Helen Rizzo

The Relationship Between Gender Equality and Democracy: A Comparison of Arab Versus Non-Arab Muslim Societies

Inglehart and Norris argue that the core clash between the Islamic world and the West is over issues concerning gender equality rather than democracy. However, a comparison between Arab and non-Arab Muslim societies is essential before drawing this conclusion. Here, we compared nations from each society and found significant differences in attitudes toward gender equality, democratic governance and religious identities. We analyzed models predicting support for democracy including views toward gender equality in each set of countries. In non-Arab Muslim countries, there were higher levels of support for womens rights, and those who supported gender equality were significantly more likely to support democracy.The reverse was true in the Arab Muslim countries. We argue that for a complete and unbiased form of democracy to emerge in the Arab Middle East, a rule of law that would protect gender equality, minority rights and citizen inclusion would need to be instituted.

Women's Political Rights: Islam, Status and Networks in Kuwait

During the last decade, there have been signs of increased democratization in the Middle East. Yet womens political rights remain limited. In this article we focus on Kuwait, a country representative of how citizenship rights have been gendered in the Middle East. Some Kuwaiti womens groups support expanding womens political rights. This article seeks to determine if they have potential allies in the general population. Using survey data from 1500 Kuwaiti citizens in 1994, we identify potential advocates for extending womens rights by examining social status, social networks, religious identity and Gulf War experiences. We found that organized womens groups have potential allies in Sunni young people and men who belong to voluntary organizations, and Shia young men, older women and those who backed Islamic movements abroad. These groups form a basis for developing a broad base of popular support for expanding the citizenship rights of women.

How Culture and Politics Intersect in Post-January 2011 Egypt

This issue of the International Journal of Sociology focuses on the linkages between culture and politics in Post-January 2011 Egypt. Although many dramatic changes have taken place in the last four years in the Egyptian context, in some respects these have not resulted in large-scale institutional transformation or visible changes to the social order to the casual observer. Change has taken place in many aspects of Egyptian society. The five articles in this issue illuminate many aspects of how culture and politics intersect both around and in the years since the 2011 uprising. They reveal an attempt to understand the lived experience of the uprising and protesting among various groups of Egyptians as well as providing social and historical context to these experiences. They also describe how individuals are reclaiming youthfulness in spaces they are defining through their participation in social non-movements.