Seize the Day: Gender Politics in Liberia’s Transition to Peace and Democracy by Lisa Kindervater Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August 2013 © Copyright by Lisa Kindervater, 2013 Dedicated to the people of Liberia ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................ vi ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED.......................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Puzzle..........................................................................1 1.2 Rationale............................................................................5 1.3 The Chapters that Follow......................................................7 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................................ 10 2.1 A Map of Relevant Work .....................................................10 2.2 Conditions and Causal Mechanisms that Explain Reforms........12 2.2.1 A major rupture in the political system............................... 12 2.2.2 A gender equity lobby and legacy of women’s activism and leadership............................................................................... 14 2.2.3 Alignment of feminist frames with transitional ideologies or developmental visions .............................................................. 17 2.2.4 Domestic networks and alliances that include influential male allies .............................................................................. 20 2.2.5 Affirmative action and institutionalized access to the state ... 22 2.2.6 Transnational feminism, donor funds, and international norms .................................................................................... 23 2.3 Applications to the Liberian Case .........................................27 2.4 Lacunae in the Literature....................................................28 CHAPTER 3 THEORY AND KEY CONCEPTS ........................................................ 30 3.1 Historical Institutionalism: An Overview ...............................30 3.2 Feminist Institutionalism: An Emerging Framework................32 3.3 The Nature of “The State”...................................................34 3.4 State and “Supra-State” Feminism ......................................36 3.5 Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood............................40 3.6 Chapter Summary ............................................................. 42 CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY......................................... 44 iii 4.1 Feminism(s) and Other Abstractions ....................................44 4.2 Feminist Methodology and Epistemology ..............................46 4.3 Data Collection and Analysis ...............................................47 4.3.1 Grounded theory and process tracing................................. 47 4.3.2 Ethnographic fieldwork..................................................... 48 4.3.3 Semi-structured interviews............................................... 48 4.3.4 Content analysis ............................................................. 49 4.4 Chapter Summary ............................................................. 53 CHAPTER 5 HISTORICAL CONTEXT...................................................................... 55 5.1 Situating Contemporary Liberia ........................................... 55 5.2 Gender Relations in Historical Perspective.............................57 5.3 The National Women’s Machinery ........................................61 5.4 Liberian Women during the War Years..................................63 5.5 Discussion and Conclusion ..................................................69 CHAPTER 6 GENDER POLITICS IN LIBERIA’S POLITICAL TRANSITION ...... 72 6.1 Seizing the Day: The “Women’s Empowerment Movement” ....72 6.2 Women’s Political Inclusion .................................................74 6.3 Electing “Ma Ellen”............................................................. 79 6.4 Liberian Women’s Goals and Gains Since 2006......................83 6.5 The 2011 Legislative and Presidential Elections .....................90 6.6 Backlash and Controversies ................................................91 6.7 Chapter Summary ............................................................. 95 CHAPTER 7 LIBERIA: A FEMINIST STATE?.......................................................... 96 7.1 Gender Equality Mechanisms in Liberia.................................96 7.2 State Agencies Achieving Feminist Goals?.............................99 7.3 Critical Juncture, Critical Consciousness, Critical Actors ........ 105 7.4 Supra-State Feminism ..................................................... 110 CHAPTER 8 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ................................................... 116 8.1 A Movement Divided ........................................................ 116 8.2 Failure to Communicate a Clear and Compelling Message ..... 117 8.3 Absence of a Critical Mass ................................................ 121 8.4 Conclusion...................................................................... 122 iv 8.4.1 Limitations and future research....................................... 124 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 127 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Depicts categories of women-focused content in Monrovia news media between 2000 and 2012 (n = 242). 73 Figure 2. Shows the numbers of Monrovia news items that portrayed women and gender equality/equity positively compared to those that portrayed women and gender equality/equity negatively between 2000 and 2012 (n = 242). 73 Figure 3. Depicts coverage of women’s rights and issues in Monrovia news media between 2000 and 2012 (n = 242). 74 vi ABSTRACT Liberia is a highly impoverished nation that is recovering from decades of political and economic instability and civil strife. Despite the fact that Liberia has incredibly low levels of female representation in its legislative assemblies, the Government under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has created a number of potentially transformative institutional reforms to advance the rights and status of Liberian women. This case study investigates these developments and explains why politically active women in Liberia have been able to make significant gains during the country’s transition to peace and democracy. This research involved fieldwork in Monrovia over three months, and utilized a variety of methods including ethnographic fieldwork, content analysis, and some interviews with gender activists and policymakers. It explains historical conditions, examines gender-related policy frames and public discourses around women’s rights, and traces political processes that have led to gender-sensitive institutional reforms. This thesis applies several key concepts developed by the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State to explore the extent to which the emergent theory of state feminism might be applicable to countries outside of the West. Although the findings in this thesis are preliminary, this thesis argues that Liberia is a feminist state, insofar as both the gender ministry and the Sirleaf Administration are allied with feminist and women’s movement actors outside the state, and that they grant these actors access to policymaking fora. Moreover, policy content appears to reflect many of the goals identified by women’s movement actors (and to a lesser extent, feminist movement actors). However, given the significant lack of state capacity, and given the degree to which the Liberian state has been penetrated by regional and international financial institutions and the United Nations system, it is extremely difficult to determine the drivers of ostensibly state-led gender equity initiatives in the country. Furthermore, Liberian women’s advocates appear to lobby both the state and international “partners” to respond to their gender-based demands. Because multi-level governance is the norm in areas where the capacity of the state is severely circumscribed, this research introduces the concept of “supra-state feminism” to demonstrate the major limitation of state feminist theory in Liberia. This notion of feminist policy transfer in areas of limited statehood adds to the comparative literature on engendering political transitions in sub- Saharan Africa. This thesis also lays the groundwork for research on Liberian women’s advocates’ post-transition losses. Keywords: Liberia, sub-Saharan Africa, women, government policy, political activism, gender, state feminism, women’s movements, democratization, post-conflict reconstruction, policy transfer vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED AFELL Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia BPfA Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women COPPWIL Coalition of Political Party Women in Liberia CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement CBO Community-based organization DDRR Demobilization, Disarmament, Rehabilitation,