To what extent do differences in state-religious relations explain the divergent paths of Iran and Tunisia regarding CEDAW implementation?

Abstract

This dissertation examines why countries with similar religious contexts exhibit dramatically different outcomes in implementing international women's rights treaties. Through comparative analysis of Iran and Tunisia's responses to CEDAW, this study challenges essentialist assumptions linking Islamic doctrine with women's rights outcomes. To explain these divergent outcomes, this research employs Historical Institutionalism as the theoretical framework, tracing how critical junctures during constitutional moments created divergent path-dependent trajectories in both countries. The methodology combines Historical Comparative Analysis through process tracing and cross-case comparison, utilizing historical and institutional analysis to examine the evolution of women's rights implementation across both cases. The analysis reveals that Iran's concentrated authority structure enables systematic obstruction through single-point blocking mechanisms, while Tunisia's distributed institutional framework prevents effective coordination among opponents of gender equality reforms. These contrasting institutional configurations explain why Tunisia successfully implements CEDAW provisions and removes all reservations while Iran has failed to ratify the treaty, despite both countries sharing Islamic legal traditions. The findings identify four key mechanisms that facilitate women's rights advancement regardless of religious context: distributed authority systems, embedded accountability mechanisms, clear legal hierarchies, and coordination impossibility for reform opponents. These mechanisms form the foundation of an analytical framework applicable across 49 Muslim-majority countries with varied institutional arrangements. By demonstrating that institutional configuration, rather than religious doctrine, determines women's rights outcomes, this research fundamentally reframes international engagement strategies toward institutional capacity building during constitutional moments rather than women's rights programs or religious dialogue initiatives.