Women’s Rights in Democratizing States: Just Debate and Gender Justice in the Public Sphere

Denise M. Walsh

nën 2010 · Cambridge University Press

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This study offers an explanation for why advances in women's rights rarely occur in democratizing states. Drawing on deliberative theory, Denise Walsh argues that the leading institutions in the public sphere are highly gendered, meaning women's ability to shape the content of public debate and put pressure on the state to advance their rights is limited. She tests this claim by measuring the openness and inclusiveness of debate conditions in the public sphere during select time periods in Poland, Chile and South Africa. Through a series of structured, focused comparisons, the book confirms the importance of just debate for securing gender justice. The comparisons also reveal that counter publics in the leading institutions in the public sphere are crucial for expanding debate conditions. The book concludes with an analysis of counter publics and suggests an active role for the state in the public sphere.

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Denise Walsh is Assistant Professor of Politics and Studies in Women and Gender at the University of Virginia. From 2008 to 2009 she was a Fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. Professor Walsh was the recipient of the Best Dissertation Prize for the Women in Politics Research section of the American Political Science Association in 2007 and was a co-winner of the Journal of Southern African Studies Best Article Prize in 2006. She served as a co-editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies special journal issue on women and gender in Southern Africa and has published articles and a book chapter on gender politics in South Africa. She received her Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research in 2006, where she received the Hannah Arendt Award in Politics.