Category: Uncategorized

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Conservation and the Elasticity of State Authority in the Indian Himalayas

PI: Charitra Shreya Pabbaraju, MPhil Student, University of Oxford

Grant Amount and Grant Fund: $2,500 Alma Ostrom and Leah Hopkins Civic Education Fund

Project Abstract: The research project investigates the role of women in politics and civil society, and feminist coalitions in particular, during Tunisia’s democratic transition (2011-2021). Existing research on women’s political participation during democratic transitions generally concludes that women participate in revolutions and the early years of democratic transitions but stop shortly after. In Tunisia, this was not the case. Both conservative (Islamist) and liberal (secular) women entered politics in historic numbers during the 2010-2011 Arab Spring and remained in politics. Tunisian women made up approximately 30% of elected officials, compared to the global average of 24.3%. They also established 300 new women’s rights organizations (compared to two before the Arab Spring). Over the past decade, liberal and conservative women activists and politicians formed coalitions that transcended ideological and political differences. These coalitions enabled them to draft, lobby, and pass crucial gender legislation throughout the democratic transition.

Social and political actors who form coalitions despite deep ideological divisions during moments of political uncertainty deserve to be studied because they provide a model of increased cooperation across political and ideological differences when rights are up for debate. The research is especially salient during the rise of the Global Right and conservatism because conservative actors are resurrecting the old debates about women’s political, social, and bodily rights.

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The Feminist Paradox: How Labels Divide the U.S. Public and Impact Representation

PI: Mariza Oceno, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Vanderbilt University

Gran Amount and Grant Fund: $2,500, Edward Artinian Fund for Publishing

Project Abstract: Women remain largely underrepresented in U.S. government. However, compared to other historically underrepresented groups in political office, they demonstrate much weaker, less consistent, and more conditional loyalty toward ingroup — same-gender — candidates. Why? Scholars have increasingly studied feminism as an important source of division among women, but its political underpinnings and consequences remain largely understudied. Furthermore, it remains profoundly unclear what identity, if any, stands on the other side of feminism: what does it mean to not identify as a feminist? 

My book project proposes that both women and men in the U.S. electorate are divided into two highly salient and strongly politically charged but countervailing gender-related subgroups: feminists and non-feminists. I argue that non-feminism is a meaningful identity in and of itself. In other words, not calling oneself a feminist does not translate into outright rejection of all aspects of feminism. In fact, non-feminists are not only distinct from feminists but also far more heterogeneous in terms of their beliefs about gender inequality and discrimination. 

Support from the APSA Centennial Center Gr ants will fund the next step in this project: conducting in-depth interviews with American women of different races and ethnicities to further identify the range of perceptions and connotations associated with non-feminism as compared to feminism across racial and ethnic identities. Shedding light on how race/ethnicity interacts with feminist/non-feminist identity can improve our understanding of what members of the public are mobilized or demobilized by feminist as compared to non-feminist platforms and agendas and, consequently, of the constraints and opportunities created by these labels.

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The European Union’s Interpretations of Europe-anness: Discourse, Enlargement, and Legitimation

PI: Annie Niessen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Grant Amount and Grant Fund: $2,500, Edward Artinian Fund for Publishing

Project Abstract: The research monograph, which will be based on my PhD thesis, will address an underexplored yet crucial aspect that has deeply influenced the development of European integration: the EU’s discourse on Europe and Europeanness. The book will analyze the four interpretations of the “European State” formulation (Art. 49 TEU)—the primary membership requirement—that were provided by the EU institutional actors to legitimize the applicant states’ eligibility and, in turn, enlargement decisions. Building on an original corpus of archival material, the book will constitute the first wide-ranging study of EU supranational institutions’ interpretations of the “European State” formulation and related notions of Europe and Europeanness over the 70 years of European integration. Its core argument is that the “European State” membership requirement and the discursive practices surrounding it have resulted in a new, institutional-driven, narrative on Europe and Europeanness that has been a significant part of the EU’s legitimation discourse.