The conceptual pattern of women's social body participation in the women and family policy-making process; Based on the perspective of religious discourse in Iran

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Department of Social Science Group, Women and Family Research Institute, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Policy-making is a tool in the hands of rulers to turn the objective challenges of society into scientific problems and solve them. Therefore, it is worthwhile to benefit from the transition policy from the point of view of the target community as a large and significant part of actors and stakeholders in the decision-making process. Meanwhile, women, as a vital part of the active body of society and direct involvement with the dynamic institution of the family, play a crucial role in recognizing and solving problems in all public spheres. The Islamic Republic, as a transcendent government, which is a system based on religious democracy, will need to pay attention to this part of the actors and facilitate their public participation in the processes of problem recognition, decision-making and monitoring. For this purpose, we need to enumerate the components of this participation from the perspective of religious discourse to achieve the Islamic requirements for women's public participation in the process of forming an Islamic governance. In this study, with the aim of extracting these components, the qualitative method and thematic analysis strategy have been used. To answer the main question of the research, 13 in-depth interviews were conducted with religious experts overlooking the women's activism space with a practical or theoretical background in policy-making. Data analysis in the coding process led to the emergence of 48 basic themes in the form of 10 organizing themes and 2 Global themes and presenting a network of themes. Findings showed that the Islamic conceptual pattern of women's social body participation in the policy-making process of women include two Global dimensions of participation components and participation mechanisms. components include: Purposefulness, problem-oriented, social body leveling, religiosity and divinity, and allocation of arenas and boundaries. Mechanisms include the following: legality and legitimacy, generalization and de-genderization, empowerment, intermediary institutions and specialized institutions.
In prescribing the practical Islamic model of women's participation in this approach, it should be noted that being political in the objective component, with the issue of politicization in recognizing the issue despite the Proximity of word, have a clear conceptual difference and application, so that the explanation of the problem in the objective component is related to the political issue. It is for the purpose and goal of preserving the Islamic system, while the theme of politicization in the problem-oriented component looks at the form and manner of interaction of the policy maker with the social body. This damage appears in the bias of this process from the discourse of political parties and currents in the agenda setting and identifying important issues for attention and policy making.
Prescribing the mechanism of generality and degendering of social body participation arrangements in the process of policy making and problem recognition in this area should also be done under the two components of purposefulness and allocation of arenas. In this sense, just doing righteous deeds in Islamic governance, which has strengthened the Islamic system, is recommended and prescribed in all fields regardless of gender in the religious approach, and the assigned boundaries in Islam only determine the way of participation in these public fields. Using the purely legal capacity and legitimacy of the prescriptive mechanisms also allows the creation of innovative legal structures such as intermediary circles with newer approaches to manage the fields of public activism and public satisfaction to claimants and experts along with the social body. In this approach, by looking at the successful structures in other governance models in interaction with the social body of women, it is possible to design and implement successful internal models within religious frameworks. In the end, what seems to be necessary in this matter is the creation of expert institutions and the need to add analytical and research attachments to the field of women and family policymaking at all stages and to achieve all components and mechanisms. This capacity, on the one hand, to create theoretical and practical coherence in Islamic governance, and on the other hand, in order to manage existing demands and make demands based on the present and future needs of the Islamic society, will be one of the advantages of expert actions.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Woman in Development & Politics
Volume 21, Issue 2
June 2023
Pages 481-516

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