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Local Power and Female Political Pathways in Turkey

Cycles of Exclusion

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Lucie G. Drechselová

    1. Oriental Institute, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

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  • Makes the case for integrating Anglo-American and French scholarly approaches to the study of women's political representation
  • Shows that women’s difficulties in politics are due to discrimination in the social order and in the candidate selection process
  • Views political parties as gendered institutions and uncovers the gender-specific exclusionary mechanisms

Part of the book series: Gender and Politics (GAP)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Women’s Political Involvement and Local Politics in Turkey

    • Lucie G. Drechselová
    Pages 1-40

  3. Contextualizing the “Turkish Paradox”

    • Lucie G. Drechselová
    Pages 41-92

  4. The Road Toward Election: Women’s Exclusion from Electoral Lists

    • Lucie G. Drechselová
    Pages 93-132

  5. Female Councilors: Who Passes the Filter?

    • Lucie G. Drechselová
    Pages 133-180

  6. Constraints on Women’s Political Agency

    • Lucie G. Drechselová
    Pages 181-203

  7. Navigating Local Politics: Women’s Careers and Strategies

    • Lucie G. Drechselová
    Pages 205-240

  8. Conclusion: Women’s Representation and the Cycles of Exclusion from Local Politics

    • Lucie G. Drechselová
    Pages 241-265

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 267-270
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the “Turkish paradox” – women’s lower representation in local politics than in parliament. By analyzing life stories of 200 female municipal councilors and party representatives, it offers a comprehensive assessment of what makes local politics in Turkey particularly inaccessible to women. It places women’s pathways within the cycles of exclusion, starting by political socialization, going through the candidate recruitment process and continuing after the election. The research presented here brings together gender studies and political sociology and offers novel applications of concepts including intersectionality and biographical availability. It covers all major political parties and diverse local configurations in Turkey, and reveals political strategies of women in conservative parties as well as the reasons behind the exceptionally high representation of women within the pro-Kurdish political parties. The book further sheds some light on the intricate relationship between women’s political activity and regime change in the context of democratic backsliding.

Reviews

​“Drawing on both quantitative and extensive qualitative research, this book provides an original and insightful gendered perspective to women’s political participation and underrepresentation. The author challenges conventional views in political science by highlighting the gendered discrimination of female politicians in Turkey. However, far from portraying women as victims of a violent patriarchal order, Drechselová’s work eloquently shows women’s agency and strategies to forge their political destinies despite constraints and challenges.”— Nadje Al-Ali, Robert Family Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies, Brown University, USA.

“Lucie Drechselová’s excellent book represents scholarship at its best. It is the most compelling analysis on women’s local political participation in Turkey to date. The book shows the dynamics, tensions and limits of women’s participation, and demonstrates how diverse – across both regions and parties – the political pathways of women are. This empirically rich and thoroughly researched study provides an exceptional addition to the literature on women and politics in Turkey and beyond.”
— Élise Massicard, Research Professor, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)/SciencesPo CERI, France.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Oriental Institute, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

    Lucie G. Drechselová

About the author

Lucie G. Drechselová is a researcher at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. She was previously a lecturer at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, and co-edited Kurds in Turkey: Ethnographies of Heterogeneous Experiences (with A. Çelik, 2019).

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