Contexto global

Despite the opportunities that come with democratization, i.e. improved forms of interest articulation, open and receptive political institutions and rights of assembly and

association, it seems the women’s movement has stopped short of developing into a stable, potent, network of advocacy organizations. Without the requisite amount of direct government funding and/or private donations, advocacy groups, interest groups and women’s centers are left to ‘beg and borrow’ for the resources they need to operate. This economic reality coupled with an institutional environment hostile to lobbying and devoid of meaningful policy dialogue means groups dedicated to furthering the interests of Czech and Polish women remain at the periphery of the policy making process. In this way, democratization and market liberalization has produced a new set of structural conditions which hamper mobilization and diminish opportunities to lobby decision makers.

Instead of acquiring lobbying know-how, many observers report women’s rights NGOs are faltering, becoming less political and further alienated from political parties and decision makers. By all indications, the women’s movement in the early 1990s was assuming a place alongside other emergent advocacy groups. As a whole the third sector was growing exponentially, largely as a result of the euphoria that marked this period and the growing financial assistance from Western philanthropists. Despite this, the women’s movement (inc. more formalized organizations) has yet celebrated any policy victories. For as Bystdzienski (2001) argues “the feminist movement in Poland (…) is still fledgling and fragmented” (p.501) and with this, unable to mount a campaign against restrictive abortion policies and growing gender inequalities. The situation is no better in the Czech Republic, where successive governments, paying only lip service to women’s issues, have managed to keep women’s groups out of the policy process altogether. Ignoring their pleas for a comprehensive domestic violence law, legislation for equal pay

in the workforce, and better laws relating to human trafficking and prostitution, the political elite’s preoccupation for the past decade has been with corruption and party financing scandals and EU accession.83 A membrane has developed between the elites of these two countries and respective public interest groups, which makes constructing a vertical policy network almost impossible.

Women’s groups in both countries are discovering first-hand how difficult it is to lobby a state which is both powerful (relative to interest groups) and insulated (from societal stakeholders) during this period of protracted institution building. Instead of concentrating on the list of demands issued by domestic sub state actors, post-communist era politicians were focusing attention an institionald and economic reform. Czech and Polish policy makers have shown little inclination to develop a responsive, organized, policy community. Part of this may be a result of what Cameron (2003) argues:

It is not a great exaggeration to say that on accession, the new members will be re-created as states, committed to processes of policy making and policy outcomes that in many instance bear little or no relation to their domestic policy- making processes and prior policy decisions but reflect, instead, the politics, policy-making processes, and policy choices of the EU and its earlier member states (p.25)

Polish and Czech lawmakers did little to further minority rights and gender equality until they were forced by the acquis communautaire to do so. Cameron believed the policy process would change upon entry, and based on research conducted in the post accession period it is safe to say it has. The Polish government successfully kept the issue of abortion off the agenda and outside the parameters of the EU accession treaty when it convinced Brussels to annex reproductive laws, thus enabling Poland to circumvent EU- level human rights law and laws pertaining to the status of women in the EU. The annex reads:

The government of the Republic of Poland understands that none of the provisions of the Treaty on European Union, or in the treaties establishing the European Communities (…) shall disturb the right of the Republic of Poland to

83 _{Interview conducted with Lenka Simerska, senior member of the Gender Studies Centre, in} Prague 15 August 2003.

regulate on issues of moral importance and concerning the protection of human life (East European Constitutional Review, 2003: 39)

While being an intergovernmental matter between Poland and the EU, this annex also effects and/or restricts the sort of lobbying tactics available to women’s organizations in Poland at across Europe. Protest repertoires will have to change, as EU level negotiations and legal challenges may become more effective than mobilizing at the domestic level to effect change. The Polish annex is unique (as Ireland and Malta have similar

conditionality in place) because it was negotiated after the accession agreement was complete. Polish Prime Minister Miller and President Kwasniewski argue the annex was a way to prevent Euroskeptics from derailing Poland’s entry (EECR 2003: 39) but as it occurred, it also ensured no women’s groups could properly intervene or comment on this policy shift.

Failure on the part of Polish and Czech decision makers to include women’s groups in the policy process should be seen as both a procedural failure, because such a top down policy exercise ultimately produces incomplete and uninformed policy (driving a wedge between concerned constituents and their parliamentarians) and, a moral failure, because it shows contempt for democracy and emerging citizen initiatives. It is true “many Central and East European women had participated in dissident opposition movements, yet (…) rejected the idea that they needed to organize as women” (Jaquette 2001: 113). But what is further contributing to this political malaise is the inaction of post-communist leaders who have done little to support women’s initiatives and at certain points have even actively discouraged the activities of women’s rights groups.

To test the vitality of post-communist democracy it is important to carefully consider how particular sectors function relative to the political opportunities available to them – if they exist at all. In doing this, it is equally important to come to some

understanding on how political opportunities are created or made and which political actors are best equipped to take advantage of them. During a period of wide-scale political change and state-building, political opportunities can, at the same time, be abundant and scarce. As Jaquette (2001) suggests “in most cases, democratization and the political mobilization of women are mutually reinforcing (p.112), but in Poland and the Czech Republic this has not bee the case. There is theoretically an opportunity for

formerly aggrieved and marginalised groups to mobilize once barriers to collective action have been broken down, but for the transition to be carried through, the state must limit its involvement with outside stakeholders. It is easy in such circumstances for

government to forgo a drawn out consultative policy process in favour of a more efficient, essentially elite-driven, model of policy creation. And as a fragmented and disorganized sector, women’s groups (and women’s movement writ large) have been unable to penetrate the inner citadel of the policy community.

Taking into account the above thesis, this chapter argues that to explain the

weakness of the women’s lobby in Poland and the Czech Republic, one must look at what is happening in political society instead of civil society, and also, what is happening at the structural level instead of at the agential level. For instance, The number of “women’s NGOs” has decreased since the beginning of the ‘90s – none of them receive any funds from the Czech State, apart from a few grants for certain concrete social purposes (IHFHR, 2000: 146). Without a policy network that incorporates the third sector,

institutionalized mechanism to encourage dialogue between policy makers and women’s groups cannot exist. In other words, a policy network is ineffectual when it stops short of linking decision makers and bureaucrats with interest groups. The reason for interest group mobilization, after all, is the acquisition of power and influence at the policy level. The argument presented here is predicated on five observations and understandings:

1) The ideological nature of women’s groups means policy makers, the media, and many Polish and Czech women themselves, look at ‘feminist’

organizations with a certain degree of suspicion;

2) The state has done little to help with the establishment of a coherent women’s lobby and in many respects has directly contributed to their marginalization; 3) Women’s group in Poland and the Czech Republic have actively sought the

support of Western donors (including the European Union) and specific Western-based women’s organizations to help offset the costs associated with organizing and lobbying;

4) State institutions have thus far failed to honour general principles of gender equality and human rights;

5) The instability of the third sector coupled with the ad hoc nature of policy formulation has provided women’s groups with little opportunity to make inroads at either the bureaucratic or legislative policy levels.

As theses 1 through 5 suggest, it is structural-level impediments to collective action that are limiting the scope and activities of the women’s advocacy sector, and not necessarily ideational or agential factors. It is therefore the contention of this section that the

problems encountered by women’s group and subsequent under representation at the policy level can only be solved by changing current institutional arrangements. By opening up the policy process third sector groups will become unified and more active, and until such time will remain inconsequential actors. Recommendations to this effect have been made by government committee already (The first quote relates to the Czech Republic; the second to Poland):

One of the most urgent tasks is to raise the level of awareness and knowledge among broad layers of the population. NGOs are in this regard important actors, helping to increase the knowledge and awareness of gender issues. According to the newly adopted directive 2002/73/EC, article 8c, Member states shall encourage dialogue with non- governmental organizations that have a legitimate interest in contributing to the fight against discrimination on the grounds of sex.84

Women have joined the public dialogue, recognizing that they have equal rights as well as the duty to speak out on issues of vital importance to society and to actively participate in problem solving (…). One of the principal threats to the Polish women’s movement is unstable state policy. A good example is the instability of offices responsible for

84 _{This recommendation was made in a report “Improvement of the Public Institutional} Mechanism for Applying, Enforcing and Monitoring Equal Treatment of Men and Women” which was part of a twinning project (CZ 2001/IB/SO-01) between the Czech Republic and Sweden. Last accessed on-line 15 May, 2006.

promoting gender equality and the lack of legislation regulating co-operation between the state and NGOs defending women’s rights.85

Understanding the need to enhance democracy and the status of women through the development of effective policy networks, the Government Council For Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the Czech Republic, and the now defunct

Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Women and Men in Poland, have called upon government to incorporate women’s NGOs into the policy making rubric. But, as this chapter argues, it is becoming increasingly obvious that without the fear of political repercussion post-communist elites (inc. parliamentarians) will continue to ignore recommendations made by stakeholders. In the case of public policy which directly affects women, the institutions currently in place offer women’s organizations little opportunity to advance their policy preferences.

* * *

A comparison of the women’s NGOs in Poland and the Czech Republic reveals a communist legacy and the specific models of dissidence employed by Charter 77 and Solidarity have less impact on how this sector mobilize than it might on other sectors (i.e. student organizations – Impulse 99). On the whole, women’s groups are not anti-political or apolitical nor do they carry with them the normative baggage of the dissident

experience. Unlike many other newly formed interest associations, women’s groups are attempting to reacquire some of the benefits extended to them during the communist period. For instance:

• With the exception of Poland (…) from 1980 onwards, 80 to 90 percent of

children between 3 and 6 had access to kindergarten;

• In all [ECE]countries 80 to 90 percent of women had gainful employment at

the end of the eighties;

85 _{From the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Women and Men, on-line at}

• Acts were adopted at an early stage of the system assuring equal rights for

women in politics (the right to vote and be elected), and within marriage (Ferge 1997: 161-162);

• Women were guaranteed unfettered reproductive rights, extending to free

medically administered abortions.

Even if the above statistics are accurate, as the reliability of state generated data has been questioned before (cf. Ferge 1997; Wolchik 1991; Ramet, 2005), there remains a clear disjuncture between state ideology and the lived experiences of women. Einhorn (1991) argues, “the fundamental contradiction inherent in the paradigm adopted by state socialist countries lay in a definition of women as workers and mothers without any parallel conceptualization of men’s role” (p. 4). In this way, one should not assume that women were more politically powerful or privy to the same advantages as men during the communist period, because they were not. For example “In the socialist era, the status of women was imposed from above – it would be a mistake to regard it as an independent self-assertive process” (Smidova 1999: 217). Post-communist women face the following socio-economic and political problems:

• As of 1996/97 women were about 20 percent more likely than men to be

unemployed (Ramet 2005:2)

• The closure of and/or price rises for childcare facilities (Einhorn, 1991: 8) • More teenage girls are giving birth now, drug abuse and alcohol abuse are

increasing, [and] domestic violence and rape are reportedly also rising (Ramet 2005)

• Fewer women politicians at all levels of government in both countries • Restrictive abortion laws

These issues have galvanized segments of the women’s movement, but on the whole women’s rights groups remain unable to channel this solidarity into any tangible political benefit. There is however one aspect of the women’s movement which is informed by both the socialist experience and post-communist socio-political realities. Aware of

public disdain for rigid ideology, many groups and centers, i.e. the Gender Studies Centre in Prague and the Network of East West Women in Poland (NEWW Polska), have been unwilling to adopt a feminist narrative or admit their activities are framed by feminist ideology. As Sloat (2005) reports:

Negative conceptions of feminism also hinder NGO efforts to promote gender equality as a policy priority. A recent survey in the Czech Republic (…) found that almost 50 percent of men and more than one-third of women consider feminist groups fighting for women’s rights to be useless, while one-quarter of both sexes remain uncertain about them (p. 442)

Thus feminism, like any ‘ism’ in post-communist ECE, becomes the matter of concern rather than an instrument for empowerment. As a consequence, the women’s movement remains fragmented and embroiled in theoretical debate, often times with western women, about how the movement should be constructed and framed. Valuable time and limited resources have therefore been diverted to conferences and workshops rather than being used to determine the most feasible way to improve the women’s group network and their status vis-à-vis policy makers. The debate over the use and misuse of feminist ideology has strategic overtones, for as Einhorn argues “many women are averse to the idea of feminism, as they associate it with state intervention and discredited ‘isms’ of the past” (Sloat, 2005: 442). Thus, women’s groups in Poland and the Czech Republic have had to abandon the sort of rhetoric that empowered the women’s movements in North America and Western Europe for language that is less inflammatory and more

conciliatory, on the belief this would create more opportunities for their movement. There is however an even a larger problem with such an inter-movement debate. It allows the state to ignore many of the more politically active (government would say ‘radical’) women’s groups on the grounds they only have a tenuous connection with ‘average’ Polish or Czech women. An inability to assume some sort of a tangible identity means the women’s movement will continue to falter. But one has to wonder how much of this has to do with the state, its agenda and programme, opposed to the women’s movement itself. For as Beckwith (2005) argues “in several postcommunist

democratizing nations of Central and East Europe, as institutions democratized, opportunities for activist women began to close” (p.588). The dynamism of democratization, with the state assuming the lead role in determining policy and

institutional design, leads to a situation where state priorities take precedence over the demands of third sector organizations. This can be viewed in two ways: one, the state

must guard its autonomy during state-building, to ensure the democratization programme does not become overburdened with divergent interests; two, the state strategically uses its autonomy to expedite it’s policy preferences rather than establish a consultative framework with interest groups.86 As Wolchik (1995) argues, “the growth of non-party associations and organizations typical of established democracies has been inhibited by the suspicion that many political leaders have of non-profit organizations and by regulations that do not favour their development” (p.38).In this scenario it’s not specifically women’s groups that are excluded from the policy process but rather any group which seeks to challenge the political status quo.

Through direct funding and incentive schemes ECE governments have been most eager to support only those women’s organizations that compliment their policy

programme. An example offered by Haskova (2003) illustrates this: “Organization proFem has been for years organizing training for lawyers for domestic violence. When applying for funds for continuing this project, it has been rejected by the Czech agency but succeeded when applied directly to Brussels” (p.6). It would seem odd for any government to fund organizations that publicly disagree with their policy priorities or method of governance (cf. Pal, 1993), but the consequence of not doing so, in some measure, is a policy system without any regulated or institutionalized competition. Ultimately without domestic support groups turn to international donors, EU level funding schemes and private corporations for funding. The result, as McMahon (2001) argues

While independent of the state, they remain extremely dependent on the

international community. This predicament has affected the issues they take on, as well as the type of activism they use to respond to inequality and existing political