Center for the Study of Democracy

Multiple literatures suggest that the following factors may figure prominently in explanations of women’s increasing empowerment: economic modernity factors, cultural modernity factors, cultural legacies, institutional legacies, political institutions, and the status of women’s civil society. I argue that the comparison of these factors across different stages of women’s empowerment will give us a clearer picture for understanding the roles of social conditions, national histories, institutional designs and associational behavior in empowering women. This, in turn, will help us clarify the ability of theories central to the study of politics to explain social change in processes of inclusion.