Party Variation in Religiosity & Women’s Leadership Lebanon in Comparative Perspective Fatima Sbaity Kassem Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2011 © 2011 Fatima Sbaity Kassem All rights reserved Party Variation in Religiosity &Women’s Leadership Lebanon in Comparative Perspective Abstract Gender inequality is a pervasive global phenomenon, particularly in parliamentary representation and the political realm as a whole. Previous scholarship looked for explanations in the countries’ national development levels, political regimes and electoral systems. Some scholars searched for answers at the domestic level within societies’ religious and cultural value systems. This dissertation departs from prior research by looking beyond the national domestic level into individual party-level explanations for women’s political leadership, broadly defined to include their station within parties’ decision-making inner structures. A core assumption in this thesis is that political institutions, mainly political parties, are the main vehicles – forklifts -- for women’s ascendance to political leadership. This dissertation attempts to identify what party-level characteristics enhance or impede women’s leadership in political parties, and how these characteristics vary across different parties. The theory advanced in this dissertation is that party-level characteristics, especially their religiosities and secularisms, influence women’s chances in assuming leadership positions within parties’ inner structures. I argue that the root of the problematic of women’s leadership lies in party variation in religiosity, which can explain variation in women’s shares in parties’ executive and legislative bodies. This is premised on a multivocal understanding of religions implying that there is a continuum of multiple religiosities and secularisms. Religiosity of political parties refers to the religious components on their political platforms or the extent to which religion penetrates their political agendas. The core argument in this dissertation is that as religiosity in party platforms increases women’s leadership is more likely to fall. This implies that in parties with more extensive religious goals women’s leadership is likely to prove stunted. It is my contention that parties with extremist religiosity are less accommodating to women’s demands for leadership than parties with more secular and civil platforms. The theory of party variation in religiosity and women’s leadership is explored in- depth and tested in Lebanon as a single country case-study. Political parties are the unit of analysis and women’s leadership in political parties is the main dependent variable. Female nominations for national parliamentary and local municipal councils are other dependent variables. Other party-level characteristics are explored as explanatory variables besides religiosity, notably, institutionalization as indicated by democratic procedures in leadership transitions and decentralized decision-making, pluralism in religious affiliation of members, and the size of female membership. Party Variation in Religiosity & Women’s Leadership Lebanon in Comparative Perspective Table of Contents Abstract Page Table of Contents i Acknowledgments & Dedication iii Chapter One INTRODUCTION 1 Two Lebanon in Comparative Perspective 46 A. Research design and data collection B. Political parties: An overview C. A socio-economic & political profile of women D. The case for Lebanon: Multiparty system & religious cleavages Three Party Variation in Religiosity & the Civil War 74 A. Party variation in religiosity & women’s leadership B. The civil war, religious cleavages & attitudinal shifts towards women C. Classifying, labeling & coding parties by religiosity Four Party Variation in Pluralism & Democratic Practices 115 A. Democratic practices in operating procedures B. Pluralism in composition of membership Five Female Membership & Mobilization Strategies 142 A. Motivations: Pre-war and post-war parties B. Modalities: Religious mobilization, in-kind & financial incentives C. Mechanisms: Are special women’s wings effective? Six Does Party Religiosity Explain Women’s Leadership? 184 A. Women in leadership bodies of political parties i B. Does female membership matter for party Leadership? C. A regression model for women’s leadership in Lebanon EPILOGUE: Can Women Break Through? 230 A. Female parliamentary nominations by party religiosity B. Female municipal nominations by party religiosity C. Interpreting findings: Models for female nominations to public office Concluding Remarks 271 Selected Bibliography 279 Annex 1. Questionnaires 292 Annex 2. List of Interviewees 296 Annex 3. Lebanon: Data on Women in Political Parties 301 Appendix 1 Party variation in religiosity & women’s leadership: A Cross-national perspective 302 Appendix 2 Data on Women in Political Parties in 25 countries 343 Appendix 3 List of National Consultants 354 ii Acknowledgments & Dedication This dissertation would not have been possible without the constant support of Professor Alfred Stepan and Professor Lucy Goodhart, whom I was privileged to have as my dissertation advisers. The time, patience, and energy they expended to share insights and invaluable suggestions, in spite of very heavy workloads, attest to their generosity and dedication to the discipline and to their students. For their guidance and encouragement to always strive for more rigor, I am deeply grateful and forever indebted. It was their unwavering belief in my ability to complete this dissertation after 35 years of service in the United Nations and outside academia that ultimately brought this work to fruition. I also benefited greatly from sitting in on Professor Stepan’s classes on democracy and tolerance and Professor Robert Shapiro’s lectures on quantitative research methods, in addition to the less formal guidance in econometrics, modeling, and ‘stata’ programming dispensed on a regular basis by Professor Goodhart. More specifically, Professor Shapiro’s support buoyed the field research necessary to test the theory posited in this dissertation. His comments on the use quantitative analytical tools were immensely helpful. Another member of the Columbia community I would be remiss not to mention is Mark Schneider, for prompting me to focus, clarify my ideas, and lay out my arguments. His friendship, wisdom and scholarship helped me in more ways than one. Last, but by no means least, I owe much to my three children for their encouragement and loving support. I am grateful to my son, Ramzi, who despite his heavy workload and extensive travels was my second reader of critical parts of the dissertation and prospectus. His excellent editorial skills and cogent arguments offer some proof that my husband and I did an excellent job in parenting and Columbia iii University took care of the rest. I am grateful to my daughters, Hana and May, for their tolerance in enduring the inevitable mood swings attendant to dissertation writing, and for their encouragement every step of the way. This facilitated the progress of my work, which -- at times -- was at the expense of exercising my role as a grandmother to Yasmeen and Ferris. I dedicate this dissertation to my late husband, Ziad Kassem, who inspired my return to school, twenty years after earning my first Masters degree in 1970. He believed in me and was my source of intellectual motivation. He would have been proud that finally I made it: Better late than never. iv 1 Chapter One I N T R O D U C T I O N Gender inequality is a pervasive global phenomenon, particularly inequality in political representation. In the last few decades, and, despite attention to women‘s participation in public office the gains in female political participation have lagged behind women‘ advancement in educational attainment and professional status in the private sector.1 These gender gaps are most pronounced in developing countries, where socio-cultural, demographic and political characteristics are said to impede women‘s advancement and political empowerment.2 However, the extent of gender gaps varies widely across and within countries in the same region and also across different types of political parties within the same country. This dissertation aims to identify and explore the factors driving these observed phenomena particularly in developing countries such as Lebanon, where women have 1 The year 1975 marked the beginning of the Decade for Women declared in the first of four world conferences on women organized by the United Nations and held in New Mexico (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995). One indicator is that female participation in non-agricultural labor increased from 36% in 1990 to 40% in 2005 (ILO. Women in labour markets: Measuring progress and identifying challenges, March 2010, 72). Also, in 32 countries worldwide more women than men are now enrolled at the tertiary level. Overall, the rate of female to male enrolment was less than half in 1970 and now it is nearly 70%. See: UNDP, Human Development Report 1995 (New York: United Nations). 2 It has been established that equal access to education and economic resources are prerequisites not only for improving women‘s socio-economic status but also for their political empowerment, notably for improved representation in public office (Georgia Duerst-Lahti 2006). Studies suggest that women‘s attainment of higher education