Chapter 5 presents a comparison of two countries in Southern Africa, Botswana, and South Africa, which differ in the way they constitutionally recognize gender equality. South Africa takes a substantive approach, constitutionalizing gender differences in an inclusive and egalitarian manner. Botswana's Constitution takes a more formal gender-neutral approach. The chapter analyzes how these differences affect the way advocates use constitutional rights to challenge the status quo or defend legislative gains. The cross-national comparison examines legislative reform efforts and high court decisions in four policy areas: family and customary law, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, and employment rights. The results demonstrate how a gender-neutral approach to women's equality can mask and perpetuate systemic disadvantages, particularly when cultural rights are constitutionally entrenched and protected as they are in Botswana. Botswana's gender-neutral Constitution has limited activists' ability to push for policies that promote women's equality and redress systemic gender discrimination. In South Africa, by contrast, strong substantive gender equality provisions support efforts to attain, and then later defend, policy gains. In South Africa, substantive constitutional rights for gender equality have provided a critical tool to prevent backsliding.

Chapter 3 explores the relationship between gender rights provisions and gender equality outcomes. Are there different outcomes where women's equality is constitutionally valued, protected, and promoted? To address this question, this chapter looks at whether specific rights and provisions are associated with a more women-friendly legal framework in several key policy areas, including family law, reproductive autonomy, and employment equality. Egalitarian provisions are associated with legal frameworks that are more supportive of women's rights. These legal frameworks may, in turn, contribute to greater gender equality; thus, the chapter also examines whether constitutional provisions, along with other explanatory factors, contribute to greater gender equality as measured by global indicators. This analysis employs the authors' global database in which each country's constitution is coded systematically with respect to sex and gender-based rights and protections at three points in time over a 20-year period. The cross-national results show that egalitarian provisions are associated with greater gender equality, while maternal provisions are negatively associated with gender equality.

Chapter 2 situates the study of gender in constitutions in the broader literature. The question of whether women's equality can be furthered by constitutional recognition is closely related to a fundamental debate about the effect of law on society and social change. The argument advanced is that the ways gender equality and difference are constitutionally recognized shape the strategies with which women's rights advocates and their opponents pursue policy changes. Whether the provisions are egalitarian, neutral, or maternal affects the content of subsequent legislation, judicial interpretation of laws and constitutional rights, and women's equality in practice. The chapter lays out the theoretical expectations and then outlines the mixed methods approach taken in the book, which includes both in-depth case studies and large-n quantitative analysis. It also introduces the cross-national database of gender provisions used in this analysis and provides an overview of gender provisions over time and across countries.

Chapter 4 offers a comparative study of Chile and Argentina, neighboring countries in the Southern Cone region of South America that differ with regard to gender provisions in their national constitutions. Chile's constitution is generally neutral toward gender, whereas Argentina's includes several egalitarian provisions. This chapter considers claims in the literature that link constitutional provisions to differences in processes and outcomes, focusing on legislation and constitutional court cases. The comparative study draws on interviews with women's rights advocates and archival research on legislation, legislative debates, and high court decisions to illustrate how constitutional language and the enumeration of women's rights influence the content of legislation as well as judicial review of government policy. A comparative analysis of three policy areas—gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, and employment rights—highlights key differences. Chile's Constitution has not helped advocates achieve their goals (and, in fact, its constitutional provision promoting the family has frequently been an impediment). In contrast, Argentina's Constitution has enabled rights advocates to make progress in the legislative and judicial arenas despite barriers such as low state capacity and less effective gender machinery.

Chapter 1 raises the central question of the book: Do constitutional rights matter for women's equality? To understand whether constitutional gender provisions increase gender equality—and if they do, what the mechanism is—it is important to look systematically for patterns across the world. This introductory chapter previews why constitutional rights and gender provisions matter for women's equality. It makes the case that constitutional provisions fall into three broad categories (gender-neutral, egalitarian, and maternal) and that the way women's and gender equality is recognized has implications for women's social, political, and economic equality. The chapter defines the book's key terms and provides a summary of the argument, explaining how and why constitutional provisions matter for social change and highlighting the methods, core arguments, and central findings. It concludes with a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book.

Gender equality provisions have become nearly standard in constitutional design for new democracies. How do such provisions affect the ability of women’s rights advocates to achieve social change? To address this question, we compare the political use (legislation, policy, and judicial interpretation) of these provisions in Chile and Argentina, countries that differ with respect to how they have constitutionalised gender rights. The comparative analysis demonstrates how gender-specific constitutional provisions provide a legal basis and legitimacy for women’s rights advocates to advance new policy, protect policy gains, and pursue rights-based cases through the courts.

We examine gender provisions in national constitutions and their significance for women's rights advocacy in Latin America and southern Africa. There is considerable debate about whether constitutional rights are merely "parchment barriers" or if they have the potential to further social change. Those who argue that law does matter generally assert that its effect is mediated by social and political actors. What is less understood is how constitutional provisions aid rights advocates' efforts. What do constitutions enable them to do? We seek to shed light on this question by focusing on the strategies and behavior of women's rights advocates given a particular set of constitutional provisions. Using archival research and interviews with women's rights advocates, we examine how gender has been constitutionalized and how constitutional provisions have informed their efforts. Where constitutional provisions for gender equality are substantive, as they are in South Africa and Argentina, these provisions are central to the activities of civil society actors both for policy change advocacy and legal mobilization. In Botswana and Chile, on the other hand, the absence of egalitarian provisions has encouraged advocates to reach around the national constitution and rely on international law as a means to legitimate their claims and fight for favorable policies and court decisions.

How do supranational regional courts, which occupy a space between the national and international, contribute to normative development? We demonstrate that norms are dynamic and require `translation' in order to impact the international system and find expression at the national level. Norm translation is a recursive and dynamic process. We connect this process with research on transnational legal orders (TLOs) and introduce the notion of an `adjudicatory space' in which international norms are interpreted by supranational judicial actors such as the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. We present a case study demonstrating how supranational courts utilize case-law from many different sources to apply, refine, and cross-culturally translate meanings of a norm (in this case violence against women as gender discrimination) into different regional and national cultural contexts. The recursive process of cross-referencing and restatement of norms in supranational adjudicatory space demonstrated in the case study suggests that norm development is progressive, non-linear, and non-hierarchical. The case study also indicates that the locus of norm translation and refinement is not confined to well-established human rights machinery of Europe; in the Global South local and transnational norm entrepreneurs are challenging social and legal norms.

In 2008 the Supreme Court of Argentina began implementing a judicial communication strategy. Crafted in the mid 2000s in response to low public support for and a lack of trust in the judiciary, the Supreme Court's communication strategy promises to create a more open and accessible judiciary. The Court's thinking: greater transparency, purposeful communication, and trained reporters would help the Court address its legitimacy and credibility deficits. Because the media plays a crucial intermediary role in shaping the public image of the court, media inattention, or worse misinterpretation or misrepresentation of judicial decisions, may serve to undermine judicial power and legitimacy. High courts have an institutional interest in making sure the press communicates the message justices want the public to understand about decisions and processes. Staton's (2010) work on the Mexican Supreme Court's use of strategic communication demonstrates how judges may construct their own power and legitimacy in part through a public relations strategy. Similarly, the Argentine Supreme Court has implemented a series of reforms aimed at increasing the court's transparency as well as a broader communication strategy with the explicit goal of improving the Supreme Court's legitimacy and public image and fortifying its authority vis-à-vis other political actors.

"Interteach" is a method of guided discussion and feedback developed by Thomas Boyce and Philip Hineline in 2002. This method, primarily used in the psychology classroom, encourages greater student engagement and responsibility for learning by requiring extensive student preparation, peer-to-peer instruction, and peer evaluation. How can this method be used and modified for the political science classroom to increase students' engagement and to improve students' ability to synthesize complex arguments? In this article, we describe how to use the interteach method in political science and demonstrate its effectiveness in multiple classroom scenarios. The research is based on evidence from five different political science courses, ranging from the introductory-level to seminar-style classes.

This article examines the use of gender in constitutions and its significance for gender equality. New democracies, and some older ones, are increasingly including gender provisions in their constitutions. What is the impact of these provisions on women's political and economic status? Does constitutionalizing gender serve to empower women? If so, what kinds of provisions have an empowering effect and under what conditions? To address these questions, we trace the political use (legislation, policy, and judicial interpretation) of gendered constitutional provisions in Botswana and South Africa, countries that differ substantially with respect to how they have “constitutionalized” gender. The case studies demonstrate how constitutional provisions provide a legal basis and legitimacy for women's rights advocacy and how they influence the content of legislation and judicial review of laws and policies.

Most analyses of the judicialization of politics focus on judicial policy-making and rights creation; however when judicialization of politics unfolds in a separation of powers political context courts are also involved in distributing power. The task of power delineation among branches of government is different from policy-making or rights adjudication. Judicializing political disputes about power gives courts the opportunity to alter the balance of institutional power, to create stronger executives (or legislatures) and a stronger (or weaker) role for themselves. To illustrate these points, this article examines how the Chilean Constitutional Tribunal (TC) adjudicated a specific type of separation of powers conflict between the Legislature and the Executive from 1990-2005. The analysis of the TC doctrine overtime highlights how the TC has shifted the balance of power in the policy-making process and augmented its influence within the political system.

In this paper we offer an account of the constitutionalization or transposition of regional convention law into national law that highlights the role of domestic political actors. We develop a theoretical framework for understanding the response of national political actors to the jurisprudence of regional level courts. Specifically, we explore the circumstances under which regional court decisions are a political tool for politicians and other political or social actors to achieve their policy goals. Are national political actors attuned to the jurisprudence of regional courts? Under what conditions might legislators in national parliaments take decisions or impending decisions of regional courts into account as they draft legislation? We address these questions in the empirical context of two regional courts, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and two states in those regional jurisdictions, Germany and Chile, respectively.

Should women's rights advocates pursue a politics of difference or a politics of equality? This question is addressed by coding for and analyzing the use of gender in constitutional structures in seventy-four countries. Countries with constitutional structures that emphasize women's different needs and provide gender-based protections are compared to countries with constitutional structures that emphasize equality or gender neutrality. Examining whether these differences have a significant effect on women's political representation and economic standing, it appears that a politics of difference based on constitutional provisions that proactively promote women's equality in the political and economic sphere is positively associated with gender equality-especially political equality.