Paradoxes of democratic progress in kuwait: The case of the kuwaiti women's rights movement

Muslim World Journal of Human Rights

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 2011, Pages

  Shultziner, Doron ^a   Tétreault, Mary Ann ^b  

^a HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM   (Israel)

^b TRINITY UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

elites; Islam; Kuwait; modernization; self esteem; social movements; suffrage; women's rights

Indexed keywords

EID: 79952324397     PISSN: 15544419     EISSN: 15544419     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2202/1554-4419.1192     Document Type: Article

References (119)

1. The National Assembly (Majlis al-Umma) is composed of fifty elected members plus the members of the Cabinet, who serve ex officio (article 80). Elections are normally held every four years, unless the Amir dissolves parliament before the end of the normal term (articles 83). The parliament has the power to declare an election invalid by a majority vote (article 95); vote a minister out of office (article 101); express no-confidence in the Prime Minister (article 102); reject laws proposed by the executive branch (article 66); and to raise and pass independent laws and regulations. In comparison, the new, twenty-first century municipal and national representative bodies in the Gulf are almost purely consultative, with the partial exception of those in Bahrain.
2. Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
3. Haya Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait: The Politics of Gender (London: Saqi Books, 2001).
4. Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at pp. 138-42
5. Shafeeq Ghabra, "Kuwait and the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Change," The Middle East Journal 51 (1997): 368-369.
6. Mary Ann Tétreault and Haya al-Mughni, "Gender, Citizenship, and Nationalism in Kuwait," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 22 (1995): 64-80.
7. See also Mary Ann Tétreault, Katherine Meyer, and Helen Rizzo, "Women's Rights in the Middle East: A Longitudinal Study of Kuwait," International Political Sociology 3(2009): 218-37.
8. Diana Elias, "Kuwait gives women vote, but with limits," The Associated Press, 17 May 2005. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05137/505504.stm (Accessed January 15, 2011)
9. Gökhan Bacik, Hybrid Sovereignty in the Arab Middle East: The Cases of Kuwait, Jordan, and Iraq (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 103.
10. See the highly circumspect editorial in the Kuwaiti daily Arab Times (posted online on 19 May 2005) compiled by its staff three days after passage: "However, some people who opposed the bill to grant the Kuwaiti women their political rights were heard calling the vote clandestine political deals said to have been concluded between the government and the MPs in a bid to pass the Kuwaiti women's suffrage" (original English phrasing; editorial no longer available online).
11. Shultziner interviews, August 2006
12. Tétreault interviews, March 2006.
13. After debating for nine hours, the opposition did manage to attach an amendment saying that "Women must adhere to the rules and provisions of the Islamic law (Shari'a) when it comes to voting and candidacy" (Omar Hasan, AFP, 17 May 2005). One result is that women and men vote at separate polling stations, a boon for analysts interested in analyzing the impact of sex on voting decisions. A less benign outcome is growing pressure for sex-segregation of campaign events.
14. Seymour Martin Lipset, "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review 53(1959): 69-105
15. Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
16. "Kuwait's oil revenue up 44 percent in 2008", 10 May 2009, Reuters.
17. Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at p. 32.
18. Bacik, Hybrid Sovereignty in the Arab Middle East, supra note 7
19. Ghabra, Kuwait and the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Change, supra note 4
20. Anh Nga Longva, "Neither Autocracy nor Democracy but Ethnocracy: Citizens, Expatriates and the Socio-Political System in Kuwait," in Monarchies and Nations: Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf, eds., Paul Dresch and James Piscatori (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005).
21. Mary Ann Tétreault and Haya al-Mughni, "Modernization and its Discontents: State and Gender in Kuwait," The Middle East Journal 49(1995), p. 406.
22. Anh Nga Longva, Walls Built on Sand: Migration, Exclusion and Society in Kuwait (Publisher Boulder, Colo.; Oxford: Westview, 1997), pp. 193-196.
23. A leader of the WCSS even went as far as to deny in an international setting that "Kuwaiti women have ever been oppressed or subject to discriminatory practices" quoted in al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at p. 142.
24. Longva, Walls Built on Sand, supra note 16
25. Longva, Neither Autocracy nor Democracy but Ethnocracy, supra note 14.
26. Fatima Mernissi, "Democracy as Moral Disintegration: The Contradiction between Religious Belief and Citizenship as a Manifestation of the Ahistoricity of the Arab Identity," in Women of the Arab World: The Coming Challenge, ed., Nahid Toubia (London: Zed Books, 1988), pp. 35-44.
27. Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3
28. Longva, Neither Autocracy nor Democracy but Ethnocracy, supra 14.
29. Helen Mary Rizzo, Islam, Democracy and the Status of Women: The Case of Kuwait (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 13.
30. Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
31. Peter Berkowitz also comments that many Kuwaiti students were apathetic to the absence of women's suffrage in Kuwait and some female students stated that they already have all their important rights. Interview by Shultziner with Peter Berkowitz, August 21, 2006, Hoover Institution, Washington DC. See also Peter Berkowitz, "They've Kuwaited Long Enough: What's stopping Kuwait's women from voting?" The Weekly Standard May 4, 2005
32. Peter Berkowitz, "An Oasis: Kuwaiti Women Make Progress," National Review March 3, 2004.
33. Tétreault Mary Ann, Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 61, 123.
34. Bacik, Hybrid Sovereignty in the Arab Middle East, supra note 7.
35. Longva, Walls Built on Sand, supra note 16
36. Longva, Neither Autocracy nor Democracy but Ethnocracy, supra note 14.
37. For the concept of siege mentality see Daniel Bar-Tal and Dikla Antebi, "Siege Mentality in Israel," Ongoing Production on Social Representation 1(1992): 49-67.
38. On the conditions of domestic workers in Kuwait and their mistreatment by Kuwaiti women and men alike see the report Walls at Every Turn: Abuse of Migrant Domestic Workers through Kuwait's Sponsorship System (Human Rights Watch, October 2010; available online: http://www.hrw.org).
39. Longva, Neither Autocracy nor Democracy but Ethnocracy, supra note 14 at p. 130.
40. Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3.
41. Mary Ann Tétreault and Mohammed Al-Ghanim, "The Day After Victory: Kuwait's 2009 Election and the Contentious Present," Middle East Report Online, July 8, 2009. http://www.merip.org/mero/mero070809.html (accessed January 15, 2011).
42. Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, supra note 22
43. al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at pp. 174-175
44. Ghabra, Kuwait and the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Change, supra note 4 at pp. 364-366
45. Tétreault, Stories of Democracy, supra note 24 at pp. 218-219
46. Al-Najjar, Ghanim, "Kuwait: Struggle over Parliament," Arab Reform Bulletin 4(5), June 2006.
47. Haya Al-Mughni, "The Politics of Women's Suffrage in Kuwait," Arab Reform Bulletin 4(2004)
48. Tétreault, Stories of Democracy, supra note 24
49. Mary Ann Tétreault, "A State of Two Minds: State Cultures, Women, and Politics in Kuwait," International Journal of Middle East Studies 33(2001): 203-20
50. Mary Ann Tétreault, "Kuwait's Parliament Considers Women's Political Rights, Again," Middle East Report Online, 2 September 2004 (accessed January 15, 2011).
51. Mary Ann Tétreault, "Bottom-up Democratization in Kuwait," in Political Change in the Arab States: Stuck in Transition, ed. Mary Ann Tétreault, Gwenn Okruhlik, and Andrzej Kapiszewski (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2011), p. 87.
52. Mary Ann Tétreault, "Kuwait's Annus Mirabilis," Middle East Report Online September 7, 2006. (accessed January 15, 2011).
53. Mohammed Al-Ghanim, "'Transitions to Nowhere?' Kuwait and the Challenge of Political Liberalization," Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Northeastern Political Science Association, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Philadelphia, PA, November 15, 2010.
54. Quoted in al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at p. 78.
55. Ibid, p. 151.
56. Ibid, p. 153.
57. The concept of transformative events was coined by McAdam and Sewell who note that "the key feature of transformative events is that they come to be interpreted as significantly disrupting, altering, or violating the taken-for-granted assumptions governing routine political and social relations" Doug McAdam and William H. Sewell Jr., "It's About Time: Temporality in the Study of Social Movements and Revolutions," in Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, ed. Ronald R. Aminzade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 112 - original emphasis
58. see also Aldon D. Morris, "Charting Futures for Sociology: Social Organization," Contemporary Sociology 29(2000), p. 452.
59. Haya Al-Mughni and Mary Ann Tétreault, "Political Actors without the Franchise: Women and Politics in Kuwait," in Monarchies and Nations: Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf, eds., Paul Dresch and James Piscatori (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005).
60. Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at pp. 151-163.
61. Tétreault, Stories of Democracy, supra note 24 at pp. 93-94
62. Mary Ann Tétreault, "Divided Communities of Memory: Diasporas Come Home," in Muslim Diaspora: Gender, Culture, and Identity, ed. Haideh Moghissi (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 81-98.
63. Katherine Meyer, Helen Rizzo, and Yousef Ali,. "Changed Political Attitudes in the Middle East," International Sociology 22(2007): 289-324
64. Katherine Meyer, Helen Rizzo, and Yousef Ali, "Changing sources of support for women's political rights," International Social Science Journal 57(2005): 207-218 (Pubitemid 43904347)
65. Rizzo Islam, Democracy and the Status of Women, supra note 21
66. Helen Rizzo, Katharine Meyer, and Yousef Ali, "Women's Political Rights: Islam, Status and Networks in Kuwait," Sociology 36(2002): 639-662.
67. Ghanim Al-Najjar, "The Challenges Facing Kuwaiti Democracy," Middle East Journal 54(2000), p. 255
68. Meyer, Changing sources of support for women's political rights.
69. Quoted in al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at p. 172.
70. Steve Yetiv, "Kuwait's Democratic Experiment in its Broader International Context," The Middle East Journal 56(2002): 257-271.
71. Al-Mughni and Tétreault, Political Actors without the Franchise, supra note 41
72. Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at p. 181. Another important event that probably assisted this process is the 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States. Abdulwahab Alkebsi then with the National Endowment for Democracy, and Shafeeq Ghabra then with the American University of Kuwait, both argued that the 9/11 events provoked a discussion about identity among Kuwaitis ("who are we?") that strengthened pro-democratic ideals and eroded the validity of the old excuses for denying women their political rights. Interviews by Shultziner, November 2006 and October 2007.
73. For an introduction to the literature on self-esteem and behavior see Albert Bandura, "Self-Efficacy Mechanism in Human Agency," American Psychologist 37 (1982): 122-47
74. Jennifer Crocker and Noah Nuer, "The Insatiable Quest for Self-Worth," Psychological Inquiry 14(2004): 31-4 (Pubitemid 36963862)
75. Michael Kernis, "Towards a Conceptualization of Optimal Self-Esteem." Psychological Inquiry 14(2003): 1-26
76. Tom Pyszczynski, Jeff Greenberg, Solomon Sheldon, Jamie Arndt, and Jeff Schimel, "Why Do People Need Self-Esteem? A Theoretical and Empirical Review," Psychological Bulletin 130(2004): 435-68. (Pubitemid 38614667)
77. For a fuller discussion on the language of recognition, self-esteem, and social movements see Doron Shultziner, Struggling for Recognition: The Psychological Impetus for Democratic Progress (New York: Continuum, 2010).
78. Rizzo, Islam, Democracy and the Status of Women, supra note 21
79. Shultziner interview, September 2006
80. Quoted in Tétreault et al., Women's Rights in the Middle East, supra note 6 at p. 213 (emphasis added).
81. Quoted in Hassan M. Fattah, "Kuwaiti women Join the Voting After a Long Battle for Suffrage," The New York Times, June 30, 2006.
82. Quoted in Hannah Allam, "Confronting Tradition: Candidate spurred change that allowed Kuwaiti women to vote for the first time," Women, June 29, 2006 (emphases added).
83. Rola Dashti, "Twentieth Anniversary Soref Symposium: Assessing the Winds of Change, Soref Symposium," The Washington Institute, 2005, date May 21, 2005. http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC07.php?CID=272 (accessed January 15, 2011)
84. Twentieth Anniversary Soref Symposium: Assessing the Winds of Change, Soref Symposium, Ibid
85. see also Rola Dashti, "Can there be democracy with marginalization?" Bitterlemons.org 28(2005), (accessed January 15, 2011).
86. Interviews in Kuwait by Tétreault 1992 and 1994.
87. Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait, supra note 3 at pp. 165-167.
88. Ibid, p. 167.
89. Women in Kuwait Ibid, pp. 180-183
90. see also WCSS publication, "The Women's Cultural & Social Society, 1963-2003⋯ Endless Giving."
91. For example, an anonymous interviewee recalled that the wife of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington D.C. said it was difficult to represent Kuwait without having the right to vote.
92. Mohammad al-Sager, Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, speech delivered in the Kuwaiti Parliament, May 16 2005 (transcript and video were produced and distributed by the Kuwaiti Information Office, Washington DC).
93. A recent exception is Jutta M. Joachim, Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2007).
94. Information about this stage comes from interviews with Kuwaiti officials and activists, as well as the press. We omit names and other identifying details to protect the anonymity of the interviewees.
95. This framing tactic is similar to those employed in a regional campaign for Arab Women's Rights for Nationality by the organization Claiming Equal Citizenship (see also http://www.learningpartnership.org/citizenship/). We thank Alexandra Pittman for this point.
96. David Levin, "Framing peace policies: The competition for resonant themes," Political Communication 22 (2005), p. 85
97. Francesca Polletta and Kai Ho, "Frames and their Consequences," in The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis, eds., Robert. E. Goodin and Charles Tilly (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
98. Steve Coll, "In the Gulf, Dissidence Goes Digital," The Washington Post, March 29, 2005.
99. Ghabra, Kuwait and the Dynamics of Socio-Economic Change, supra note 4.
100. Al-Najja, The Challenges Facing Kuwaiti Democracy, supra note 44
101. Tétreault Kuwait's Annus Mirabilis, supra note 35.
102. American-Kuwaiti Alliance brochure, 2007
103. and see also Haila Al-Mekaimi, "Kuwaiti Women's Tepid Political Awakening," Arab Insight 2 (2008): 53-59
104. Tétreault, Stories of Democracy, supra note 24
105. Bacik, Hybrid Sovereignty in the Arab Middle East, supra note 7 at pp. 119-122
106. Yetiv, Kuwait's Democratic Experiment in its Broader International Context, supra note 46.
107. The international relations dimension was salient in the speech by Mohammad al-Sager on behalf of the government on the day of the crucial vote. In this respect, it is also instructive to recall that he returned for the historic vote immediately after a meeting with US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, herself a supporter of women's rights in the Middle East. Rice is familiar with the Kuwaiti women's rights movement and was in contact with Rola Dashti before the vote. Rice has often used one of the movement's successful slogans "half a democracy is no democracy." Rice made such remarks, for example, at the American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, June 20, 2005.
108. Giacomo Luciani predicted precisely this kind of behavior in his article on "allocation states" such as Kuwait. See "Allocation vs. Production States: A Theoretical Framework," in The Arab State, ed., Giacomo Luciani (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 65-84.
109. Interview by Tétreault 2010.
110. See also Ibrahim Anwar who suggests that the struggle for democratization in the Middle East and elsewhere stems from a human desire for honor and dignity. "Universal Values and Muslim Democracy," Journal of Democracy 17(2006), pp. 11, 12.
111. See also Morris, Charting Futures for Sociology, supra note 40.
112. See also, Holly J. et al., "Becoming Full Citizens: The U.S. Women's Jury Rights Campaigns, the Pace of Reform, and Strategic Adaptation," American Journal of Sociology 113(2008): 1104-1147.
113. The American suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt called her successful strategy for achieving woman suffrage in the United States the "winning plan."
114. In this respect, our analysis provides support for, supplements, and extends the growing importance of the literature on nonviolent action and civil resistance. See Peter Ackerman, "Skills or Conditions: What Key Factors Shape the Success or Failure of Civil Resistance?" Presented at the Conference on Civil Resistance and Power Politics, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, March 15-18, 2007
115. Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, A Force more Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict, 1st ed., (New York: Palgrave, 2000)
116. Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash, eds., Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-Violent Action from Gandhi to the Present (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009)
117. Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)
118. Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict," International Security 33 (2008): 7-44
119. Stephen Zunes, Lester R. Kurtz and Sarah Beth Asher, eds., Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004).