Women's Autonomous Organizations, Civil Society and Democracy: How Women's Agencies Link Their Demands to Politics, From a Comparative Perspective.

Recently, civil society has become an attractive research field in political science. The main reason for this is that civil society, which consists of civic voluntary activities, is an arena of social interaction to foster civic empowerment and recognized as the basis for democracy. For feminists, however, "civil society" does not necessarily have an optimistic connotation. Feminist scholars criticize it mainly for three reasons. First, the realm of civil society is derived from the dichotomy between the public and the private. This dichotomy has confined women to the private sphere ideologically and practically. Second, because civic voluntary organizations are often exempted from state's regulations, sexual inequality and discrimination against women that occur in these organizations will be left as they are. Civil society appears to be more dangerous for women than the state because their rights and lives are left unprotected. Third, "post-welfare states" that have been prevalent since the 1980s encourage people to maintain welfare services through voluntary activities in order to supplement reduced public services with them. Women not only suffer a loss from an insufficiency of publicly provided social services, but they are also expected to engage in unpaid welfare services.Such negative effects notwithstanding, the civil society has potential for women's political empowerment. Civil society is situated between the private sphere and the political sphere, and it provides citizens with a space to be involved in voluntary activities. I identify civil society as an intermediary arena that ties women's everyday lives with politics. Although the line-up of civic voluntary organizations is diverse ranging from social movements, non-governmental and non-profit organizations to charity groups, social movements stand out as the crucial actors in terms of their nature of politicization. Specifically, women's movements channel women's consciousness and expectations into politics. In this regard, civil society plays an important role in enhancement of women's influence on politics so long as women are excluded from elite political community.The paper will focus on the relationship between women's everyday life, civil society and politics. My purpose is to elucidate how women's autonomous organizations function as active agents to change the political status quo and to reform social policies to be more women-friendly. Based on my own comparative research in Japan, Britain, and Scandinavian countries, I will demonstrate that women's organizations perform four functions. First, the organizations transform women's private concerns into public issues. Second, they gather and share the knowledge and information useful for problem-solving. Third, they give women an opportunity to get involved in political activities. Finally, they create alternative channels to infiltrate women's demands into public policies. In doing so, I will argue that women's collective activities based in civil society have contributed not only to improving their socio-political conditions but also to strengthening democracy socially and politically. Proposing an analytical framework of interaction between the private sphere, civil society and the political sphere, this paper attempts to reconcile feminists' criticism with the significance of civil society on feminist politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]