Democratization and Women's Grassroots Movements

By Jill M. Bystydzienski and Joti Sekhon

Case studies examining the connections between women’s local-level political and social actions and the development of democratic systems.

The book illustrates how community-based actions, programs, and organizations that allow women to determine their lives and participate in decision making contribute to the creation of a civil society and thus enhance democracy. The case studies show how participation in grassroots movements promotes women’s involvement in their organizations, communities, and in societal institutions, as it influences state policy and empowers women in personal relationships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 22, 1999
• ISBN: 9780253028143

Book preview

Introduction

Jill M. Bystydzienski and Joti Sekhon

Considerable attention has been directed in recent years to democratization worldwide, especially in the aftermath of the fall of communist regimes in East-Central Europe and dictatorships in Latin America. Most of the focus, however, has been on state-level activities, political elections, and the move toward capitalist markets. Moreover, while numerous persons have studied and written about social movements, including women’s movements, no systematic analysis of grassroots movement organizations and actions has been done in relation to democratic processes at the micro and macro levels.

This book attempts to fill a gap in the existing scholarship and literature by providing an examination of the connections between women’s local-level political and social actions and processes of democratization at the state, regional, and global levels. In presenting a collection of case studies from around the world, we illustrate how community-based actions, programs, and organizations that allow women to determine their lives and participate in decision making contribute to the creation of a civil society as well as directly influence, and are influenced by, key political, economic, and cultural institutions.

In this introduction, we problematize and define the concepts of democracy and democratization, discuss three major approaches to democracy (liberal, Marxist/socialist, and direct-participatory), theorize the link between democratization and women’s grassroots movements, and provide an overview of the book.

Democracy and Democratization

As we approach the end of the second millennium, more people than ever before in human history live in countries whose governments profess to be democratic. Democracy, we are told by the mass media, public figures, and academic scholars, is not only entrenched and safe in the West, but is currently sweeping the countries of East and Central Europe, Africa, Latin America, as well as Asia. However, the idea and practice of democracy, subject of debate and struggle for well over two hundred years, continues to be deeply problematic.

At a time when democracy is supposedly spreading around the world, great disparities between rich and poor people, and between wealthy and impoverished countries, challenge the notion of popular control of governance. Centralization of power in the hands of corporations and regional and world bodies outside existing states has reduced citizen input in decisions that profoundly affect people’s lives. And many women, the poor, as well as ethnic, religious, and other groups in numerous countries continue to be excluded from meaningful political participation.

A central problem facing those who wish to understand democratic ideals, practices, and processes is that of definition and interpretation. Historically, the notion of democracy has undergone much change in theory and practice. More than two thousand years ago, the philosopher Aristotle coined the term democracy, meaning rule by the people, when he distinguished three basic patterns of government, the two others being rule by the few (oligarchy) and rule by one person (monarchy) (Markoff, 1996: xiv). Aristotle, as well as Plato, did not see democracy as the preferred form of government, but rather as an aberration from the standard of good government with which popular self-government was not identified (Parry and Moran, 1994: 2–3). Plato rejected democracy’s leveling doctrine (Macpherson, 1966: 5), and the term was rarely applied to existing governments until the eighteenth century (Markoff, 1996: xiv).

There was renewed interest in democracy in Europe and North America especially as part of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the American and French revolutions. A gradual rise in opinion favoring democracy as a desirable societal ideal emerged. Debates centered on the meaning or ideal of democracy as well as the mechanisms for enhancing democracy in society. In the twentieth century, with the advent of communism and movements for independence from colonial rule, democracy emerged as a worldwide ideal. Several forms of democracy came to be recognized relating to the sociocultural and historical contexts in which democratic ideals are defined and procedures for democratization are spelled out (see, e.g., Macpherson, 1966). While attempts have been made to identify key dimensions of democracy and to evaluate specific countries in terms of their level of democratization, such attempts have been flawed (Beetham, 1994). Moreover, since there does not seem to be a culturally neutral concept of democracy to support the development of indices of democratization, meaningful global comparisons are extremely difficult (Biryukov and Sergeyev, 1994).

For the purposes of this volume, it is not necessary to review the full range of definitions and interpretations of democracy and democratization. However, it is important to anchor the contributions that follow in a framework of democratic thought and action from which the case studies emerge. At the risk of oversimplifying, three broad approaches to democracy and democratization can be identified: liberal democracy, Marxist/socialist democracy, and direct participatory democracy. There are several variations within each approach and they share several common characteristics. Following a review and critique of each approach, we will discuss democratization at the grassroots level and the role and relevance of women’s grassroots movements for democratization.

Liberal Democracy

Beginning with the revolutions of the eighteenth century, proponents of liberal democracy in Western Europe and North America have stressed three basic principles in their theories: protection of individual rights and equal opportunity as means to human fulfillment, constitutional government, and separation of powers (Mouffe, 1992: 2). Over the last two hundred years, various procedural dimensions were gradually incorporated into the liberal notion of democracy including elected representative bodies, competing political parties, and secret ballots (Markoff, 1996). Democracy was reinterpreted from the direct rule of the assembled people to mean a system of representative government in which a sizable proportion of the male population had the franchise (Parry and Moran, 1994: 3). A parallel shift occurred in the notion of a politics of the common good to a politics of individual protection (Phillips, 1993: 124). In the twentieth century, the focus of liberal democracy, both in theory and practice, has been on procedures for sorting out fairly the competing interests of individuals (Arscott, 1995: 56).

This interpretation of democracy is based on early liberal theory as developed in the works of John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, and James Mill. They stressed individual liberty and the natural rights of man which were defined as the rights of an individual to participate freely in the market economy without interference from other sources. The role of government, in this view, was to enhance individual liberty, and democracy came to be defined as a necessary form of government to protect individual rights and maximize productivity and wealth (Dewey, 1935: 5–21). According to its critics, liberalism did not require economic institutions to be democratic, for that would interfere with the free exercise of what were considered to be rights to private property. C. B. Macpherson argues, for instance, that before liberal democracy emerged in the western world, a capitalist market was established and then a system of government was organized to uphold and reinforce capitalist relations of production and power (Macpherson, 1966: 35–45). Historically, liberal democracy has been found in countries whose economies have been wholly or predominantly capitalist.

However, in spite of criticism of this version of liberal democracy, political democratization is typically confounded today with economic liberalization. Many view the political shifts from one-party governments to multiparty systems and the changes from planned to capitalist market economies as part of the global democratization movement. A number of observers, academics included, assume that as new political systems give more people a voice, the introduction of market economies provides them with greater choice as producers and consumers. Thus, the compatibility of marketization and liberal democracy is typically taken as a given. Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens (1992), for instance, argue that those countries, particularly in the West, that have the highest level of capitalist economic development are also those that have the most democratic forms of government.

Since the late 1980s, while the western system of democracy appears to be spreading worldwide, there has been intense dissatisfaction with, and criticism of, the liberal model (Parry and Moran, 1994; Holliday, 1994; Mouffe, 1992). The introduction of capitalist market economies has invariably resulted in concentration of wealth, an increased gap between the rich and poor, and the exclusion of most from vital economic decisions. Following the liberal-democratic ideal, the new economic institutions are seen to provide increased opportunity for individual participation in the market. But little or no attention is given to factors that prevent or inhibit individuals from participating in the market on a free and equal basis, factors such as institutional structures and relationships in the workplace, the family, the community, etc. It is no wonder that the integration of women and other oppressed groups in economic development processes in many regions of the world is not synonymous with their political or social liberation (Gelb and Palley, 1994). Some observers have argued that the recent wave of global liberal democratization has manifested itself differently in different countries (see, e.g., Biryukov and Sergeyev, 1994), and new forms and definitions of democracy have been proposed, frequently prompted by new social movements such as feminism and environmentalism (Held and Pollitt, 1986).

Critics of the strain of liberal democracy described above point out that the association between capitalism and liberal political principles is not a necessary one. Chantal Mouffe, for instance, indicates that the highly influential liberal philosopher John Rawls did not make the private ownership of the means of production a prerequisite of political liberalism (Mouffe, 1992: 3). Still others see the possibility of separating the value of individual acquisitiveness from the more humanistic values of justice and equality embodied in liberal democracy (Bhave, 1962; Macpherson, 1966). Scholars like John Dewey (1927, 1939) and, more recently, Chantal Mouffe (1992) and Avigail I. Eisenberg (1995) argue for a more positive interpretation of human liberty and the process of democratization as an avenue for greater self-realization and self-development of individual capacities through participation in social life of the community.

Radical and socialist feminists have been particularly critical of liberal democracy’s individualistic and rationalistic premises (Phillips, 1993). Moreover, feminist theories of democracy typically reject liberal theories of democratic representation in favor of identity-based conceptions that recognize women’s and other oppressed groups’ interests and the need for opportunities for expression of such groups’ distinctive voices in areas that are of particular concern to them (see, e.g., Young, 1989). A number of feminist scholars also see the need for fundamental transformation of gendered institutional structures before democracy can be achieved (Bystydzienski, 1995; Pateman, 1986; Phillips, 1993). Radical and socialist feminists, in particular, also critique the tendency among liberal-democratic theorists to assume and advocate a separation between the public and private spheres of people’s lives. The process of democracy is limited to activities in the public sphere of government, and women, whose lives came to be restricted largely to the private sphere, have been left out of the liberal-democratic process. Feminists have been instrumental in drawing attention to the close dialectical relationship between private and public spheres of human life as well as the continuously changing nature of public and private life (Pateman, 1986).

Marxist/Socialist Democracy

The Marxist/socialist vision of democracy is based on the critique of bourgeois liberalism in capitalist society and the theory of socialism and communism developed by Marx and Engels during the nineteenth century. While liberal democrats have discounted the significance of class differences, the Marxist/socialist view of democracy has focused on class differences and their elimination (Marx, 1963 [1843]). Marx argued that while liberal democracy and universal suffrage grant valuable political rights, effective participation of citizens in the political process is prevented by class and other inequalities perpetuated by capitalist relations of production. For Marx, true human emancipation could only emerge through a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system and the development of a communist society in which human beings are fully integrated into collective life.

Both Marx (1963 [1843]) and Lenin (1968 [1902]), who further developed and tried to apply this vision of democracy in Russia, initially argued that the revolution would emerge through a gradual process of development of class consciousness among the proletariat. But both made allowances for the emergence of an elite vanguard of intellectuals to lead the development of the revolutionary consciousness. While under liberal democracy officials are elected from among competing parties, under socialism representatives from a hitherto oppressed class create a vanguard, a class-conscious elite, that is to lead the collective to a classless state (Macpherson, 1966: 12–22). Theoretically, the state under socialism becomes a collective expression of the people to regulate inequalities between social and economic groups, and once inequalities are eliminated the state is expected to become insignificant (Marx, 1970: 35). In practice, the state controlled by the Communist Party emerged as a major agent of social transformation. Policies to bring about political, economic, and cultural equality have had uneven impact in the former communist states of Eastern Europe. These states experienced a decline in economic inequalities, but inequalities between different regions, ethnic groups, and the sexes within these societies continued to persist. States also varied in the degree of autonomous political activity allowed that was closely watched and orchestrated by the Communist Party. In addition, people in these states were subjected to corruption and excess on the part of their ruling elites and paid a high price in denial of civil rights for often inadequate welfare provisions (Nelson, 1983; Schulz and Adams, 1981).

While the East and Central European experiments in Marxist/socialist democracy have collapsed, the socialist democratic position has not been abandoned but is undergoing examination and reformulation (see, e.g., Anderson, 1995; Mouffe, 1992). Most importantly, socialist democrats, prompted by feminists and others, are incorporating pluralism and multiculturalism into their theories of democracy (Anderson, 1995; Phillips, 1993: 4). Moreover, they are beginning to recognize that both the liberal-democratic states of the West and the socialist ones of the East have had highly centralized political systems that led to distancing of political decision-making and control away from citizens, and therefore to a disengagement of citizens from democratic participation (Gaianguest, 1992: 118). Socialist democrats are thus entertaining the possibility of a more active and substantial democracy closer to the participatory model.

Participatory Democracy

The tradition of direct participatory democracy stems from a literal interpretation of democracy as rule of and by the people first articulated by Aristotle. In some respects, the two approaches outlined above accept this version of democracy as an ideal that cannot be achieved in reality in modern complex societies. Participatory democrats, on the other hand, not only assume that their notion of democracy is possible, but also have a long history of communal experiments all over the world to support their position (Benello and Roussopoulos, 1971; Cook and Morgan, 1971).

Participatory democracy consists of a system where the rule of the people entails equal opportunities for all to take part in decision making concerning not only traditionally defined political issues but also matters affecting the workplace, the community, and interpersonal relationships (Parry and Moran, 1994: 4). Political action and participation, therefore, take place not only in the sphere of formal political institutions associated with the state, but also in other spheres of people’s lives. A truly democratic society, according to this position, is one that permits and encourages every person, individually or with others, to have control over the course of his or her life. This also entails taking into consideration the right of others to do the same, and to have direct input in decisions affecting the collectivity (Wokler, 1994). In order to realize this vision, structural arrangements that would allow individual and collective choice have to be in place (Pateman, 1970). This also requires the creation of new institutions that would permit a voice to those most affected by decisions (Young, 1989). A truly participatory society would need a political culture, and corresponding structures, that would enable citizens to retrieve information, to develop and advance positions on issues affecting their lives, and to take part in debate (Dryzek, 1990; Habermas, 1987; Held, 1987; Lappe and DuBois, 1994).

Radical and socialist feminists have been instrumental in drawing attention to the complex interaction between people’s private and public lives and the need to expand the process of democratization to include both. In their view, the nature of public life influences an individual’s interpersonal relationships, while the personal circumstances of an individual affect the nature of public participation (Pateman, 1989).

Critics of the participatory democracy position generally remain skeptical of the possibility of sustained direct citizen participation in modern, complex societies (Wokler, 1994). Moreover, even feminist scholars who see a basic compatibility between participatory democracy and feminism point to the tendency of decentralized, communal structures to suppress diversity of views in favor of the common good (Iannello, 1992; Phillips, 1993). As a result, while many still remain committed to a politics of participation, there has been a tendency in recent years among some scholars to rethink the nature of participation and allow for more pluralism within a framework of consensus (see, e.g., Mouffe, 1992). Scholars note that people belong to several groups and engage in multiple relationships. Individuals, therefore, express a plurality of identities that are continuously being defined and redefined, depending on the degree of voluntary or involuntary attachment to a particular group. The participatory democratic process must be pluralistic enough to allow for multiple affiliations and identifications as well as individual self-development and self-realization (Walzer, 1992; Mouffe, 1992; Eisenberg, 1995).

Democratization, Grassroots Movements, and the State

The conceptions of democracy reflected in the case studies included in this volume derive mainly from the participatory perspective. We conceive of democracy broadly as both a political system and a culture that allows for the fullest realization of the human creative potential. We thus support the development of values and structures that promote and give people a direct voice in matters that affect their lives. This leads us to view democratization as a process by which the voices of ordinary people can find increasing organized expression in the institutions of their societies. Democratization, therefore, goes on at several different levels in society. These include formal political and administrative structures at the international, national-state, village/town, and local community levels; voluntary organizations; informal associations and community groups; productive work activities; educational systems; family and kin networks; and personal relationships. Individuals belong simultaneously to several kinds of associations and the process of democratization involves an increase in, and freedom of, participation in various spheres of life. While individuals may not be active participants at all times in all of their associations due to choice and/or constraints, a participatory democratic society is one that enhances the ability of people to make choices. Participatory democrats thus generally recognize that democracy needs to continue to undergo a process of re-creation and that a more active and substantial participation can only take place as a result of experimentation with new and different ways that seek to enhance citizen involvement and discussion. In a sense, democracy can never be achieved in any final form—it has to be continually re-created and renegotiated.

This view of democracy and democratization is relevant for the study of grassroots social organizations and movements in general and women’s grassroots movements in particular. By grassroots movements we refer to community-based initiatives, actions, and/or organizations that address issues of practical concern to their constituents and are generally committed to making better the lives of local people. Grassroots organizations are also sometimes known as base groups, people’s organizations, or local organizations. However named, they are groups that emerge and/or work at the local level to improve and develop their communities either through community-wide or more specific memberships, such as women or farmers (Fisher, 1993: 5, 21).

In response to one or more economic inequalities and crises related to capitalist economic development, state centralization, environmental degradation, class, gender, and cultural oppression, a variety of grassroots, community-based movements have surfaced around the world among disadvantaged populations. Though not all grassroots organizations are necessarily participatory and progressive (Chafetz and Dworkin, 1989; Iannello, 1992), many have emerged as a significant part of efforts to create and expand spaces for democratic decision making. Through this process they are redefining the form and content of politics (Gaventa, Smith, and Willingham, 1989; Kothari, 1990; Tandon, 1991). Grassroots organizations may aim to gain greater representation for ordinary people in formal political institutions or attempt to create alternative institutional structures to meet a variety of human needs. Small grassroots organizations are particularly effective in consciousness raising, individual self-development, and promoting group solidarity. They also enable more effective public participation (Caiman, 1992).

Grassroots and other nongovernmental organizations are an integral part of civil society, and a strong civil society is an indicator of greater democracy at the national-state level. They are important in ensuring that the state institutions are responsive to its citizens and perform a mediating role between the state, the local community, and the family. As such, grassroots organizations have the potential to redefine the connection between the public and private aspects of social lives and also to expand public space to include not only the sphere of state-sponsored political activity, but also a space autonomous from the state. This allows for greater pluralism and diversity (Tandon, 1991).

Community activism also provides opportunity for self-development and identity formation that can lead to more empowerment in a person’s private life, within the family, and in interpersonal relationships (Caiman, 1992). The extent to which grassroots organizations fulfill this potential varies, depending on both the nature of the state and associational life at the local level. However, there is growing evidence of the influence of grassroots organizing and other nongovernmental actions on the state and at the international level (see, e.g., Brill, 1995; Migdal, Kohli, and Shue, 1994; Pandey, 1991). Nongovernmental organizations have had a significant impact on the recommendations of the United Nations conferences on the environment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, on population in Cairo in 1994, and women in Beijing in 1995.

Grassroots movements’ relationship to the state is typically dialectical. While the state provides the context within which the movements develop (Ray, 1997), many local initiatives start out in opposition to (or at least autonomous from) established governmental structures and other key societal institutions. Over time, however, grassroots movement organizations develop the potential for influencing and even altering state policies and structures. While the state is often the source of constraints and limitations on local movements, it can at times become an ally against repressive social forces (Miles, 1996).

Democratization, Women, and Women’s Movements

Women’s movements, particularly those of the late twentieth century, have been characterized as fluid and amorphous, diverse and fragmented, sporadic, issue-oriented, and autonomous with several streams of ideological thought and varying strategies (Gandhi and Shah, 1992: 23). Women’s movements all over the world encompass a great variety of organizations, groups, and actions—many of which emerge in response to the needs of, and are firmly anchored in, local communities. Women’s movements have thus generally and historically been associated with the values of local, decentralized democracy, and much of feminist theory has emerged from the experiences of women in these movements (Jaggar, 1983).

Feminists and others working within the participatory democracy paradigm have increasingly acknowledged the difficulty of implementing a fully participatory political and social system. In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the problem of incorporating difference, both group and individual, within a framework of fragile unity or incomplete consensus. However, most of this work has been theoretical (Bystydzienski, 1995; Phillips, 1993) and there has been little exploration from this perspective of how greater citizen participation can be achieved at intermediate, state, and international levels of organization.

The recent wave of liberal democratization generally has not served women well. In many parts of the world where democratization is said to be taking place, women, who comprise at least half of the population, have benefitted less from the changes than have men. In East and Central Europe while greater opportunities exist today for men in new political parties and electoral politics as well as in the rapidly growing managerial and small business sector of the economy, policies followed by the new governments are encouraging women to go back to their homes and assume traditional roles (Lobodzinska, 1995). In Japan, and more recently Korea and mainland China, women have not benefitted much from political change and economic growth (Brinton, 1992; Gelb and Palley, 1994). In Latin America, women’s interests are seldom included in political and economic reforms (Cammack, 1994).

This is not a new phenomenon. Feminist historians such as Gerda Lerner (1976) and Joan Kelly (1984) have shown that in many historical periods considered progressive, men and women did not benefit equally from developments that were lauded as great democratic improvements over the past. Indeed, the situations of women often worsened as a consequence of democratization. For example, the Golden Age of Athenian Greece in the western tradition has been looked to as the prototype of democracy, yet during its existence women and slaves were excluded from citizenship. During the European Renaissance, while opportunities opened up in political and intellectual spheres for men, they became more restricted for women (Kelly, 1984: Ch. 2). After the American Revolution, many women actually lost political rights they had exercised during the Colonial period (Darcy, Welch, and Clark, 1994). A similar phenomenon is occurring today in many parts of the world. Even the so-called advanced liberal democracies operate by denying or, at least, inhibiting the conditions of full agency of half of their populations (Parry and Moran, 1994: 280).

Does all this mean that the recent wave of democratization has had no favorable effect on women? While at the formal institutional and state levels women have not benefitted as much as men from political changes, the conditions of ferment and fluidity that exist in many regions of the world have been conducive to the development of numerous grassroots movements, including movements that women have spearheaded or have been involved in. Many of these movements have emerged as the result of contradictions created by the promises of greater democracy and the limits on exercising choices in reality. The rhetoric used by power holders, as well as changes, however small, have created opportunities for mobilization (Markoff, 1996: 14–16). And groups of women have responded in increasing numbers. Moreover, in many parts of the world currently undergoing the process of democratization, women participated in social movements that helped to bring down oppressive regimes (e.g., Solidarity in Poland), only to discover subsequently that their interests were not heeded by the new male leadership (Regulska, 1992: 184–190). The recognition of such betrayal has served as a powerful impetus for creation of autonomous women’s groups.

It appears that while at the national and regional levels women are often left out of newly created or reformed institutions, at the local level there are important developments and initiatives taken up by women. Such developments, although often overlooked, are significant because an active democracy is not sustainable without citizen involvement and participation at the grassroots. A civil society that consists at its core of a rich and complex associational life (Parry and Moran, 1994: 10–11) cannot be imposed from above, but must be continually created and recreated in daily life with the participation of all societal members.

While women need to be involved equally with men in all spheres of society, and their exclusion from the formal institutional levels is a very serious problem, nevertheless women are building the foundations for participatory democracy by establishing alternative structures and contributing to decision making at the local level. As noted earlier, community-level actions over time can, and do, influence macro-level cultural and political processes.

Overview of the Book

In this collection of case studies of women’s participation in grassroots movements we attempt to document women’s contributions to the struggle for, and creation of, participatory democratic forms of social life in various parts of the world. Each case is placed in the larger political, economic, and cultural context to identify factors affecting the process of democratization, and the relationship of women’s grassroots movements to more general societal developments.

The section on Asia begins with a chapter by Joti Sekhon that analyzes the efforts of Action India Women’s Program, a grassroots women’s organization working in low-income communities with women, children, and youth in Delhi, India. Sekhon situates her case study within a discussion of grassroots movements in India in relation to the wider social, political, and economic trends, especially since independence from colonial rule in 1947. She provides an account of the history, structure, and activities of the organization and shows how it has empowered women activists and contributed to democratization among the activists themselves in their private and public lives, at the organizational level, within their communities, and beyond. She also considers the possibilities and limitations of efforts to understand the connection between community-based concerns and patriarchal, state, and global forces.

In her chapter on Hong Kong, Irene Tong documents the struggle for indigenous women’s inheritance rights in 1994 which involved a coalition of twelve grassroots women’s groups. This successful action is set in the context of top-down initiatives at democratic reform that resulted in the opening up of the legislature to popular contestation. The growing women’s movement took advantage of the newly created political space to press for gender equality and to correct past ills. Tong cautions, however, that due to the complex politics involved in the transfer of sovereignty in 1997, the concrete gains made could easily be revoked. On the other hand, the less tangible gains, such as heightened gender awareness and an increasingly participatory political culture, most likely will remain.

In her chapter which focuses on a women’s NGO in Singapore, Meredith Weiss documents the development and activities of AWARE and its relationship to the ruling People’s Action Party and the Singaporean polity and society at large. In recent years, the organization has established a higher profile and is taken more seriously by both policy makers and the people. Women in Singapore, despite functioning in a highly constrained quasi-democracy, can and do assume public roles, particularly through participation in the few politicized NGOs like AWARE which allow them to offer alternative perspectives to policy makers and to influence policy outputs by formal and informal means. In the process, they open up spaces for public debate and raise public awareness of women’s issues and concerns.

The section on Africa and the Middle East contains chapters that focus on countries contending with varying degrees of political liberalization and social change. Susan Leisure in her chapter on Eritrea focuses on a mass women’s organization, The National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW), which mobilized women to participate in the revolutionary struggle against Ethiopia. The NUEW, through its local cells and national organization, influenced the agenda of the revolutionary party to include gender equality and to create participatory democratic political and administrative structures at the local level. However, since Eritrea’s independence in 1993, women have been encountering resistance to equality and a return to tradition. Leisure concludes, nevertheless, that women who were active in the revolution and in the NUEW continue to negotiate their own spaces within the new society, and have been particularly effective at the local level where they are establishing economic cooperatives and working to raise awareness of issues such as the health implications of female circumcision.

In their chapter on South Africa, Khanya Rajuili and Ione Burke examine three projects in the impoverished province of Mpumalanga where adult popular education has been used as a means for women’s participation and empowerment. The first of these, a community literacy project in Dennilton, has provided basic literacy education to mostly women and was instrumental in women’s mobilization against apartheid. However, educational programs like this did not reach most of the poorest women, and thus the Learning for All Trust, a nongovernmental organization, has recently developed a number of popular education projects including the two discussed in this chapter, the Care Clubs and the Barefoot Educator Program, that provide women with group support and opportunities to develop income-generating as well as caregiving skills. As a result of participation in these projects, women have become empowered individually and collectively, in their families and communities.

The two chapters focusing on Syria and Egypt provide contrasting views of women’s grassroots activity as well as complement each other. Nimat Hafez Barazangi explores the activities of an informal women’s group that attempts to empower women within the limits of Islam. Through her study of the Qur’an, each woman in Ms. Hana’s group tries to develop an autonomous understanding of the sacred text to achieve self-realization and to use it as a guide for her actions. Members of the group also provide aid to other women in their communities with the intention of helping them to become change agents. The group challenges male interpretations of the Qur’an and even managed to preserve space for itself in the local mosque, all the while seeking to legitimize its struggles using religious traditions. The Alliance of Arab Women (AAW) in Egypt, however, operates as a secular organization, reaching women at the grassroots and linking their efforts to national and regional levels. Unlike Ms. Hana’s informal group, the AAW is a formally registered NGO working within the limitations set by the state. As Nawal Ammar and Leila Lababidy show, the AAW has established structures and networks that have increased the involvement of Egyptian women in decision making in many areas of social life. Through collaboration between women’s grassroots organizations, high-ranking officials, local universities, and international agencies, the AAW has opened up new opportunities for women’s participation in spite of opposition from Islamist and other groups.

The section on Central America presents case studies from two countries, El Salvador and Honduras, but raises issues that are relevant to democratization in Latin America generally. Many countries in this region of the world have recently experienced the demise of dictatorships, often accompanied by prolonged civil wars and external, mainly U.S., intervention. They are also facing severe problems as the result of structural adjustment policies imposed in recent years by international funding agencies as part of economic and political globalization. Within this context, Elizabeth Cagan examines the struggles of women in El Salvador to sustain the gains they had made as refugees during the civil war in the settlement of Comunidad Segundo Montes (CSM). As she indicates, while women have participated in all aspects of the community and many have become empowered both within the family and in political and economic institutions, such gains are fragile and may not withstand neoliberal market forces and long-standing patriarchal traditions. Cagan also points out that progress for women in the CSM to a large extent resulted from working on broad goals of social justice and conditions of poverty they shared with men. Charles McKelvey, in his chapter on Honduras, emphasizes this theme. He discusses how new feminist grassroots organizations emerged in the late 1980s out of the popular movement in Honduras which has been committed to social change and participatory democracy. These women’s organizations work to give women a greater voice in their communities and society at large and to change gender relations, but view women’s rights above all as human rights. Their feminism is thus embedded in the larger struggle for social justice.

The subsequent two chapters focus on Eastern Europe. The demise of communism in the former Soviet Union and its satellites has had mixed consequences for women. While these states did not allow for independent women’s actions and organizations and failed to implement gender equality, they promoted women’s education and employment, legalized abortion, and instituted a social welfare system that to some extent supported women’s family needs. Such gains have come under attack with the advent of capitalism and paradoxically, as Judy Aulette and Jane Gottlick show in their chapters on Poland and Russia respectively, have stimulated the growth of women’s activism in response to the problems created by the economic and political transition. Aulette profiles several women’s grassroots organizations in Poland and examines how they are contributing to democratization within the constraints of the communist legacy and the Catholic church. She also discusses the importance of feminists’ use of the media to raise awareness of women’s issues and to mobilize support. Gottlick documents the growing number of women’s organizations in urban Russia and shows how these community-based groups are stepping in where the state has left off, meeting the needs that the state is no longer capable of providing. In both countries women’s organizations are creating new opportunities for participation.

The last section of this book groups chapters from so-called advanced liberal democracies—countries of Western Europe, North America, and Australia. Nations in the western world pride themselves on being democratic and often impose their brand of democracy on countries in other parts of the globe. However, as these chapters show, women not only have limited participation in the formal institutions of western societies, but grassroots movements that struggle to achieve meaningful participation for women and other oppressed groups have difficulty maintaining participatory structures within the context of liberal-democratic states.

Alison Woodward and Rita Mulier in their chapter on the Women’s Consultation Committee (VOK) in Belgium indicate the challenges faced by a broad coalition of grassroots women’s organizations within a society which is characterized by class, religious, and linguistic cleavages that permeate the political party structure and other institutions. Within this context, the VOK has worked to mobilize women across political boundaries and around common issues so that their voices could be heard and their concerns reflected in political agendas and policies. Although Woodward and Mulier illustrate the difficulties the VOK has experienced uniting a variety of grassroots women’s groups around common goals, they also show how this coalition has contributed to democratization by empowering women both personally and collectively.

Christopher Dale, in his chapter on Ireland, demonstrates that despite long-standing attempts to exclude women from public life and formal political institutions in particular, women have had a long history of participation in community organizations and actions. The case of Moyross housing estate in Limmerick demonstrates how women both become personally empowered through their participation in grassroots projects as well as simultaneously provide needed services that improve the quality of life for members of the community.

In her chapter focusing on a sexual assault support center in Ontario, Canada, Alicja Muszynski documents the struggles of a grassroots women’s organization as it strives to provide support to female victims of male violence and to maintain a participatory democratic structure. She shows how the particular political party in national and provincial office affects women’s grassroots organizing and how reliance on funding from the liberal-democratic state compromises feminist commitment to a nonhierarchical, consensual form of decision making.

Nelda Pearson’s chapter examines a community development project designed to empower women in the impoverished Central Appalachian region of the United States. Pearson shows how, for a short time, the project provided an opportunity for poor rural women to become meaningfully involved and to determine activities that affected their lives and improved their community. The success of this endeavor, however, was short-lived as the government-funded agency that administered the project asserted its control and effectively disempowered the project participants.

The last chapter in this volume focuses on Australian farm politics. Ruth Liepins discusses the role of the women in agriculture movement in increasing farm women’s recognition and participation in their industry. She specifically examines a local group, Women on Farms Gathering, which has been an effective vehicle for women’s personal development as well as for democratization of Australian agriculture at both local and state levels. Liepins warns, however, that the gains made by this women’s grassroots movement may be in jeopardy as the political climate becomes more conservative and the liberal-democratic state moves away from policies that previously supported broad-based feminist efforts.

In the conclusion to this collection, we analyze the variety of ways in which women in sixteen different countries, in different parts of the globe, struggle for more control over their daily lives while simultaneously creating and extending opportunities for greater participation. We discuss the processes by which women’s grassroots organizations and actions contribute to increased participation at the organizational, local, state, and regional levels and the theoretical and practical implications of the connection between women’s community-based movements and democratization.

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