Will parties help themselves? The role of women associations in Czech parliamentary parties

The aim of this article is to fill in the gap in research focusing on the problem of the political participation of women in the Czech Republic. Based on text and interview analysis, it explains the role of women activists in Czech parliamentary parties in endorsing women for election to representative bodies. The article begins by describing the associations formed by women party activists and their position within the party structure, and then looks at the role of these associations in supporting women’s access to political structures. It also describes how women party activists take into account the barriers to women’s political participation and possible ways of removing these restraints. The final part introduces the hypothesis that although the creation of these associations seems to be a positive step towards improving women chances of gaining access to representative bodies, in their present form and circumstances they have no power to achieve any significant improvement in the status quo.