A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Lorch, Jasmin; Bunk, Bettina Working Paper Gender Politics, Authoritarian Regime Resilience, and the Role of Civil Society in Algeria and Mozambique GIGA Working Papers, No. 292 Provided in Cooperation with: GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies Suggested Citation: Lorch, Jasmin; Bunk, Bettina (2016) : Gender Politics, Authoritarian Regime Resilience, and the Role of Civil Society in Algeria and Mozambique, GIGA Working Papers, No. 292, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/147547 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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Inclusion of a paper in the Working Papers serve to disseminate the research results of work in progress prior publicaton encourage exchange ideas and academic debate. Working GIGA GIGA Research Programme: Accountability and Participation ___________________________ Gender Politics, Authoritarian Regime Resilience, and the Role of Civil Society in Algeria and Mozambique Jasmin Lorch and Bettina Bunk No 292 October 2016 www.giga-hamburg.de/workingpapers GIGA Working Papers 292/2016 Edited by the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies Leibniz‐Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien The GIGA Working Papers series serves to disseminate the research results of work in progress prior to publication in order to encourage the exchange of ideas and academic debate. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presenta‐ tions are less than fully polished. Inclusion of a paper in the GIGA Working Papers series does not constitute publication and should not limit publication in any other venue. Copy‐ right remains with the authors. GIGA Research Programme “Accountability and Participation” Copyright for this issue: © Jasmin Lorch and Bettina Bunk WP Coordination and English‐language Copyediting: Melissa Nelson Editorial Assistance and Production: Silvia Bücke All GIGA Working Papers are available online and free of charge on the website <www.giga‐hamburg.de/workingpapers>. For any requests please contact: <workingpapers@giga‐hamburg.de> The GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in this Working Paper; the views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author or authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute. GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies Leibniz‐Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien Neuer Jungfernstieg 21 20354 Hamburg Germany <info@giga‐hamburg.de> <www.giga‐hamburg.de> GIGA Working Papers 292/2016 Gender Politics, Authoritarian Regime Resilience, and the Role of Civil Society in Algeria and Mozambique Abstract The question of whether and how authoritarian regimes may use gender politics to pre‐ serve their rule has attracted insufficient academic attention so far. Research on state femi‐ nism shows that non‐democratic regimes often enact women‐friendly policies for the pur‐ pose of maintaining power. However, this finding has not been linked to the broader re‐ search on authoritarian resilience. To address this research gap, we connect recent debates on authoritarian resilience to the research on state feminism. Subsequently, we engage in a cross‐regional comparison of the use of gender politics by the authoritarian regimes of Alge‐ ria and Mozambique in order to enrich both sets of theory on the basis of empirical find‐ ings. Specifically, we ask what strategies the two authoritarian regimes employ in the areas of women’s rights and gender and how these might contribute to regime resilience, focusing on the interactions between these regimes and civil society organisations (CSOs). Jasmin Lorch, Dipl. Pol. is a research fellow at the GIGA Institute of Middle East Studies and an associate research fellow at the GIGA Institute of Asian Studies, Hamburg. Her soon‐to‐be‐published doctor‐ al thesis focuses on the impact of state weakness on civil society in Bangladesh and the Philippines. <jasmin.lorch@giga‐hamburg.de> <www.giga‐hamburg.de/en/team/lorch> Bettina Bunk, MA is an associate research fellow at the GIGA Institute of African Affairs and a doctoral can‐ didate in political science at the University of Potsdam. Her doctoral thesis (submitted July 2016) focuses on governance and the politics of local economic development in South Africa and Mozambique. <Bettina.bunk@giga‐hamburg.de> <www.giga‐hamburg.de/en/team/bunk> 292/2016 GIGA Working Papers Gender Politics, Authoritarian Regime Resilience, and the Role of Civil Society in Algeria and Mozambique Jasmin Lorch and Bettina Bunk Article Outline 1 Introduction 2 Authoritarian Resilience and State Feminism: Theoretical Insights 3 Gender Politics and Authoritarian Resilience: The Case of Algeria 4 Gender Politics and Authoritarian Resilience: The Case of Mozambique 5 Conclusion Bibliography 1 Introduction Since the end of the third wave of democratisation, comparative research has increasingly fo‐ cused on the factors that can thwart democratic transition and enhance the resilience of au‐ thoritarian regimes (Croissant and Wurster 2013; Kailitz and Köllner 2013; Köllner and Kailitz 2013; Gerschewski 2013; Gerschewski 2010: 47). More specifically, several recent studies have focused on how regime performance in different policy fields, such as economic devel‐ opment or the provision of social services, may contribute to enhancing or weakening au‐ thoritarian durability (Kailitz and Köllner 2013; for an example see Croissant and Wurster 2013). However, the question of how authoritarian regimes use policy performance in the GIGA Working Papers 292/2016 Jasmin Lorch and Bettina Bunk: Gender Politics and Regime Resilience in Algeria and Mozambique 5 fields of women’s rights and gender in order to preserve their rule has not attracted suffi‐ cient attention. One strand of research that provides insights into this issue is the nascent literature on state feminism in non‐democratic regimes (e.g. Mama 2013; Tripp 2013: 521˗527; Tripp 2012; Salhi 2010; Adams 2007; Soothill 2007: 71˗102; Zheng 2005). Most notably, this literature shows that authoritarian regimes frequently enact women‐friendly policies and establish in‐ stitutions that are officially tasked with enhancing the situation of women, while at the same time using women’s rights “for purposes other than those of gender equality” (Tripp 2013: 530), such as maintaining the power of the regime. So far, however, this finding has not been linked to the broader research on authoritarian resilience. Our cross‐regional comparison of the use of gender politics in the authoritarian regimes of Algeria in the Middle East and Mozambique in Southern Africa addresses this research gap. We ask what strategies the authoritarian regimes of Algeria and Mozambique employ in the areas of women’s rights and gender and how these might contribute to regime resilience. In attempting to answer this question, we focus on the interactions between each of these au‐ thoritarian regimes on the one hand and civil society organisations (CSOs) working on gender and women’s rights on the other. We take this approach for both theoretical and practical reasons. On the theoretical level, various recent studies have argued that in non‐democratic settings civil society groups may help make authoritarian regimes more resilient, thereby contradicting earlier theoretical assumptions that civil society leads to democracy (e.g. Frois‐ sart 2014; Lewis 2013; Wischermann 2013; Cavatorta 2012; Lorch 2008; Ottaway 2004). On the practical level, studying CSOs,1 which are relatively organised entities and whose representa‐ tives are fairly accessible, provides us with the possibility of tackling our research subject in contexts where reliable statistical data about political attitudes and women’s interaction with the state bureaucracy are hard to come by. Algeria and Mozambique constitute most dissimilar cases with respect to their colonial legacies and economic conditions, as well as their majority religions and ethnic composition. However, both of them are post‐revolutionary and post‐socialist regimes which underwent a process of political liberalisation in the