The contributions to this symposium have explored different aspects of what a comparative politics of gender might look like, whether conceptually or in terms of operationalization. In this essay, I outline one version of a comparative politics of gender (CPG) through an analysis of transitions to democracy. My vision brings together some of the ideas outlined in the other contributions, while also adding a distinctive slant. First I argue that a CPG should analyze how major political processes are gendered, thereby increasing our understanding of the major themes of comparative politics—political parties, the state, voting behaviour and policymaking—and enhancing the comparative politics subfield. My vision of a CPG is also one that is truly comparative and cross-regional. Therefore it would study gender and politics comparatively taking diverse cases from a range of geographical locations; and in terms of the framework laid out by Leslie Schwindt-Bayer would conform to the first of her two goals of a CPG.Footnote 1 And by gendering the analysis of an important process it could potentially contribute to her second goal—the integration of gender and comparative politics work that has become increasingly separate from the rest of comparative politics. But this would not be the paramount aim of a CPG.
More crucially for me, a CPG (as distinct from a gendered comparative politics) should also seek to answer some “big questions” that are important for any efforts to achieve gender equality such as how positive gender change that lessens gender inequality can come about in a range of contexts. As such, I share many of the normative concerns expressed by Aili Tripp.Footnote 2 I, too, would like to see a comparative politics of gender in which women matter and that has the elimination of gender inequality at its core. A CPG therefore has an integral connection to a feminist project. A CPG will focus more directly on the politics of gender. As part of its concern with policies and strategies that can promote gender equality, it might give a higher priority to themes such as women's organizing, women's policy agencies, and state feminism than would a gendered comparative politics. It should be problem driven, complex, and interdisciplinary.
Both gendering comparative politics and developing a CPG are still at an early stage. But much excellent research, often empirically based, already exists. Single cases (within case analyses) located within a comparative framework predominate.Footnote 3 These provide empirical data informed by thick description and contextual specificity, but they do not always facilitate greater understanding of any larger trends or comparative patterns. A smaller number of more overtly comparative studies, often comprising two or three cases undertaken by a single author, are more helpful in identifying comparative trends.Footnote 4 There are also a number of regionally- or thematically-based collections and some that are even more broadly focused.Footnote 5 But these vary in their homogeneity, the extent to which they are comparative, and therefore in their usefulness to developing a CPG.
Until recently, fewer larger-scale and genuinely comparative cross regional studies, whether conducted by one or two scholars or larger research groups, had been attempted. There are some exceptions to this pattern.Footnote 6 Some single-authored works have looked at one or more policy areas over multiple cases.Footnote 7 As part of the Research Network on Gender and the State (RNGS), a cross-national research team, using shared frameworks, collected both quantitative and qualitative data and explored issue areas such as prostitution, state feminism, and abortion across 14 different post-industrial democracies.Footnote 8 But these studies do risk creating overly rigid general frameworks that can lack specificity. And to date the developed world has predominated, particularly where there are multiple cases or groups of scholars, with less comparative research that includes other parts of the world. But if we are to answer “big questions,” then cross-regional work that looks at more than one or two cases is necessary.
Before we can engage in this broader comparative work, there are some important theoretical and methodological questions to answer. Unlike a CPG, a gendered comparative politics need have no relationship to feminism. Using conventional methodologies, gender can be incorporated into existing frameworks as one more variable without the more fundamental restructuring advocated by some gender and politics scholars.Footnote 9 It is less clear how far a CPG with links to a feminist project can be incorporated in this way. For example, underlying a CPG approach to the study of transitions to democracy is a normative concern with improving levels of gender equality—that positive gender outcomes, measured in terms of levels of descriptive (numerical) and substantive (women's interests however defined) representation—should be part of transitions to democracy. A CPG is not, however, the only part of political science to recognize normative concerns and within comparative politics itself many democratization scholars start from the normative position that liberal democracy is their desired outcome.
If a CPG's normative concerns and connection to a feminist project should not exclude it from comparative politics, do they impact on its choice of method? Like much gender and politics scholarship, political science methods, both qualitative and quantitative, have an important part to play in a CPG. But they are not enough on their own. Feminist approaches that encourage the researcher to acknowledge their own positionality and use a broader repertoire of heterogeneous and pluralist methodologies can also contribute. And these are not incompatible with a problem-driven multi-method approach—namely choosing methods appropriate to answer the question you are addressing—within comparative politics. The interdisciplinarity of feminist scholarship means that, like much gender and politics work, a CPG will also draw on disciplines, such as development studies, feminist economics, gendered political economy, and gendered IR. However, a CPG should also critically assess the feminist methods on offer. Inevitably some feminist methodologies are less appropriate for cross-regional comparative work. Small-scale participant observation and ethnographic work suitable for in-depth studies is often more appropriate to feminist research in disciplines like sociology and anthropology. If we accept that cross-regional comparison is important, further exploration of suitable feminist methodologies is needed. Methodological pluralism and heterogeneity means that quantitative as well as qualitative methods and larger-n studies are legitimate—even though these are sometimes seen as “less feminist”. This brings us to consider how far our concepts can travel. A CPG can and should develop frameworks with both general applicability and an awareness of contextual specificity that can be used in the analysis of more than two cases. But more work is needed on how this should be operationalized, on case selection, and on scale.
I will now develop these points using gendered research on democratisation, analysing processes that have been central to comparative politics for several decades. My purpose is both to gender comparative politics and to advance a CPG in ways that develop frameworks and approaches that could be useful in the analysis of other cases. The rest of this essay focuses on how to answer a “big question”—namely, under what circumstances have gender outcomes been positive in transitions to democracy?
The Gendered Analysis of Transitions to Democracy
The “third-wave” transitions to democracy that took place from the mid 1970s onwards were one of the biggest political trends of the late twentieth century.Footnote 10 Beginning in Southern Europe, moving to Latin America in the 1980s, followed by the collapse of state socialism in late 1989 and the early 1990s, and in parts of Africa—particularly South Africa—we saw a large number of transitions from a range of non-democratic regimes to some form of democracy. These transitions sparked the development of a huge academic literature. Democratisation became a dominant theme of comparative politics. However, the vast majority of the literature was gender-blind, with little mention of women's roles or how processes and outcomes of transitions are gendered.Footnote 11
Nonetheless, although women's movements were not prominent actors in all transitions, in a significant number of cases women's mobilizing played a key role in the breakdown of authoritarian rule. Feminist activists were keen to ensure that women's claims were taken seriously in the post-transition phase. But many feminists were later disillusioned with the immediate outcomes of those transitions; they did not result in the gains for women that had been hoped for. A widespread feeling resulted that transitions to democracy often failed women as the outcomes did not live up to expectations that had been generated. This created an apparent paradox. Why were some of the most active women's movements unable to translate the importance of their pre-transition activism into greater gains in the immediate post-transition period?
The oft-quoted Chilean case is pertinent here. Women, organized as women, played an important role in the broad movement that opposed Pinochet—in human rights, feminist and popular organizations, many of whose members were feminists and on the left. An alliance of women then organized prior to the 1989 elections to ensure that their demands were included in the manifesto of the winning centre-left coalition. Hopes were high when the new government took office and a women's ministry was established. But for the first decade after the transition, change proved more difficult to achieve than had been anticipated by many activists (for example, divorce only became legal in 2004).Footnote 12 In contrast, women's movements appeared to have more success in influencing the South African transition, organizing around the negotiations and having some impact on its outcomes in the short-term.
Why did this happen? What explains these outcomes? What have been results of “third wave” transitions to democracy in gender terms? What are the conditions under which transitions to democracy can result in positive gender outcomes—namely improvements in women's descriptive and substantive representation and gender policy reform?Footnote 13 Indeed, are there any common patterns?
Fifteen years or so after the peak of third-wave democratization is a good point to reflect on this. The worst of the triumphalism has dissipated and the variety of outcomes other than liberal democracy is now appreciated. In order to explain the range of gender outcomes, this endeavour needs a comparative cross-regional analysis that does not just examine one or two cases. But it is also important to maintain the kind of contextual specificity that would be hard in a large-n study using predominantly quantitative techniques. A small n comparison of eight “third wave” transitions that took place just prior to the peak in the mid 1990s and are recognised to have made a transition to some form of democracy (however imperfect) provides one way. I chose the case studies on a most similar and most different basis to have some variation on the dependent variable combined with a sufficient level of thick description.Footnote 14 The eight include transitions from authoritarianism (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and South Africa) and state socialism (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic). The transitions took different forms. Some were relatively quick crisis transitions (Argentina and Czechoslovakia), and others were relatively drawn-out and negotiated (Brazil, South Africa, El Salvador, Chile, to a lesser extent Poland and Hungary) and had different legacies. Two (El Salvador and South Africa) were also “insurgent transitions.” The openness of the transitions also differed. The Chilean transition for example was very constrained by the outgoing Pinochet regime and less “free” than the “crisis” transitions.
The time frame allows us to look at a relatively long period of between twenty to thirty years for each case, highlighting differences in the non-democratic regimes and their breakdown; the transitions; and the first decade or so after the founding election. For example we can see that the non democratic regimes varied in their gender policies, both within and between state socialist and authoritarian regimes. At the collapse of state socialism women had access to a wide range of rights granted from above, particularly socioeconomic ones such as access to education, healthcare, and employment (on paper at least). In comparison under authoritarian regimes women had access to a restricted range of rights that excluded abortion and in some cases even divorce. Their societies were characterised by widespread inequality and poor provision of welfare services. As a consequence, the non-democratic regimes left very different institutional legacies in terms of women's rights at the beginning of transitions from state socialism and authoritarianism.
There were also very different levels of women's organizing at the point of transition in different case study countries with very notable contrasts between state socialist and some authoritarian regimes. In Chile, South Africa, and Brazil, levels of organizing were high and included feminists who had played an important part in the broader opposition movements and were, to varying degrees, able to get gender claims recognised by those opposition movements.Footnote 15 In Argentina and El Salvador there was some significant women's organizing but not much of it was defined as feminist.Footnote 16 Under state socialist regimes in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia there was very little activity by women organizing as women and they had little impact on opposition movements that were often dominated by discourses of liberal individualism, Catholicism, or right-wing nationalism.Footnote 17
The gender outcomes that resulted from different transitions also varied. Measured in terms of constitutional/legal changes and women's descriptive and substantive representation (in the form of the establishment of women's policy agencies and certain policy outcomes), the eight cases exhibit some significant differences. Women's descriptive representation varied considerably. Although initially low in all cases except South Africa, in 2005 levels of women's representation ranged from less than 10 percent in Brazil and Hungary to over 30 percent in South Africa and Argentina (some of highest figures in world), with the other cases somewhere in between. The substantive representation of women within legislatures and the extent to which women legislators “acted for” women—whether in terms of cross-party organizing or their interaction with organized women outside the legislature—also varied.
There were also big differences in women's substantive representation in policymaking processes in the post-transition period. Although women's policy agencies (WPAs) were established in all the countries, the policy access and effectiveness of these institutions has not been uniform and has varied within cases over time. Policy outcomes too were not uniform. In two cases, namely Brazil and South Africa, pioneering gender-sensitive constitutions were enacted as part of the transition.Footnote 18 Policy change was easier to achieve in some contexts and in some less contentious gender issue areas, such as divorce and property rights. An extension of reproductive rights occurred in only one case (South Africa) and retrenchment was more frequent (Poland and El Salvador). Indeed, overall the outcomes of the transition in South Africa—both in descriptive and substantive representation—were the most positive of all transitions.Footnote 19
The puzzle for a CPG is therefore to determine whether there are any overall explanations for these variations. Why is that gender outcomes were more positive in the aftermath of some transitions but this did not happen across the board? The contrasting cases of Chile and South Africa alluded to earlier demonstrate that active women's movements on their own are not enough to effect positive gender change. If they can be a necessary but not a sufficient condition, it is important to discern the other conditions under which women's mobilizations can achieve some of their aims. First we need to consider how far different gender issues were articulated prior to and during transitions, then how far they were placed on the policy agenda of the transition; and finally how far this resulted in positive outcomes in any of three possible arenas—the electoral (primarily measured in terms of descriptive representation), the bureaucratic (substantive representation) and constitutional/legal arenas—in the post transition period. This approach allows us to consider the factors that affect the different strategies adopted and the different arenas targeted by women activists to achieve their desired gender outcomes. The articulation of gender issues can only be the first stage of a larger process.
As we will see, a number of factors help to determine whether certain gender issues, once articulated, make it on to the agenda of the transition. Organised women have to prioritise the issue and organise explicitly around it. Key actors—whether they are feminists or their allies within legislatures, governments, parties, or within women's organizations—are significant, as is the extent to which they form alliances (both insider and outsider ones) and strategically frame issues. This could happen to varying degrees in Chile, Brazil, and South Africa but did not occur to any significant extent in East Central Europe.
A favourable political opportunity structure—that includes the institutional legacy of the non-democratic regime, the gendered nature of institutions including political parties and party and electoral systems, as well as the international context at different stages in processes of transition—plays an important role. In particular, the headway that key women can make in their efforts to achieve their goals, whether from women's movements or other institutions, depends on the openness of the both the transitions and institutions. Pacted and relatively drawn out transitions with negotiation processes that are relatively open, transparent, and accountable, although often more constrained, also appear more likely to be accessible to women actors. But powerful participants in negotiations, particularly within the opposition, also have to be open to gender concerns and feminists must already be present or have access to those arenas. Political parties therefore play a key role. For example, in South Africa some key actors within the ANC were influenced by feminists both inside and outside of it to accept the legitimacy of gender claims. An alliance of organised women could then intervene strategically into the negotiations (and the drafting of the new constitution) to get some gender claims included.Footnote 20 In no other transition were women actors able to intervene in this way. The nature of the actual transition therefore had an important impact on the activities of women actors.
To get a more nuanced understanding of how these factors influenced the different gender outcomes that emerged in the post-transition period, the rest of this essay will analyse these outcomes in terms of descriptive and substantive representation and the changes in the electoral, bureaucratic, and constitutional/legal arenas in the post transition period.
Descriptive Representation
A detailed comparison of the eight cases shows no discernible differences between levels of women's descriptive representation in the aftermath of transitions from state socialism and authoritarianism. Some former-state socialist countries had moderate levels of women's representation (in 2000: Poland 13 percent, Czech Republic 15 percent) while others exhibited very low levels (Hungary 8.3 percent in 2000).Footnote 21 The same variation is also evident in former-authoritarian polities. Brazil, for example, has had low levels (5.7 percent in 2000) at the same time as Argentina and South Africa (26.5 percent and 29.8 percent respectively) have had high levels of women's representation. A number of factors help to explain these differences. First, the high levels in Argentina and South Africa were the result of effective quotas, whether implemented on electoral basis (Argentina) or a party basis (ANC in South Africa). But quotas have not worked everywhere. They have been largely ineffective in Brazil. And because quotas were also widely discredited in post-state socialist polities, few party-based quotas were implemented in the first decade after the end of state socialism.
Second, some factors significant in the post-transition context replicate those found in longer-standing democracies. Electoral systems do seem to make a difference to levels of women's representation. Overall, proportional representation (PR) systems have higher levels of representation than first-past-the-post (FPTP) systems. Different kinds of parties also have different levels of women legislators. Ideology can also matter. Left, communist-successor parties (in former-state socialist polities) and ex-revolutionary parties (in South Africa and El Salvador) tend to have higher levels. But some left–wing parties also have surprisingly low levels (at times the PT in Brazil has had very few elected female representatives).Footnote 22 And conversely some right-wing and populist parties exhibit surprisingly high levels of women's representation such as the RN in Chile. The presence of women activists also makes a difference, particularly if they are feminists organizing around gender equality.
But some of the trends in women's descriptive representation result from the prevalence of less institutionalized parties and party systems that are common in post-transition polities. High levels of electoral volatility, such as seen in Poland, can help to account for the relatively big swings in levels of female representation from election to election.Footnote 23 And less institutionalized parties also exhibit the biggest variation in outcomes. Their mechanisms for candidate selection can vary, as party leaders have great influence over who becomes a candidate. And there are examples of party hierarchies in Latin America that have been prepared to adopt quotas instead of primaries in order to maintain their influence over selection in the face of pressures on parties to become more open and democratic.Footnote 24
In order to explore if there is a relationship between levels of women's descriptive representation and other positive gender outcomes, it is also useful to look at the extent to which women representatives “acted for” women and organized around gender issues in legislatures in the aftermath of transitions. The extent of cross-party both organizing and alliances with women outside legislatures are two important facets to consider. A number of factors affected the incidence and form of cross-party organizing in our cases. First it is important to differentiate between organizing that takes place on the basis of a formal bloc and organizing on an issue-by-issue basis. The strength of party discipline and the nature of the party system have an impact on both. Cross-party organizing can be easier where parties systems are fractured and party discipline is weak. For example, it was relatively easy to establish a women's bloc in Brazil, but more difficult in South Africa and Poland where party discipline was stronger and attempts foundered.Footnote 25
Second there is evidence that cross-party organizing is easier on a single-issue basis and around certain issues even in more institutionalized party systems such as the Chilean one. It appears particularly difficult around reproductive rights. But despite their ideological differences, right-wing and left-wing women could form effective alliances in Chile and El Salvador around child maintenance even though they differed hugely on reproductive rights.Footnote 26 Alliances around quotas also seemed relatively unproblematic. But there are fewer examples of effective women's caucuses within political parties, with the exception of the ANC in South Africa (and the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on the Improvement of the Quality of Life and Status of Women also played a key role when important feminist ANC MPs were active within it).Footnote 27
The incidence of conjunctural alliances with women outside legislatures and the impact those alliances could have also varies. Alliances were relatively more common around some issues. Campaigns to increase women's representation, including through quotas, are one example. Argentine women mobilized across political parties and civil society groups to support quotas in the post-transition period, whereas in Chile and El Salvador alliances of women tried to ensure that women's concerns were included in the founding elections.Footnote 28 And in South Africa a triple alliance of women politicians, activists and academics organized to affect the negotiations that were central to the pacted transition.Footnote 29 Women legislators who are feminists often have more extensive connections to women's organizations outside parliament and they are often on the left of the political spectrum (as seen in South Africa and Chile).Footnote 30 It is not enough, however, just to look at how far women legislators will “act for” women under certain circumstances. In all cases where conjunctural alliances had a significant impact, important women's movements already existed and feminists both inside and outside legislatures frequently played a key role (and often from within parties that were relatively open to gender issues). It is important to extend this analysis to look at the extent to which women's interests (however defined) were represented in policymaking, both in women's policy agencies (WPAs) and in policy outcomes in the post-transition period.
Substantive Representation in Policy Making
Women's Policy Agencies (WPAs)
Many WPAs were set up in the context of a transition to democracy. In the 1990s, their establishment was facilitated by an increasingly favourable international climate (the Beijing women's conference and its preparations increased the support for WPAs; and in East Central Europe, EU accession and the adoption of EU laws was an important motivating factor). But in all our case-study countries WPAs were set up for very different reasons with different structures, powers, and resources, and therefore with different capacities to represent women's interests in the policymaking process. To assess their utility and effectiveness and their ability to give women policy influence and access, we need to examine a number of factors. These include: how and why they were set up, what resources were allocated to them, their accountability, and the participation of groups outside the state, as well as the wider political context in which the WPA was operating.
WPAs vary hugely in this regard. In three countries they were the direct result of the activities of organised women during the transition (Brazil, Chile, and South Africa). Sympathetic elected governments set up WPAs relatively early on after campaigning by women activists in political parties, legislatures, and women's organizations had placed a WPA's establishment on the agenda of the transition. The package of nodes created in South Africa was modelled on the blueprint of an alliance of women activists and academics.Footnote 31 In contrast, Eastern European WPAs were set up much later in the post-transition period because of international pressure.Footnote 32 Set up from above, with few links with the women's groups that did exist outside the state, they were far less effective.Footnote 33 But even bodies set up as a consequence of women's activism faced problems. They often lacked resources, and faced high expectations with sometimes troubled relationships with groups outside the state. Their control over the distribution of resources to women's groups outside the state often contributed to the NGO-ization of women's organizations, and WPAs have been accused of “beheading” women's movements.Footnote 34
The political context that WPAs were operating in was also significant. Uninstitutionalized political systems, frequent changes of government and their ideological complexion can have an important impact. A WPA set up by presidential decree can be particularly vulnerable, as the example of CNM in Argentina shows.Footnote 35 Incoming governments can also abolish WPAs or downgrade their activities and location. A WPA is more likely to be effective if it is part of a government that is sympathetic to a gender/equality agenda as in Chile and South Africa. And even these WPAs suffered significant problems.Footnote 36
Policymaking and Outcomes
In order to bring together the analysis of the electoral and bureaucratic arenas in understanding gender outcomes, it is useful to examine the policymaking processes around gender rights. This is a key area for a CPG. What emerges from analyses conducted to date is that gender rights are not one homogeneous category but vary considerably.Footnote 37 As Htun and Weldon demonstrate in their contribution to this symposium, positive policy change is much easier to achieve in some areas of gender rights than others, and different issues engender different levels of opposition from counter-movements, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, often operating in alliance with other social and political actors. Research on transitions to democracy has reinforced these findings. Studies have looked at a number of policy areas ranging from the very controversial (reproductive rights), the moderately contested (domestic violence), to the much less so (property rights, and divorce—with the exception of Chile where divorce remained controversial).Footnote 38
Although reproductive rights are a key issue for many feminists, a global conservative backlash has strengthened the anti-choice lobby. The right to abortion showed the starkest variation of all gender rights at the point of transition. On paper, abortion was legal in all the state socialist case studies and illegal or virtually illegal in the authoritarian ones. In the post-transition period, abortion rights were restricted in two cases (Poland and El Salvador), but remained largely unchanged elsewhere. A combination of factors rendered an extension of abortion rights difficult to achieve almost everywhere. Conjunctural alliances between insiders and outsiders were harder to forge around reproductive rights than around less divisive issues. In the face of concerted opposition, reproductive rights were difficult to frame in ways that resonated with dominant discourses. Only in South Africa could alliances of feminist activists and supporters both inside and outside the ANC, the government, and parliament build on earlier gains to act strategically to ensure that reproductive rights were extended.
The eight post-transition governments also differed in the extent that they adopted anti-domestic violence legislation albeit in a relatively more favourable international climate (largely created by women's movements and international conferences). The very different transitions from authoritarianism saw the implementation of more anti-domestic violence measures than the transitions from state socialism. Under many authoritarian regimes (including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, and South Africa), women's organizations were part of the democratic opposition campaigning to end state violence and human rights abuses.Footnote 39 These activities helped women's organizations to frame women's rights as human rights, and in some contexts to make effective alliances (even if they were sometimes fraught) with feminist MPs, WPAs and key actors in government.Footnote 40 In the very different context of ex-state socialist polities, these alliances were not so possible, making gender policy change more difficult to achieve.
Conclusions
This essay used one potential model of a CPG to analyse transitions to democracy and to consider a “big question” that is fundamental to a CPG about how gendered change comes about and how gender equality can be promoted.
A cross-regional comparison of eight cases confirmed that active women's movements are a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for higher levels of descriptive and substantive representation in transitions. Although women's movements can play a key role in articulating gender issues, as they did during many of the transitions from authoritarianism, more is necessary for positive gender outcomes: a favourable political opportunity structure and strategic organizing by key actors. The breakdown of the non-democratic regime, its institutional legacies, and the subsequent transition—its degree of openness (namely whether it was negotiated and open to key women actors and whether influential political parties were open to gender claims)—are all important factors. They all contribute to the opportunities that key actors have to frame issues effectively and to form workable strategic alliances between insiders and outsiders. These opportunities affect their capacity not only to keep gender issues on policy agendas, but to transform them into policy outcomes (which is easier for some gender issues than others). Although stringent, these conditions were fulfilled in some contexts and some positive gender outcomes did emerge. To return to the initial paradox, in South Africa the political opportunity structure was relatively favourable, enabling organized women to have some degree of influence during the transition and in the electoral, bureaucratic, and constitutional arenas in the immediate post-transition period. In contrast in the very constrained Chilean transition, the electoral and constitutional arenas were relatively closed, leaving only the bureaucratic arena (in the form of Servicio Nacional de la Mujer [SERNAM], the Chilean women's policy agency) which was not enough to effect significant improvements in descriptive and substantive representation in the short term. In the aftermath of transitions from state socialism, the lack of organized women's movements, together with a relatively unfavourable political opportunity structure, meant that positive gender outcomes were more limited, despite the relatively more favourable gender rights status quo in some areas at the point of transition.
Not all transitions will fit these patterns, but the analysis developed here—both its approach and findings—should help in the examination of other cases. For although we must be aware of the dangers of developing frameworks and concepts that are too general and become over-stretched, comparative cross regional analysis, if undertaken carefully, is both possible and beneficial to a CPG and a broader gender and politics scholarship.
