Message from the State: Uncovering Effects of Public Policy on Women\u27s Movements in Chile and the Czech Republic

This study relies on the cases of the Czech Republic and Chile to examine the ways in which state policies affect women\u27s movements\u27 emergence under both authoritarian and democratic political regimes. As such, this dissertation provides some important clues into how citizens\u27 experience with certain policies enhances or delimits their future political action, and how it affects their beliefs and attitudes. Gaining a better understanding about the relationship between policies and civic participation is particularly important in the case of young democracies, which are trying to overcome their authoritarian past, and whose new democratic political regimes are in some instances yet to be fully consolidated. This dissertation suggests that the policy context within which social movements operate is an important factor in shaping what social movements can do. The research presented here reveals that when grievances are present, such as accusations of gender inequality, women are more likely to mobilize in protest in situations when the state uses public policy to define women\u27s role narrowly in terms of traditional division of labor. In contrast, if public policies are enabling women to reconcile their maternal and public roles, women are less like to organize on the basis of their gender identity to protest the state. This occurs on both the individual and group level. In-depth interviews with Czech women reveal that if the state provides policy support to women to reconcile their traditional and public roles, women become less conscious of the state\u27s role in their lives. They tend to view the state as a diffuse set of actors and ideas that do not create a coherent whole. In contrast, if state policies provide little support for women\u27s participation in the public sphere, individuals find it much easier to articulate who the state is and how it affects their lives. Furthermore, public policy also affect movements on the group level - complex policies supporting both women\u27s traditional and public roles are likely to create multiple camps within a formerly unified movement and lead to movement fragmentation and demise. In contrast, policies emphasizing women\u27s traditional roles only make it easy for movement leaders and actors to identify key issues and subsequently organize for collective action