How Autocrats Weaponize Women's Rights

Navigating underrepresentation and gendered barriers to women's political power: Narratives and experiences of women parliamentarians in Turkey

“…At the same time, some of the government and opposition divergences in collective navigation strategies, for example, linkages with civil society, are not to be taken as direct consequences of the Turkish regime (Krook and Mackay, 2011;Arat, 2019;Højlund Madsen, 2021). Women's political participation is likely to be continuously embedded in contexts that inhibit contestations between gender equality and anti-gender norms, or where in the stable gray zone of hybrid regimes, gender politics, and women's participation faces risks of instrumentalization (Valdini, 2019;Bjarnegård and Zetterberg, 2022). As such, the Turkish case illustrates valuable insights into how women MPs, across party positions and power dynamics, seek to navigate both the gendered political institution and parliament.…”

“…Moreover, non-democratic regimes also exert influence over women's political power through legitimation strategies, for example, when strategic advances of women's rights are beneficial for gaining voter's support or maintaining authoritarian resilience (Lorch and Bunk, 2016;Mazepus et al, 2016;Donno and Kreft, 2019;Valdini, 2019). More recently, scholarship addresses the different mechanisms of hybrid and authoritarian regimes in instrumentalizing women's rights as "genderwashing" (Bjarnegård and Zetterberg, 2022). Hence, scholarship identifies a range of additional barriers to women's political power in hybrid regimes.…”

“…However, what the interviews illustrate is that the "women's empowerment" narrative is much more a collective strategy sought by women MPs from the opposition, who themselves tend to have a personal background coming from civil society activism before joining formal politics. In their perceptions, linkages with civil society are relevant in the array of navigation strategies to informal barriers in the Turkish parliament, because it allows them to mobilize and resist authoritarian mechanisms that instrumentalize gender politics and women's rights and as ways to promote institutional change in a gendered Turkish parliament (Tripp, 2013;Bjarnegård and Zetterberg, 2022).…”

“…Recently, more attention is brought toward a better understanding of the multiple, dynamic facets of hybrid and authoritarian regimes in connection to women's rights. Such studies highlight in what ways women's civic activism and participation in formal politics can also be strategically used by such regimes, for example, as legitimation strategies or to gain voter support, or to allow the certain provision of women's rights as an illusion of democratic practice while covering up other violations or repression, for example, human rights (Lorch and Bunk, 2016;Valdini, 2019;Bjarnegård and Zetterberg, 2022). Yet, women's experiences of parliament as a gendered institution and particularly how informal obstacles influence their political power remains understudied in hybrid regime contexts (Inguanzo, 2020;Højlund Madsen, 2021).…”

Civil Wars as Critical Junctures: Theoretical Grounding and Empirical Applications

“…12 As research on gender relations and rights during and after civil wars continues to develop and advance, a critical junctures approach can help to analyze both structural shifts and the ways that preexisting institutions persisted or were strengthened, as well as examining how long after wars women's political empowerment lasts and what might change or erode it (Webster, Chen, and Beardsley 2019). Researchers and practitioners must pay close attention to inequalities and take an intersectional approach in order to ensure that apparently progressive changes on paper or in some women's rights, political representation, and access to justice are not masking the continuation of exploitative systems and the marginalization of certain identity groups (Berry 2018;Berry and Lake 2021;Bjarnegård and Zetterberg 2022;Giri 2021;Lake 2018). Work should also continue to problematize binary conceptions of gender identity and essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity and how they are reproduced or challenged during and after conflict (Cohen and Karim 2022;Dietrich Ortega 2012;Hagen 2016), especially as women's participation in warmaking efforts may be framed in terms of 'traditional' gender roles, signaling a government or armed group's intent for a return to stereotypical sociopolitical roles and divisions of labor after conflict ends (e.g.…”