Meeting with a Contact

While there are technically three guys who work at Florozon, I had only met one of them once at the workshop they hosted. I was able to set up a meeting with him to see his views of the NGO sector. He has worked since 1994 in the civil society sector, and since 1998 with NGOs specifically. Many of the views stated below are his, and just give another perspective to the  debate.

He said that the sector has changed in the last five years in a positive sense. In the post-conflict society, there was some activism, mostly in youth organizations. The organizations were mostly with sports, schools, labor unions. In the beginning of transnational period, there was additional input from external sources. They began activism with issues of the environment, humanitarian aid connected to the Balkan wars. After 2001, there were organizations who dealt with peace issues and human rights. During their unlucky circumstances, it developed positively.

The problem with civil society in Macedonia, according to him, is that they mainly lack activism. Most NGOs are not member based or financed well. The knowledge and skills of NGO workers are still in development. Many people are not involved in civil society due to their fear of the government. there were some attempts to work critically against the government, but they were often “neutralized immediately.” Some of the attempts were shut down discreetly by discrediting the organizations or threatening the people who work there with jail.

When I asked if there was cooperation with the government, and he commented that there is some. Int he transition, the government didn’t see the benefit of civil society. Soon they realized the power that civil society had and wanted to be involved. Sometimes it is called the 5th sector, and the government tries to discredit NGOs as working for foreign agencies as spies. The political party with power is dealing with establishing small satellites all over the country (the NGOGOs). However, cooperation exists with a lot of analysis on who and why. The EU is pushing for cooperation especially in UNDP. There are areas where the government has no experience, and he thinks that NGOs can help in this area.

My contact is currently working in the government helping them to implement affirmative action. “No matter what, the government should cooperate to better serve.”  He is helping the government to try to link projects to have a better impact. The municipalities have responded favorable to the linkage. They are trying a mediation in schools as well. He wants better cooperation so there is a better institutionalization of the cooperation. He has worked with ‘teaching the teacher’ to reteach for more mediation between different groups, if the government doesn’t like anything they can just forget.

Financially, there are some connections between the government and NGOs. There is funding from casinos and the lottery. There are yearly bases, but they only give money to ‘their’ NGOs. There are special funds for NGOs, but there is a lot of criticism. When the government changes (as in the party changes), the list of recipients changes. If cooperation doesn’t go well, they will loose the money. Many NGOs have never asked for money, because they don’t want the money from the government. Many feel that it lacks impartially. It is seen as corrupted if they take the money; however, if there was a separate organization, they feel it would be corrupted too. Money often comes from international organizations and bilateral agreements.

For cooperation with the municipality, it depends on the individual municipalities. Some municipalities still want NGOs to be obedient. If the municipalities see the NGOs as having some power- they want to work with them. The municipalities will also work closer if the NGO is connected internationally. Sometimes municipalities support small NGOs or smaller projects by NGOs.

The biggest organizations are focused in Skopje, where there is a higher concentration of money. A few have tried to decentralize from Skopje, but most are still there. There is rarely any high profile organizations or money in the non-capital cities.

The current NGOs focus mostly on peace building. They might be dealing with the past and conflict management or  the “burning issues” (more ad-hoc intervention, monuments, identity issues, etc.). Some of the more successful ones focus on youth leadership and identification of potential leaders. Since 2001, most have focused on inter-ethnic cooperation. Many have targeted secondary schools and the youth. Some do this by teaching the directors and teachers of schools other by reaching out to the students. Some organizations want to better teach the OFA an related issues, others focus more on the environment.

This meeting went very well for such a short meeting, he offered to give me some contact information to other NGOs.

Intersecton of gender and The State

The book Gender, Politics and the State edited by Vicky Randall and Georgina Waylan is aptly named. Most articles connect the three and how they interact with each other. Yet, we as readers and thinkers need to understand that you cannot analyze women and/in politics without both understanding the structures that constrain choices that individual women make and impact that other choices have on the state and those structures (Waylan, 2). In addition, often times we refer to “the state” or “the government” without realizing that they are not “a unitary structure but a differentiated set of institutions, agencies and discourses, and the product of a particular historical and political conjuncture” (Waylan, 7). Waylan concludes that thus, the state (and its gender policies) are a reflection of the society that built it as well as the society that is currently using it (7).
There are three ways that the state implements policies towards women

1. policies actually aimed at women
1. such as protective legislation (in the workplace) and laws aimed at reproduction
2. policies dealing with relations between men and women
1. such as property rights, sexuality, family relations
1. these are often insitutionalized
3. General policies (which are further sub categorized as
1. “gender neutral” policies
2. policies linked to the public sphere and seen as masculine
1. state-defined politics, war, foreign policy, international trade, resource extraction and long distance communication
3. policies concerned with welare and social reproduction
1. home related issues, health and education

[Taken from Charlto et al. (1989) “Women, the State & Development,” Albany, NY: SUNY Press, but found in Waylan, 9-10]

These discussions are important to keep in mind as I switch to the interaction between sex and the state. A helpful definition of the modern European state is one that has the “power which claims the supreme right to make and enforce rules for all the inhabitants of a given territory” (Vogel, 32). In addition, “the state serves to establish a legal order capable of enforcing the peaceful coexistence and cooperation among individuals” (Vogel, 32). A being part of a modern state, an important concept is citizenship. Citizenship “provides a major link between states, individuals and collectives” (Waylan, 12). Citizenship is often presumed to be universal by the fact that citizens are defined by “what they have in common and in opposition to the particular characters of different groups” as well as the idea that “laws and rules are the same for all and are blind to particular individual and group differences” (Nash, 46).

The UN Commission on the Status of Women has been requesting all states to set up “specialized institutions to advance the economic, social and political position of women” (Howell, 167). While Howell notes that women are being employed in post communist Eastern Europe, it is mostly in the “light industries” such as health, education, and textiles (Howell, 169). These industries are often considered less central to the economy and wages are often lower in these sectors of the economy.


Gender, Politics, and the State, edited by Vicky Randall & georgina Waylan. London: Routledge,1998.

Jude Howell, “gender, Civil Society and the State,” 166-184

Kate Nash, “Beyond Liberalism? Feminist Theories of Democracy,” 45-57

Ursular Vogel, “The State and the making of gender: some historical legacies,” 29-44

Post Communist Transition

 Many articles I found linked the Balkans and all of the other post-Soviet countries as having similar “women’s issues.” Since they share a part in a Communism past that directed that women and men were equal “created a cultural and developmental legacy that differs in key respects from the Western democracies and countries in the developing world” (Matland & Montgomery, 19). After the fall of communism, when “democracy” was beginning to take over Eastern Europe many things changed in the political system while transitioning, specifically with in women’s roles and rights. (While this may seem like a “duh” statement- they went from communism to democracy! of course things changed- bear with me.)

Women went from being considered equal by law to having their issues considered “tertiary issues that could be dealt with once the ‘real issues’ of transition had been resolved” (Matland & Montgomery, 39). In fact, most students of democratization have either over looked gender entirely or treated the decline i female representation as a return to ‘normal politics’ in the region” (Montgomery, 3). Yet, it is important to note that while legally  women and men were equal and there was no difference between the sexes, the stress remains on legally. In practice, the household remained the burden of the wife. While men were often advised to “help out more” their role within the family was never officially challenged. (Matland & Montgomery, 36) So this transition appeared on paper, could be argued that it was just changing to reflect the actual status of the family.

It is not to say that women were forced to give up all of their political power by the new regimes, sometimes women were “eager to shed their many burdens...voluntarily  withdrew from the public sphere” (Montgomery, 7). Matland & Montgomery go on to point out that at a practical level, women were promised greater access to Western goods and services if they retreated and allowed the government to transition ‘properly’ (38). However, when women lost their power, at least in Macedonia, they were not provoked due to their concern about the safety of their children and families than their own political representation (Ristova, 212).

It does not help matters that in many countries in Eastern Europe, “at least some voters believe men are better suited for politics than women and that men are more able executives and legislators” (Wilcox, Stark, & Thomas, 42). Further, many people believe in the traditional stereotype that women are “too moralistic to engage in the back-room dealmaking that often allows legislatures to reach compromise [nor are they] sufficiently rough to manage the rough and tumble world of politics” (Wilcox, Stark, & Thomas, 42). While I see a back-handed compliment in there, it is disastrous to the idea of women in politics (and politics in general) that women are too moral to be engaged in politics. {Maybe politics should be cleaned up so moral people can lead the country?}

In Macedonia, after the transition, the first 3 elections through 1998, only 3 to 7 % of the Parliament was filled with female representatives (Ristova, 196). All of the political parties in Macedonia declared their “dedication to gender equality” (Ristova, 203) during these elections. There was a difference between the elections and what was highlighted.

• 1990- women in the context of family relations
• 1994 & 1998 - covered a broader range of issues with gender relations and status of women
• improving women’s political representation, protection of employment rights, etc.

Women’s Access to Political Power in Post-Communist Europe, ed: Richard Matland & Kathleen Montgomery. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Richard Matland & Kathleen Montgomery, “Recruiting Women to National Legislatures: A General Framework with Applications to Post-Communist Democracies.”

Kathleen Montgomery, “Introduction”

Karolina Ristova, “Establishing a Machocracy: Women & Elections in Macedonia (1990-8)”

Clyde Wilcox, Beth Stark, & Sue Thomas, “Popular Support for Electing Women in Eastern Europe.”

Transitions and Gender

The next few articles that I looked at were about feminism and women’s rights in the transitioning cultures of Eastern Europe/the Balkans. Part of this transition includes the creation of a national myth of heritage. In most of these myths women were to play a crucial role in the extreme nationalism that was helpful to the disintegration of both Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The build up of one nationality often focused on women ‘doing what nature intended and having babies’! Dasa Duhacek believes that the state uses gender or women in at least three different ways:

1. changing abortion laws as a way of nation building: In communist times there was a relaxed abortion policy  allowing women to receive aborts with fewer questions. It was also not looked down upon or thought of as a serious problem. However, newer nations would often change their abortion policy so that it became harder for women to access these services. Some politicians even stated that it was to help bring up the birthrate of the population so that they could have more ethnic citizens. Some states, it has been accused, went a step further and made it more difficult in general and then made it easier for the “wrong” ethnicity to access abortion services.
2. reproduction as a function of nation and motherhood: This idea is that if you do not have children and many of them you are trying to kill the state (and ethnicity). Thus women should not work so they can focus on creating new life and blood for the country. Women were seen as the caretakers of the young and thus the nation. They did this by influencing the young children’s thought towards the correct (state and party) line. When you had children you were helping to support the nation by giving it many more new citizens.
3. rape as a way of politics:This is sadly the easiest to explain. Rape was used not only as a means of war and a weapon in the Balkan conflicts, but also after the war when they were setting up their societies. Rape was not fully decriminalized, but not punished as harshly as before. Women faced the same pressures in these areas as they did else where: if you dress like a slut, then obviously you were asking to get raped. (For a modern take on these comments see: Wikipedia on Slut Walk for the links and a quick summary)

In socialist/communist times (Yugoslavia was a communist state, but not connected with the USSR. They had more political freedom than the USSR and access to western goods.) there was an official “equality paradigm,” where you were not to consider gender. Officially the people were genderless (except for when it came to maternity leave and women working less ‘safe’ jobs where they were given laxer treatment). The new ideology of the state (usually based in a western-conservative ideology of religion) was “crucially based on the strategy of retraditionalization of women’s identities, their social roles and symbolic representations” (Papic, 122). Yet it is not correct to expect the state to willingly give up these gendered roles that it helped to create when it serves the government well in their nationalist rhetoric as well as their own personal beliefs. Institutions were built upon these hierarchies and their inherent inequality (Ivekovic, 57). To change these views meant that institutions would have to be changed, and this would harm whoever was currently in power at the time, thus no one was willing to do so, and they remain unwilling.




Zarana Papic, “Women in Serbia: Post-Communism, War & Nationalist Mutations,” in Gender & identity: Theories from &/or on South East Europe, ed by Jelisaveta Blagojevic, Katerina Kolozova, Svetlana Slapsak. (Belgrade Women’s Studies & Gender Research/Athena, 2006).

Dasa Duhacek, “Gender Perspective on Political Identies in Yugoslavia,” in Gender & identity: Theories from &/or on South East Europe, ed by Jelisaveta Blagojevic, Katerina Kolozova, Svetlana Slapsa, 297-319. (Belgrade Women’s Studies & Gender Research/Athena, 2006).