Transnational social movement organizations and gender mainstreaming bureaucracies: an event history analysis, 1981-1998

Abstract

The 1980s and 1990s marked an explosive historical period in both the advancement of transnational social movement organizations and changes in the institutional structures of nation states. As a new set of global norms and values emerged, independent campaigns (women’s rights, human rights, and development) began to overlap and intersect. However, scholars, activists, and policy makers often view transnational social movement organizations as issue-specific and isolated from one another. Consequently, few empirical studies explore whether either transnational organizations in general or specific types of transnational organizations affect world cultural policy. Additionally, only a small body of literature questions variation in these relationships among developed and developing nations. One place where organizations worked both independently and jointly was in the global movement to establish national bureaucracies for gender mainstreaming. Yet, despite its global popularity, mainstreaming played out as a different process in developed and developing nations. This paper examines the relationship between national gender policy, rights-based organizing, and economic development. It asks how these forces each impacted the likelihood of the establishment of national bureaucracies for gender mainstreaming during the 1980s and 1990s. Results illustrate the power of transnational social movement organizations broadly in the advancement of gender policy among nations of both the developed and developing world as well as the unique role of democracy, intergovernmental organizations, and foreign aid in understanding the variation in the experiences of developed verses developing nations.