Democratic Paradoxes: Women's Rights and Democratization in Kuwait

Abstract

The 1999 decree by Kuwait's emir granting women electoral rights, and its subsequent parliamentary rejection, is more than just an instance of women's oppression in action. It also demonstrates a potential paradox between two axes of democratization: liberalization, the existence of a sphere of meaningful public contestation, and participation, that the right to participate in that sphere is extended to all. In Kuwait, 1999 represents an instance where those two axes were in direct competition. This article explores the 1999 enfranchisement as a way of understanding this democratic paradox and then follows these issues through the successful 2005 enfranchisement and the election of female Assembly members in 2007 and in the 2012, post-Arab Spring elections.In 1999, Kuwaiti women had the right to vote for six months, during which time there were no elections. The basic facts of this curious moment in Kuwaiti politics are these. The Kuwaiti National Assembly was dissolved on May 4, 1999, for the third time in Kuwaiti history; for the first time, elections were scheduled within two months, as is required by the constitution. On May 16, the emir, Shaykh Jabir al-Ahmad Al Sabah, decreed that Kuwaiti women would have the right to vote and be elected in the parliamentary elections in 2003. Immediately, there was an outpouring of support from high-ranking women within Kuwaiti society, women's rights activists in Kuwait and abroad, and international actors, such as religious leaders and Western governments. There was also immediate opposition to the decree, both from Islamists within and outside Kuwait who opposed women's voting rights on religious grounds and from liberals who said that the decree was an unconstitutional attack on the power of the National Assembly.When the parliament reconvened on July 17, it contained both strong Islamist and liberal blocs - 20 Islamists, 16 liberals, and 14 pro-government elected members, in addition to 15 government-appointed cabinet members. Immediately, the constitutionality and permissibility of the emir's decree became hot topics for debate, as the new assembly had to confirm or reject all of the decrees passed during the suspension. Many liberals and most Islamists opposed the decree, while the pro-government members followed the government line. On November 23, the Assembly rejected the emir's decree by a vote of 41 to 21. However, a group of liberals, who supported women's voting rights but opposed the emir's action, introduced an identical bill. On November 30, the parliament-initiated bill failed, by a vote of 32 to 30. All 15 of the government-appointed members of parliament supported the bill, as did 15 elected members, but two elected supporters of women's rights abstained. All 32 votes against the bill came from elected members. The National Assembly did not pass legislation giving Kuwaiti women the right to vote until May 16, 2005; women were able to vote for the first time in 2007.Following the coverage in the Western media, a reader would find herself confined to a single narrative about Kuwaiti women's oppression at the hands of Kuwaiti men and the conflict between traditional Islamic values and modern liberal values. But in the Kuwaiti context, the issue of women's political rights is part of a broad system of contestation that marks struggles over the consolidation and increasing strength of democratic institutions. This decades-old policy controversy is not merely an interesting footnote to the story of women's rights in the region; rather, it helps to demonstrate important tensions in the relationship between democratic institution-building, women's rights, and the multiplicity of actors involved in both processes.In this article, I use the example of the 1999 failed enfranchisement to explain the way that these tensions are constitutive of the politics of democratization in Kuwait. I begin by exploring the two elements of democratization I am discussing here: open contestation and full participation. …