Interpreting the 2004 Moroccan Family Law: Street-Level Bureaucrats, Women's Groups, and the Preservation of Multiple Normativities

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (04) ◽  
pp. 1514-1541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dörthe Engelcke
Keyword(s):  
Family Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Homogeneous State ◽  
Women's Groups ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Women’S Groups ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Normative Order ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms

A decade after celebrating Morocco's 2004 family law as a social revolution, women's groups became dismayed by the persistence of minor marriage, polygyny, and marriage guardianship. Conventional explanations for why statutory law reform often fails to produce intended outcomes depart from the concept of the homogeneous state, pointing to insufficient enforcement mechanisms and cultural resistance to the new law within society. Arguing against this conceptualization, this article adopts the state-in-society approach. It compares how two types of street-level bureaucrats and secular and Islamist women's groups have engaged with the 2004 law. It finds that different groups have emphasized and rejected different categories and norms of the law. Street-level bureaucrats' interpretations have sometimes overlapped with those of civil society actors. The state is therefore not enforcing one normative order against cultural resistance from society; instead, different state actors are themselves actively involved in the production and preservation of multiple normativities.

Women, Islam, and the Moroccan State: The Struggle over the Personal Status Law

2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman
Keyword(s):  
Family Law ◽  
Women's Groups ◽  
New Family ◽  
Women’S Groups ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Personal Status ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Status Code ◽  
Status Of Women

Since 1991, the status of women in Morocco has been the subject of widespread debate. Efforts by women's groups and liberal political forces to change the Shari'a-based Personal Status Code (moudawwana), were vigorously opposed by conservative and Islamist forces. For both sides, the issue was central to their overall orientations towards “tradition” and “modernity”. King Muhammad VI ultimately tipped the balance in favor of change. The resulting new Family Law may well mark a milestone in Moroccan society's evolution.

scholarly journals Superhero, Sleeping Beauty, or Devil? The Making of Orphan Myths and Public Administration

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Mariglynn Edlins
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Sleeping Beauty ◽  
The State ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Public Administrators ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Romance Novels ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

Children who are separated from their parents, whether temporarily or permanently, become dependent on representatives of the state to make the day-to-day decisions of their care. In these interactions with vulnerable children, these representatives rely on their own discretion to guide them in how to approach the children they are responsible for. What stories exist that might influence how street-level bureaucrats think about children who are separated from their parents? What narratives might inform the discretion and judgment they use in their work? In this paper, I explore the narratives of superhero stories, romance novels, and horror films in order to identify the orphan archetypes they portray and consider how these myths might impact the interactions between orphans and public administrators.

scholarly journals Becoming Austrian: Women, the State, and Citizenship in World War I

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Healy
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The State ◽  
Women's Groups ◽  
World War ◽  
Women’S Groups ◽  
Women's Relationships ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Umbrella Organization ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
Political Spectrum

Inlate July 1914, upon partial mobilization of the Austro-Hungarian army, an urgent appeal to “Austria's women” circulated widely in the Viennese press. It urged women to “perform service in the time of war” and reminded them that in this moment of state peril, women had to suppress their “differences” and display the “strongest solidarity” among themselves. “Women's unity, women's energy, and women's work” would be crucial for the survival of Austria. The notice was published by one of the women's groups in what would become the Frauenhilfsaktion Wien, an umbrella organization founded in early August, comprising the major women's groups in the city. Together with similar subsequent appeals to duty, service, sacrifice, and an inner bond uniting all women, the notice marked the beginning of World War I as a potential turning point in women's relationships with each other and with the state. Across the political spectrum, noble, bourgeois, and working-class women, Christian and Jewish, German-speaking, and others, were asked to put aside their differences and perform war service as “Austria's women.”

Community Policing: Misunderstanding and Misapplication Following Police Shootings

2021 ◽  
pp. 009539972110450
Author(s):  
Joshua Malay
Keyword(s):  
Community Policing ◽  
The State ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Police Shootings ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
The Law ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

Prevailing community policing theory identifies the purpose of community policing being to empower state policing not diminish it. This basis identifies a major misconception of those arguing for police defunding, as it fails to address the realities and limitations of street-level bureaucrats in exercising their authority. Misapplying emotional calls for restructuring into perceived democratic control of the bureaucracy. This article explores the inherent problems within community policing and serves to link these problems within a larger discussion of governance and policing, making an argument that the calls for defunding and community policing at best demonstrate misunderstanding and at worst represent a poorly articulated political ploy. In either case, understanding the larger role of how the state legitimates policing identifies an inherent disconnect between policy and implementation. Substantive change in policing must come from changes in the law that provide the staying power for reform to overcome bureaucratic retrenchment to change and in our view of governance, specifically in what should be enforced and the role of government in maintaining order, to ensure that these reflect the realities of policing.

Policy Refiners and Street-Level Lesson Learners

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Stark
Keyword(s):  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Central Level ◽  
Government Level ◽  
Inquiry Lesson

This chapter explores agents who are influential in terms of inquiry lesson-learning but have not been examined before in inquiry literature. The key argument is that two types of agent—policy refiners and street-level bureaucrats—are important when it comes to the effectiveness of post-crisis lesson-learning. As they travel down from the central government level, street-level actors champion, reinterpret, and reject inquiry lessons, often because those lessons do not consider local capacities. Policy refiners, however, operate at the central level in the form of taskforces, implementation reviews, and policy evaluation processes. These refiners examine potentially problematic inquiry lessons in greater detail in order to determine whether and how they should be implemented. In doing so, these ‘mini-inquiries’ can reformulate or even abandon inquiry recommendations.

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