Kuwait: Why Did Women’s Suffrage Take So Long?

Abstract

Aissa asks why women in Kuwait did not win the right to vote until 2005, much later than most of the rest of the world—as well as within the Arab region. She argues that the explanation requires an understanding of the state-building process and state-society relations in Kuwait in the aftermath of independence. The first part of the chapter discusses the campaign for women’s suffrage and the main actors that supported and opposed women’s right to vote and stand for elected office. The second part conducts a statistical analysis of survey data published by the Arab Barometer to explain the individual-level determinants of women’s propensity to vote.