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2010年5月 月次レポート（エルジュルディ・シリーン レバノン）
May Report for JSPS/ITP 2010
Shirine El Jurdi
My arrival to Lebanon in May was very crucial in following up the developments of the candidates, especially the female candidates, to municipal district and qada` levels (given the fact that a 20%quotas was considered for the first time at prior discussions). For the following 3 weeks, a study according to the CRTD-A was developed and I was able to follow up the news and contact the candidates, winners and losers. It was
beneficial to look at the intersection of their membership in associations or political parties, networking with women at formal and informal levels and the role played by the families and the traditional social structure in the election process( which differs from that at the national level). However, the local level elections pushed further another question,; what role do the traditional male leaders play in such elections and how they maintain/loose their resource power, and mobilization and how it affects the participation of women in politics?
In addition to that, it was important to put the study women's empowerment and political participation in the Lebanese context as a political structure and the nature of conflict that Lebanese faces weather internally or regionally. To put women in the Lebanese context I had to look into two main frameworks, first the nature of the Lebanese state (failed state, transitional state, state building) and the nature of conflict (ongoing conflict, post conflict, armed conflict) to put women issues and the conflict in perspective. That is why I first went and search for non-circulated material at universities such as the Lebanese University, Universite de Saint Joseph( USJ), Lebanese American University (LAU), and the American University of Beirut (AUB).
I met with Professor Mbarak as soon as I arrived. He helped in the development with the literature review and in putting the research question in perspective. I looked as well and collected basic data on women's empowerment indicators in different fields from different governmental and international centers. Moreover, women legal empowerment/disempowerment was also researched and collected.