Gender And Politics In Central Asia

In addition to bringing together already existing numbers for the Central Asian countries, this data review aims to produce some new figures as well as to provide an overview of the developments over time with regard to gender and politics in Central Asia from independence until today.The data was collected from October 2011- February 2012 by individual researchers in each of the five countries. Variation in terms of data availability and quality across the countries must be noted. Sources and methods used are listed in footnotes. The report is divided into four parts: gender in governments, parliaments and political parties and descriptions of the gender quotas in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

This volume deals with issues and problems of national and gender identity in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey. Articles discuss experiences and position of women vis-à-vis state intervention, economic, political and cultural change, in both public and private spheres of life. In the book the real life conditions and experiences of women are analyzed on three complementary levels. The first of these is the economic and institutional circumstances shaped by structural adjustment policies, globalization and transnational policies. The second is realities of everyday life, particularly pertaining to family, religion, tradition and education. The third level is that of politics and ideology where national and nationalist discourses often build on the gender identity shaped by the economic and social levels. The book does not only present a cross cultural analysis of women's position in the region but also reflects the varied perspectives of female scholars from many different countries and disciplines.

In 1991 the collapse of the Communist Party and the dissolution of the Soviet Union launched the republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan into an unexpected self-declared independence and a precarious, uncertain future. Emerging from almost seventy-five years of Soviet tutelage all three republics embarked on a process of radical change. Central Asian women's lives have been profoundly affected during the huge upheavals of sovietization in the 1920s and democratisation in the 1990s, but their experiences have gone unresearched and undocumented. If Central Asia was generally considered to be the forgotten world of the Soviet Union, Central Asian women constitute the 'lost voices' of Central Asia. Yvonne Corcoran-Nantes offers a timely analysis into the lives of Muslim women during the Soviet era, and considers the impact of the shift from Soviet communism to Western capitalist ideals and its impact on gender relations in the region. The uneasy synthesis between socialism and Islam under the Soviet regime offered many women considerable status and personal freedom in public life but these gains have been rapidly eroded in the process of 'democratization'. Opportunities for women have entered into serious decline in terms of employment, education and socio-political status. Unlike many commentators, she offers a convincing argument that the main threat to the socio-political status of women in Central Asia is not Islamic fundamentalism, but the imposition of free market principles and Western 'liberal democratic' ideals. Woven into the text is a also subtle and nuanced analysis of the ways in which Central Asian women negotiate feminism, whether ushered in by Soviet women during sovietization, or by western NGOs in the region today. As a special consultant to UNESCAP, the author was one of the first researchers to undertake substantial research in the republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in the post-independence period and this book is based on her interviews with women from the region from all sections of Central Asian society.

Most books on the Caucasus and Central Asia are country-by-country studies. This book, on the other hand, fills a gap in Central Eurasian studies as one of the few comparative case study books on Central Eurasia, covering both the Caucasus and Central Asia; it considers key themes right across the two regions highlighting both political change and continuity. Comparative case study chapters, written by regional experts from a variety of methodological backgrounds, provide historical context, and evaluate Soviet political legacies and emerging policy outcomes. Key topics include: the varied types and sources of authoritarianism; political opposition and protest politics; predetermined outcomes of post-Soviet economic choices; social and stability impacts of natural resource wealth; variations in educational reform; international norm influence on gender policy and the power of human rights activists. Overall, the book provides a thorough, up-to-date overview of what is increasingly becoming a significant area of concern.

Written Around The Themes Of Work, Culture And Politics, The Essays In This Volume Reflect An Attempt To Move Beyond The Narrow Limits Of The Sociological Studies Of Domesticity To An Examination Of The Larger Issues Of Nation, Its Economy And Culture, Which Have Gender Implications.

Women in the Europe and Central Asia region complain about loss of employment, sexual harassment, violence, poor enforcement of the law, poor political representation, and poor health care. Many greet these complaints with skepticism or dismissal. Is it economic expedience due to the sheer magnitude of the changes taking place under the transition? Did the Soviet legacy delude observers into believing that there is gender equality in the region? While budgets shrink, how can gender be integrated into country department work programs? To answer these and other pressing questions regarding the gender issue, the World Bank held a conference in June 1999. Women from the ECA region, Western Europe and the United States gathered to address the lack of Bank knowledge of gender issues in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region. The papers from the conference included in this volume describe the present conditions for women, emphasize the need to debunk the myth of gender equality in the Soviet era, and propose urgent legislative measures to address gender disparity. This publication gives women the opportunity to voice their concerns regarding this issue. It will be of interest to regional gender experts, ministries, and think tanks.

Gender budgeting uses fiscal policies to promote gender equality and women’s advancement, but is struggling to take hold in the Middle East and Central Asia. We provide an overview of two gender budgeting efforts in the region—Morocco and Afghanistan. Achievements in these two countries include increasing female primary and secondary education enrollment rates and reducing maternal mortality. But the region not only needs to use fiscal policies for women’s advancement, but also reform tax and financial laws, enforce laws that assure women’s safety in public, and change laws that prevent women from taking advantage of employment opportunities.

On the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR, this book collects selected contributions which analyse patterns of stability and transformation that characterise the politics and societies of three Central Asian countries-Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan-along with those of Central Asia as a region. In particular, this edited volume investigates gender equality discourses in Uzbekistan, the electoral rights of people with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan, neo-realism in the regional context of Central Asia, the role of Islam in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan as a provider of international security as well as the EU's support of civil society and social capital in Kazakhstan.