This paper develops a conceptual framework for comparing domestic political contexts in which women's movements advocate for domestic violence policy change. It builds on the concept of political opportunity structures. Political opportunity structures define the playing field in which women's movements have to act and pursue their claims. We argue that in order to understand why in Central and Eastern European countries women's movements succeed or fail in pursuing women friendly domestic violence policy reforms we have to look at two relevant aspects of political opportunity structures: structures supportive of gender equality, and structures contesting gender equality. For defining pro gender equality structures we build on social movement and gender and politics literature. Concepts such as gendered structures and the gender of governance are used to capture culturally and politically specific patterns of genderedness of different countries or different mobilization contexts. For structures contesting gender equality we look at discursive elements opposing a gender equality resonant reading of domestic violence, and actors behind them, state, as well as non-state opponents: counter-movements and other institutional actors. We test the conceptual framework by comparing five countries of Central and Eastern Europe in two moments when significant policy debates on domestic violence took place. The paper does not propose a full explanatory model, it only aims to look at one element of such a model: the structural variable at the domestic level. Developing a conceptual model for comparing gendered and anti-gender opportunity structures will contribute to understanding gender policy change beyond domestic violence policies processes.
