Challenges and Opportunities for the Inclusion of Women in Politics in Pakistan

Abstract

The present study inquired into the challenges and opportunities pertaining to women’s political participation beyond elections in Pakistan. The main objective of the current research was to explore how women who pursue political careers as members of the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) political party navigate the political sphere beyond elections. It also focused on how women career politicians circumvented the structural and institutional challenges of political participation, further exploring the opportunities available to women in the politics of Pakistan. In view of the research objectives underpinning the study, the Milbrath Hierarchical Model was adopted to serve as a baseline for categorizing political respondents according to their level of political engagement. <br /> The study also made use of the Supply and Demand Model of Candidate Selection, which focuses on the selection and recruitment of women aspirants in the political sphere. The model helped to identify structural and institutional challenges in relation to women’s political participation. In the present research, a qualitative research design was deployed as it enabled the exploration of the issues from the perspectives of the participants rather than solely from the vantage point of external explanations. To explore the sensitive topic of political participation, individual in-depth interviews were conducted to preempt interviewee reservations about sharing their candid opinions in a group environment. <br /> The current research was guided by the Feminist Standpoint perspective which argues that feminist social sciences should be practised from the perspective of women to access feminist ways of thinking. Moreover, male career politicians were also included in the current research based on the understanding that they were gendered beings. Also, the contrasting gender perspectives would help to determine the role of gender in exploring the phenomenon of challenges of women’s political participation in Pakistan. The fieldwork for the current research was conducted between 20 July 2018 to 30 Aug 2019 in the Punjab province of Pakistan. During the fieldwork, 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted with women and men career politicians from the PTI party. The respondents were identified through the snowball sampling technique. The data analysis was done in three phases, spanning data reduction, display and interpretation with the help of the qualitative analysis software Atlas.ti. The present research reflected on multiple aspects of challenges related to women’s political participation beyond elections in Pakistan. Based on insights from the participants, it identified pathways to circumvent such challenges.