Women's Political Representation in Iran and Turkey - by Mona Tajali

About the Book

Provides a comparative study of women's political participation and representation in contemporary Iran and Turkey

Book Synopsis

How have women in many Muslim-majority countries been able to achieve surprising success despite the significant constraints imposed by conservative gender ideology and authoritarian political parties and systems? Through a comparative focus on Iran and Turkey, Mona Tajili examines the activities and strategies of women's rights groups across the ideological spectrum. She explores how various groups have negotiated with political elites in order to bolster female political representation and identifies the conditions that stimulate greater support to ease women's path to political office. Studying how women's groups manoeuvre within these structures is important to help our understanding of the gendered politics of autocratic regimes.

From the Back Cover

A comparative study of women's political participation and representation in contemporary Iran and Turkey The conservative gender ideology espoused by the ruling elites in contemporary Iran and Turkey delegates women mostly to the domestic sphere, and prioritizes their roles as mothers and wives. Despite this conservatism, women in both countries have been demanding greater access to the political field, and have even had notable achievements in recent years. Placing women's rights activism at the centre of its analysis, this book explores how women in Iran and Turkey manoeuvre the institutional structures and ideological barriers in their respective contexts to demand a seat at the political decision-making table. It argues that the recent increases in women's political representation are best understood in terms of the strategic interactions that take place between women's rights groups and political elites, both of which depend on the support of the electorate. Key Features - Provides an institutionalist analysis of women's political underrepresentation in Iran and Turkey through an examination of each country's electoral system, political party structure, government framework and state gender ideology - Based on over 140 in-depth interviews with past and present women politicians and candidates, party elites and women's rights activists in Iran and Turkey between 2009 and 2019 - Gives voice to the experiences and approaches of women's activist groups and political parties across the ideological spectrum - from the Justice and Development Party and Association for the Support of Women Candidates (KADER) to the Zeinab Society and Islamic Women's Coalition in Iran

Review Quotes

Tajali's meticulously researched and well-argued book provides an invaluable framework for understanding the complexities of women's political representation in Iran and Turkey.--Ayça Alemdaroğlu and Mobina Riazi, Stanford University "Middle East Journey"

Mona Tajali's book provides a deep dive into women's political strategies in Iran and Turkey. This unique study, which is based on extensive fieldwork, looks at women's efforts across the political spectrum to carve out political leadership roles and influence for themselves in two challenging political environments. This empirically rich book offers the reader important and fascinating insights into how women in Iran and Turkey vote, what issues are important to them, as well as how party activists navigate the political world and express their political aspirations

--Aili Mari Tripp, Wangari Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Tajali has provided a valuable and in-depth analysis of women's rights groups' activities and strategies.

--Mahomed Faizal "The Muslim News"

Tajali illuminates how Turkish women take advantage of multiparty competition to increase their representation and how Iran's weak party structure and factionalism hinder women trying to expand their political roles. [...] Overall, this study offers keen insight into women's struggle for political representation in these countries and provides useful background for understanding the role of Iranian women in the 2022 protests.

--J. G. Everett "CHOICE"

This is a superb book that tackles important and puzzling questions: What explains the fact that both Turkey and Iran have witnessed increases in women's formal political representation in recent years, especially in the context of resurgent authoritarianism, and on behalf of conservative political actors? And what explains the differences in the patterns of these changes in representation in the two countries? Tajali's nuanced, detailed, and comprehensive account elucidates the interaction between women's activism, the interests of political elites, electoral structures, and political opportunities that lead to qualitatively divergent outcomes. Tajali offers in-depth insight into the strategy, ingenuity, and resilience of women's political organizing and lobbying of political elites - including secular, religious, conservative, and reformist elites - giving us a rare view of the agency of women's movements even under the most challenging institutional and political circumstances. This is an essential reading for anyone interested in women's rights and gender politics in the MENA region, and in gender and politics within authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes more broadly.

--Lihi Ben Shitrit, Associate Professor, University of Georgia

Women's Organizing for Political Representation in Iran and Turkey forcefully challenges essentialist conceptions of the ways that Muslim women engage in politics. By employing standard political science tools such as analysis of electoral rules, party competition, and election strategy, Tajali shows that conservative women's organizations are highly mobilized in these two countries and have made surprising gains in women's political participation. In both countries, for example, conservative male political elites have appointed women to leadership positions, women's issues have been brought to the forefront of the political agenda, and the percentage of women in legislative office has increased--even doubling in the 2016 elections in Iran. Overall, the book provides a fascinating and important contribution to our knowledge of women's political participation.

--Professor Lisa Baldez, Dartmouth College

Tajali illuminates how Turkish women take advantage of multiparty competition to increase their representation and how Iran's weak party structure and factionalism hinder women trying to expand their political roles. [...] Overall, this study offers keen insight into women's struggle for political representation in these countries and provides useful background for understanding the role of Iranian women in the 2022 protests.--J. G. Everett "CHOICE"

About the Author

Mona Tajali is associate professor of international relations and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia. She has authored (with Homa Hoodfar) Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (WLUML 2011), and several scholarly articles on gender and politics in the Middle East. Since 2007 she has been collaborating with the research wing of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) transnational solidarity network and since 2019 serves as a member of its executive board.