Afghanistan’s Parliament in the making : gendered understandings and practices of politics in a transitional country / by Andrea Fleschenberg ; edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in cooperation with UNIFEM, Robert Furlong ; photos, Gulbuddin Elham.

Includes bibliographical references.

Contents: Preface—Introduction—1. State-and institution-building in post-2001 Afghanistan—2. Doing politics-findings form worldwide experiences—to raise women parliamentarians’ political effectiveness—3. Major findings of the survey on male parliamentarians—5. Conclusions and the way forward—Abbreviations—References—Endnotes.

“The involvement of women in Afghanistan’s public life is decreasing. Attacks, vigilantism, and legal processes that contradict the basic principles of human and women’s rights are the order of the day. The security situation is worsening in step with the disenchantment arising from the lack of results and functional shortcomings of existing democratic structures. In the face of such difficulties, we often forget who should create the legal underpinnings for the power in Afghanistan : the women and men in parliament who are working to build a state in these turbulent times of transition. To what extent will these elected representatives succeed in creating alternatives to established traditional power structures? What are the obstacles they face? What kinds of networks or caucuses are they establishing? This book, which is based on interviews of male and female members of parliament held in Kabul in 2007 and 20008, examines the realities of parliamentary work in Afghanistan. It shows how varied and coercive the patterns of identification prevalent in Afghanistan can be, and it provides a rare opportunity to gain insights into the self images and roles of women in parliament”—back cover.

Summary: This book, based on interviews of male and female members of parliament in 2007 and 2008, examines the realities of parliamentary work in Afghanistan. It shows how varied and coercive the patterns of identification prevalent in Afghanistan can be, and it provides insights into the self-images and roles of women in Parliament.