Abstract
AbstractWhile research on women's substantive representation in legislatures has proliferated, our knowledge of gender lobbying mechanisms in authoritarian regimes remains limited. Adopting a state-society interaction approach, this article addresses how women's interests are substantively represented in China despite the absence of an electoral mandate and the omnipresence of state power. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this article maps out the intertwining of key political agents and institutions within and outside the state that mobilize for women's grievances and demands. We find that representation of women's interests in China requires the emergence of a unified societal demand followed by a coalition of state agency allies navigating within legislative, executive, and Party-affiliated institutional bodies. The pursuit of women's interests is also politically bounded and faces strong repression if the lobbying lacks state alliances or the targeted issue is considered “politically sensitive” by the government.
Highlights
While research on women’s substantive representation in legislatures has proliferated, our knowledge of gender lobbying mechanisms in authoritarian regimes remains limited
China offers a unique case for the current field of women’s substantive representation (WSR) as it typifies a repressive political environment in which, under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), power is concentrated in the hands of Party cadres who often hold positions in multiple institutions simultaneously
Through the comparison of gender lobbying mechanisms, we show how women’s collective demands need to be formally recognized by women’s organizations and legal experts based on the compilation of large numbers of severe cases before entering public debates and political negotiations
Summary
While research on women’s substantive representation in legislatures has proliferated, our knowledge of gender lobbying mechanisms in authoritarian regimes remains limited. We propose a state-society interaction approach to the study of WSR in authoritarian regimes using a framework that includes different sites and actors that mobilize across the boundaries of a state’s legislative and executive bodies This approach responds to the proposal of Celis et al (2008, 99) to steer current research toward answering the question “where, how and why does the substantive representation of women occur” instead of focusing only on elected female legislators. As we were purposefully looking for interviewees working to advance women’s interests, our snowball sample includes only one male interviewee.2 Building on these sources, this article constructs two comparative case studies to examine China’s gender lobbying mechanisms for the ongoing debates on domestic violence and sexual harassment. While the ACWF members’ simultaneous appointment to different institutions (e.g., the legislature and CCP) is critical in coalition building, it means that their pursuit of WSR in China is largely constrained by and secondary to the priorities of the CCP, leaving more sensitive gender issues untouched
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