Introduction

Partially because of the continuous addition of new states, it took almost a century before women’s suffrage would become a worldwide phenomenon. The development of national women’s policy bureaus, so-called “national women’s machinery” (NWM), was much more rapid, becoming a global fact within a couple of decades. National women’s machinery consists of formalized institutions officially part of either the administrative or governmental state structure. Although their specific directives vary, they all address the situation of women in some manner and thus bring women’s issues into the formalized public policy planning and implementation processes of the state. Their organization can take several forms, ranging from a more permanent ministry of women’s affairs that employs civil service staff to a council or commission populated by partisan government officials.

Between 1976 and 1985, during the United Nations Decade for Women, over two thirds of UN member states created some form of bureaucracy to formally oversee and direct public policy related to the status of women. During this period, there was furthermore a general shift away from what had initially been advisory commissions to the establishment of more permanent government units. It is important to remember that a century earlier, legislation to bar women from entering state office had spread among states. Now, not only were women allowed to hold public employment, but they apparently merited a bureaucracy of their own. The stunning worldwide creation of these bureaucracies between 1961 and 1986 is the focus of this chapter.