Myanmar Mini-Conference

Roundtable

Roundtable

Pathways to Women’s Political Participation in Myanmar and Cambodia

Les voies de la participation politique des femmes au Myanmar et au Cambodge

Date

Friday, October 22, 2021

Time

09:00 – 10:45

VenueVenue 4Venue 4

Description

Women’s political participation has been low in Myanmar, just 5 per cent of Members of Parliament (MPs) before 2015. This increased in the 2015 election to 11 per cent and to 17 per cent in the November 2020 election. However, the coup in February 2021 have nullified the achievements made in terms of women’s advancements in politics. The male-dominated political system is difficult to crack even for a democratic country, but even more difficult under military rule.

In this roundtable, participants will discuss women’s pathways to political participation. The concept of pathways provides a better understanding of barriers at multiple levels of governance as well as factors that push or pull individuals or movements towards political participation. Pathways looks at individual women’s trajectories, what may have been enabling and what may have undermined their path toward more political power. This approach based on pathways helps us to connect ways that power gained in political systems is accumulated outside of it, through social mobilization, networks, and community organizing. We will discuss the concept of pathways using examples from Myanmar and Cambodia—two countries in Southeast Asia where women are active economically, but have been systematically excluded from political decision-making.

Convenor and Chair/Animateur et président: Kyoko Kusakabe, Asian Institute of Technology

Participants:

Women’s Political Leaders and Pathways to Political Participation: A Study of Women Parliamentarians in Myanmar

Philippe Doneys, Stockholm Environment Institute

Kyoko Kusakabe, Gender and Development Studies, Asian Institute of Technology

Joyee Chatterjee, Gender and Development Studies, Asian Institute of Technology

Women’s Political Participation in Cambodia

Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Political Science, McGill University

Netra Eng, Cambodia Development Research Institute

Sophany San, Cambodia Development Research Institute

Léa Gruyelle, McGill University

Women’s Political Participation in Myanmar: Historical Overview and the Role of Civil Society

May Sabe Phyu, Gender Equality Network (GEN), Myanmar

Quantitative Assessment of the Participation of Female and Male Individuals in Political Activities at the Local Level: The Case of Myanmar

Franque Grimard, Institute for Study of International Development, McGill University

Event poster

Papers

N/A

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