The Dual Strategy and Gender Policies of the Women's Movement in Korea: Family Headship System Repeal through Strategic Innovation

Social movements sometimes successfully attain their goals by implementing policies and laws that represent their claims. Movement leaders raise issues susceptible to enactment as policies or laws, exploit legally and institutionally assured resources, and even participate at times in governmental p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociological focus (Kent, Ohio) Ohio), 2011-05, Vol.44 (2), p.124-148
Main Author: Suh, Doowon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abolition
Cultural change
Democracy
Equality
Feminism
Gender
Gender equality
Gender politics
International organizations
Political movements
Political sociology
Politics
Social activism
Social movements
Society
Women
Womens rights movements
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Summary:Social movements sometimes successfully attain their goals by implementing policies and laws that represent their claims. Movement leaders raise issues susceptible to enactment as policies or laws, exploit legally and institutionally assured resources, and even participate at times in governmental policymaking and parliamentary lawmaking processes. This engagement strategy maximizes a movement's power to achieve its goals only when it is combined with the conventional activities of mobilizing collective action and forming dense networks across movement organizations to pressure the state. Based on the case study of Korean women's movements and their efforts to abrogate the patrilineal succession of family headship, I argue that movement activists' strategic innovation of blending "institutional politics" with conventional "movement politics"-that is, pursuing a dual strategy (Cohen and Arato 1992) and evolving into "movement institutionalization"-is critical to accomplishing gender policies and laws that, at least institutionally and legally, ensure gender equality.
ISSN:0038-0237
2162-1128
DOI:10.1080/00380237.2011.10571391