Journal Articles by Marie E Berry
Journal of International Relations and Development, 2022
As the concept of resilience has expanded in the social sciences, critics have lamented its neoli... more As the concept of resilience has expanded in the social sciences, critics have lamented its neoliberal undertones. Programming focused on women affected by war is often structured around cultivating individual women's strength and leadership, positioning women as sources of stability whose adaptability helps make their communities 'more resilient'. Yet thinking of resilience as an individualised outcome belies the embodied and relational experiences at the core of the concept: that to become resilient is to continue standing in the face of violent, unjust systems. In this article, I draw from hundreds of interviews with women survivors of war in different contexts to illustrate patterns in the process of becoming resilient after atrocities. I show how this process is structured by a series of relationships-including of mothering, solidarity with others, and interdependence. As such, I argue for a 'radicalisation' of our conceptualisation of resilience and suggest that becoming resilient reflects a relational process that embodies resistance to a politic of domination.
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2022
Although quotas and other efforts to increase women's political participation can ensure that the... more Although quotas and other efforts to increase women's political participation can ensure that the descriptive representation of women changes dramatically over a short period of time, it is not clear that social norms and political interests can shift as quickly as the distribution of legislative seats. Rather than being interpreted as a move toward a more pluralistic and representative form of government, the increased number of women in office may represent a threat to those who benefit from the status quo, and their resistance to losing their privilege may manifest in myriad forms of discrimination and violence. The relationship between political violence targeting women and increasing numbers of women in politics is often overlooked, despite the recognized potential for "backlash" against women's empowerment initiatives. This article leverages data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to explore the impact of increasing numbers of women in government on violence targeting women in Kenya. The findings show that rates of political violence targeting women have risen in tandem with the share of seats held by women in the lower chamber. That increasing women's representation in political office may result in violent backlash against women generally should prompt greater attention from policymakers and academics to patriarchal resistance to women's advancement.
Politics & Gender, 2020
Extensive research has affirmed the potential of gender quotas to advance women's political inclu... more Extensive research has affirmed the potential of gender quotas to advance women's political inclusion. When Kenya's gender quota took effect after a new constitution was promulgated in 2010, women were elected to the highest number of seats in the country's history. In this article, we investigate how the process of implementing the quota has shaped Kenyan women's power more broadly. Drawing on more than 80 interviews and 24 focus groups with 140 participants, we affirm and refine the literature on quotas by making two conceptual contributions: (1) quota design can inadvertently create new inequalities among women in government, and (2) women's entry into previously male-dominated spaces can be met with patriarchal backlash, amplifying gender oppression. Using the
Boston Review, 2020
MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about the benefits of electing women to office. Scholars note links between... more MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about the benefits of electing women to office. Scholars note links between women's political representation and the stability of states, the likelihood of peace, the prioritization of social welfare programs, and even economic growth. In recent decades, a number of countries recovering from war have linked their constitutional and government overhauls with gender equality initiatives. Many now have higher rates of women in politics, largely as a result of these efforts. As we have explored in our past work, war can create unexpected opportunities to shift traditional power relations.
Journal of Eastern Africa Studies, 2019
Kenya’s 2010 constitutional reforms devolved the political system
and included a quota designed t... more Kenya’s 2010 constitutional reforms devolved the political system
and included a quota designed to secure a minimum threshold of
women in government. While the 2017 elections yielded the
country’s highest proportion of women in government in history
via both elected and appointed positions, many political entities
still fell short of the new gender rule, leaving them in
noncompliance with the constitution. The 2017 elections reveal a
tension: while devolution raised the stakes of local elections and
the quota has improved women’s political inclusion, these reforms
have not fundamentally changed the power of political parties,
the way campaigns are financed, cultural ideas about women’s
leadership, and the pervasiveness of violence in Kenyan elections.
Drawing on data from both the national and county levels, this
article maps these persistent obstacles to women’s political
inclusion and argues that increasing women’s political power will
require both the full implementation of the constitution, as well as
a broader consideration of how power operates and is consolidated.
Peace & Change, 2019
There is an emerging consensus that women must play a more substantial role in transformations fr... more There is an emerging consensus that women must play a more substantial role in transformations from violence to stability. The UN Women, Peace, and Security framework recognizes the unique challenges women face during war and affirms the important role they play in the prevention and resolution of conflicts. Despite this framework and other related efforts, peace remains elusive for many who have lived through armed conflict. What prevents formal, internationally led peacebuilding efforts from fostering sustainable peace in ordinary citizens' lives? Put differently, despite the variety of peacebuilding mechanisms offered, what prevents peace from taking hold, for women in particular? In this paper, we focus on two postwar cases: Bosnia and Nepal. Drawing on interviews with more than seventy women in both countries, we identify five barriers that prevent women from feeling at peace in their daily lives: economic insecurity, competing truths, hierarchies of victimhood, continuums of violence, and spatial and temporal dislocation. We conclude by outlining ways that women in both countries work to overcome those barriers by pioneering innovations in peacebuilding, which may reveal possibilities for future interventions.
Democratization, 2018
The lack of convergence towards liberal democracy in some African countries reflects neither a pe... more The lack of convergence towards liberal democracy in some African countries reflects neither a permanent state of political aberration, nor necessarily a prolonged transitional phase through which countries pass once the “right” conditions are met. Examining the cases of two ruling parties, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the African National Congress in South Africa, we develop the concept of productive liminality to explain countries suspended (potentially indefinitely) in a status “betwixt and between” mass violence, authoritarianism, and democracy. On the one hand, their societies are in a liminal status wherein a transition to democracy and socio-economic “revolution” remains forestalled; on the other hand, this liminality is instrumentalized to justify the party’s extraordinary mandate characterized by: (a) an idea of an incomplete project of liberation that the party alone is mandated to fulfil through an authoritarian social contract, and (b) the claim that this unfulfilled revolution is continuously under threat by a coterie of malevolent forces, which the party alone is mandated to identify and appropriately sanction.
Researchers have recently documented the unexpected opportunities war can present for women. Whil... more Researchers have recently documented the unexpected opportunities war can present for women. While acknowledging the devastating effects of mass violence, this burgeoning field highlights war's potential to catalyze grassroots mobilization and build more gender sensitive institutions and legal frameworks. Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina serve as important examples of this phenomenon, yet a closer examination of both cases reveals the limits on women's capacity to take part in and benefit from these postwar shifts. This article makes two key contributions. First, it demonstrates how the postwar political settlement created hierarchies of victimhood that facilitated new social divisions and fractured women's collective organizing. Second, it argues that while war creates certain opportunities for women, a revitalization of patriarchy in the aftermath can undermine these gains. Drawing on more than 250 interviews with women in both countries, this article ultimately questions the extent to which postwar mobilization can be maintained or harnessed for genuine gender emancipation.
Theories of social movement emergence posit “threat” as an important concept in ex- planations of... more Theories of social movement emergence posit “threat” as an important concept in ex- planations of mobilization. This article uses the case of the 1994 Rwandan genocide to investigate whether threats that stem from mass violence can also have a mobilizing effect. Drawing from interviews with 152 women in Rwanda, I reveal how threatening conditions created by the genocide and civil war initiated a grassroots mobilization process among women. This mobilization featured women founding and joining community organizations, engaging in new forms of claims making toward state institutions, and eventually running for political office. Two mechanisms facilitated this process: the social appropriation of feminine values for the reconceptualization of women as legitimate political actors, and the brokerage of connections between individual women, organizations, and government institutions by foreign actors. I conclude by suggesting that this mobilization served as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the meteoric rise of women in Rwanda’s politics.
Learning from our history to build a bright future.
Twenty years after its horrific genocide, Rwanda has become a model for economic development. At ... more Twenty years after its horrific genocide, Rwanda has become a model for economic development. At the same time, its government has been criticised for authoritarian tactics and the use of violence. Missing from the often polarised debate are the connections between these two perspectives. Synthesising existing literature on Rwanda in light of a combined year of fieldwork, we argue that the Government of Rwanda is using the developmental infrastructure to deepen state power and expand political control. We first identify the historical pressures that have motivated the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to reimagine the political landscape. Sectarian unrest, political rivalry, wider regional insecurity and aid withdrawal have all pressured the RPF to identify growth as strategic. However, the political transformation extends beyond a prioritisation of growth and encompasses the articulation of ideologies and new mindsets, the provision of social services and infrastructure and the reordering of the social and physical layout of the territory. Growth and social control go hand in hand. As such, this paper’s main contribution is to bring together the two sides of the Rwandan debate and place the country in a broader sociological literature about the parallel development of capitalist relations and transformations in state power.
Papers by Marie E Berry
Journal of International Relations and Development
As the concept of resilience has expanded in the social sciences, critics have lamented its neoli... more As the concept of resilience has expanded in the social sciences, critics have lamented its neoliberal undertones. Programming focused on women affected by war is often structured around cultivating individual women's strength and leadership, positioning women as sources of stability whose adaptability helps make their communities 'more resilient'. Yet thinking of resilience as an individualised outcome belies the embodied and relational experiences at the core of the concept: that to become resilient is to continue standing in the face of violent, unjust systems. In this article, I draw from hundreds of interviews with women survivors of war in different contexts to illustrate patterns in the process of becoming resilient after atrocities. I show how this process is structured by a series of relationships-including of mothering, solidarity with others, and interdependence. As such, I argue for a 'radicalisation' of our conceptualisation of resilience and suggest that becoming resilient reflects a relational process that embodies resistance to a politic of domination.
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2022
Although quotas and other efforts to increase women's political participation can ensure ... more Although quotas and other efforts to increase women's political participation can ensure that the descriptive representation of women changes dramatically over a short period of time, it is not clear that social norms and political interests can shift as quickly as the distribution of legislative seats. Rather than being interpreted as a move toward a more pluralistic and representative form of government, the increased number of women in office may represent a threat to those who benefit from the status quo, and their resistance to losing their privilege may manifest in myriad forms of discrimination and violence. The relationship between political violence targeting women and increasing numbers of women in politics is often overlooked, despite the recognized potential for "backlash" against women's empowerment initiatives. This article leverages data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to explore the impact of increasing numbers of women in government on violence targeting women in Kenya. The findings show that rates of political violence targeting women have risen in tandem with the share of seats held by women in the lower chamber. That increasing women's representation in political office may result in violent backlash against women generally should prompt greater attention from policymakers and academics to patriarchal resistance to women's advancement.
International Politics Reviews, 2022
This response to the forum on Dirk Moses’s book focuses on issues of grievability.
Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 2021
Postwar recovery efforts foreground gender equality as a key component of building more liberal d... more Postwar recovery efforts foreground gender equality as a key component of building more liberal democracies. This review explores the burgeoning scholarship on women's rights after war, first grappling with war as a period of possibility for building new gender-inclusive institutions. We review efforts in three arenas: increasing women's political representation in postwar democratic transitions; improving access to justice for women through the extension of property rights and bodily autonomy within systems of carceral justice; and integrating women into labor markets and security sectors through various components of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. Yet these inclusionary efforts have too often sought to dismantle one form of oppression (gender inequality) without challenging others. We document how projects to center women in liberal democratic reforms following war inadvertently overlook other manifestations of violence at the core of these institutions.
Healing and Peacebuilding After War, 2020
Relatively little attention has been paid to the loss of social spaces and its political and soci... more Relatively little attention has been paid to the loss of social spaces and its political and societal ramifications. Marie E. Berry and Milli Lake (LSE) remind us why it is important to remember the importance of physical touch, intimacy and connection to build community, practise resistance, heal from trauma and escape oppression.
Globally we are witnessing and experiencing the many social implications of COVID-19, but less at... more Globally we are witnessing and experiencing the many social implications of COVID-19, but less attention has been given to the loss of social spaces and the political and societal ramifications of this as we begin to navigate our reimagining of the ‘public space’. Marie E. Berry and Milli Lake remind us why it is important for us to remember the importance of physical touch, intimacy and connection to build community, practice resistance, heal from trauma and escape oppression.
Healing and Peacebuilding After War, 2020
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2018
This chapter examines the organizational tributaries that produced a tidal wave of support for th... more This chapter examines the organizational tributaries that produced a tidal wave of support for the Women’s March on Washington. Ostensibly the result of a new eponymous organization, the 2017 Women’s March actually represented the sustained work of many well-established activist organizations and interest groups that spread the word and mobilized a diverse array of both new and experienced participants. This chapter argues that the Women’s March itself is an umbrella coalition rather than a singular organization. This chapter explains how the Women’s March evolved from a mostly white, elite liberal feminist movement to a more intersectional movement through various framing techniques and coalition-building. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the tactical and strategic effects of the Women’s March after the first year of the Trump administration, as well as its position in the overall landscape of social movements in the United States.
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Journal Articles by Marie E Berry
and included a quota designed to secure a minimum threshold of
women in government. While the 2017 elections yielded the
country’s highest proportion of women in government in history
via both elected and appointed positions, many political entities
still fell short of the new gender rule, leaving them in
noncompliance with the constitution. The 2017 elections reveal a
tension: while devolution raised the stakes of local elections and
the quota has improved women’s political inclusion, these reforms
have not fundamentally changed the power of political parties,
the way campaigns are financed, cultural ideas about women’s
leadership, and the pervasiveness of violence in Kenyan elections.
Drawing on data from both the national and county levels, this
article maps these persistent obstacles to women’s political
inclusion and argues that increasing women’s political power will
require both the full implementation of the constitution, as well as
a broader consideration of how power operates and is consolidated.
Papers by Marie E Berry
and included a quota designed to secure a minimum threshold of
women in government. While the 2017 elections yielded the
country’s highest proportion of women in government in history
via both elected and appointed positions, many political entities
still fell short of the new gender rule, leaving them in
noncompliance with the constitution. The 2017 elections reveal a
tension: while devolution raised the stakes of local elections and
the quota has improved women’s political inclusion, these reforms
have not fundamentally changed the power of political parties,
the way campaigns are financed, cultural ideas about women’s
leadership, and the pervasiveness of violence in Kenyan elections.
Drawing on data from both the national and county levels, this
article maps these persistent obstacles to women’s political
inclusion and argues that increasing women’s political power will
require both the full implementation of the constitution, as well as
a broader consideration of how power operates and is consolidated.
In recent decades, the devastating and disproportionate toll that armed conflict wreaks on the lives of women has garnered considerable and much-needed attention. Less studied, however, are the openings and opportunities brought about through war, which have the potential to disrupt and fundamentally reorder gender relations in the aftermath of conflict. These processes, neglected until recently in scholarship on...