also, their legislative behavior and policy priorities once in office (i.e., substantive representation). The talk will shed light on some of these aspects while explicating the dynamics of women’s membership in legislative committees across the MENA region.