Women, Money, and Political Participation in the Middle East

by Bozena C. Welborne

Overview

This book examines women, money, and political participation in the Middle East and North Africa focusing on women’s capacity to engage local political systems. In particular, it considers whether and how this engagement is facilitated through specific types of financial flows from abroad. Arab countries are well-known rentier states, and so a prime destination for foreign aid, worker remittances, and oil-related investment. Alongside other factors these external monies have elicited dramatic shifts in gender-related social norms and expectations both from the state and the domestic population, affording certain women the opportunity to enter the political arena, while leaving others behind. The research presented here expands the discussion of women in rentier political economy and highlights their roles as participants and agents within regional templates for economic development.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031048791
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	08/10/2022
Edition description:	1st ed. 2022
Pages:	177
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bozena C. Welborne is an Assistant Professor in the department of Government at Smith College. Her research explores the impact of financial globalization on institutional reform and social change in the Middle East and North Africa with a focus on gender. Welborne is also a principal author of the book, The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States, which showcases results from the largest academic survey of Muslim-American women inquiring into their Islamic practice and politicization.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. An Introduction: Gendered Rentierism in the Arab World

1.1 Authoritarian Upgrading and State Feminism

1.2 Women’s Empowerment as Virtue Signaling

1.3 Connecting Economics to Politics

1.4 Gender Rentierism as an Analytical Tool

1.5 What to Expect from this Book

Chapter 2. State Feminism and Gender Rentierism

2.1 Upgrading Authoritarianism through Women

2.2 Women’s Movements Encounter State Feminism

2.3 Rentier-State Theory and Gender

2.4 Gender Rentierism Revisited

2.2.1 Oil, Investment, and Gender

2.2.2 Foreign Aid and Gender

2.2.3 Aid Conditionality to the Rescue?

2.2.4 Remittances and Gender

2.2.5 A Rent Curse?

Chapter 3. Foreign Aid and Virtue Signaling

3.1 Foreign Aid Promotes Gender Equality

3.2 Virtue Signaling and Women’s Representation

3.3 Foreign Aid and the Push to End Violence Against Women

Conclusion

Chapter 4. The Gender Paradox of Remittances

4.1 Surveying Remittances in the MENA

4.2 Migrant Values and Social Change

4.3 Promoting Old or New Gender Dynamics?

4.4 Does Migration Lead to Emancipation?

4.5 The Values of Remittances-Receiving Households

4.6 The Indirect Political Effect of Remittances

Conclusion

Chapter 5. Independents, Women’s Work, and Oil Rents

5.1 The Emergence of Women Independents

5.2 Gender Rentierism in Oil-Dependent vs. Oil-Abundant States

5.3 The Political Economy of Women’s Legislative Representation

5.3.1 The Bahraini Case

5.3.2 The Omani Case

5.3.3 The Jordanian Case

5.3.4 The Lebanese Case

5.3.5 The Egyptian Case

5.3.6 The Moroccan Case

Conclusion

Chapter 6. Gender Rentierism—a Curse or an Opportunity for Women?

Appendix

Index