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ABSTRACT
This article argues that in considering the effects of economic policy reform on women’s human rights, we must also consider the political economy mechanisms through which these effects operate. Treating the distribution of policy costs and benefits as outcomes of a given state of the world is unsatisfactory because economic policy reforms both shape and are shaped by those costs and benefits. Using a political economy model of economic policymaking, the article shows how the choice of economic policy and its impacts on women’s human rights are endogenous to various gendered political-economic forces, which have interest, institutional and ideational-based dynamics. It argues further that while the gender-related standards set out in the Guiding Principles on Foreign Debt and Human Rights are an ambitious step forward in addressing possible negative impacts on women’s human rights, their relative salience in the shaping of economic policy will be mediated by these same political-economic forces.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Abby Kendrick is Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Warwick. Her work crosses economics, politics and philosophy in the areas of institutions, development and human rights. Her current research centres on the nature of social rights and development goals as claimable entitlements, and the implementation and enforcement of these entitlements by domestic and international institutions.
Notes
1 Exceptions include the many works of Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. Exceptions can also be found in the economic literature on endogenous trade policy. See, e.g. Stephen P. Magee, William A. Brock and Leslie Young, Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Giovanni Maggi and Andres Rodríguez-Clare, (2007); Stephen P. Magee, William A. Brock and Leslie Young, ‘A Political-Economy Theory of Trade Agreements’, The American Economic Review 97, no. 4 (2007): 1374–406.
2 Hannah Bargawi, Giovanni Cozzi and Susan Himmelweit, Economics and Austerity in Europe: Gendered Impacts and Sustainable Alternatives (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017); Maria Karamessini and Jill Rubery, Women and Austerity: The Economic Crisis and the Future of Gender Equality (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013); Hélène Périvier, ‘Recession, Austerity and Gender: A Comparison of Eight European Labour Markets’, International Labour Review 157, no. 1 (2016): 1–37; Mary-Ann Stephenson, ‘Feminist Challenges to Austerity’, Globalizations 13, no. 6 (2016): 915–8; UN Women, Progress of the World’s Women 2015–2016: Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights (New York: UN Women, 2015).
3 International Labour Organization, Fiscal Space for Social Protection and the SDGs: Options to Expand Social Investments in 187 Countries (Geneva: ESS Working Paper No. 48, 2017).
4 Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, ‘Economics Versus Politics: Pitfalls of Policy Advice’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 2 (2013): 174, 176.
5 Where γ represents the political economy parameter in a general sense, which is a function of state of the world political-economic forces (denoted by s) and political power forces (denoted by p).
6 Daniel Béland, ‘Reconsidering Policy Feedback: How Policies Affect Politics’, Administration & Society 42, no. 5 (2010): 568–90; Daniel Béland, How Ideas and Institutions Shape the Politics of Public Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Andrea Louise Campbell, ‘Policy Makes Mass Politics’, Annual Review of Political Science 15 (2012): 333–51; Theodore J. Lowi, ‘American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory’, World Politics 16, no. 4 (1964): 677–715; Suzanne Mettler and Mallory SoRelle, ‘Policy Feedback Theory’, in Theories of the Policy Process, ed. Christopher M. Weible and Paul A. Sabatier (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2014), 151–81; Paul Pierson, ‘Review: When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change World Politics 45, no. 4 (1993): 595–628.
7 Robert A. Dahl, ‘The Concept of Power’, Behavioural Science 2, no. 3 (1957): 201–15; Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (New York: New York University Press, 1974).
8 Peter Morriss, Power: A Philosophical Analysis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002).
9 Pamela Pansardi, ‘Power To and Power Over: Two Distinct Concepts of Power?’, Journal of Political Power 5, no. 1 (2012): 73–89.
10 Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Braratz, ‘Two Faces of Power’, American Political Science Review 56, no. 4 (1962): 947–52; Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961); Richard M. Emerson, ‘Power-Dependence Relations’, American Sociological Review 27, no. 1 (1962): 31–41; Dennis H. Wrong, ‘Some Problems in Defining Social Power’, American Journal of Sociology 73, no. 6 (1968): 673–81.
11 Craig Parsons, How to Map Arguments in Political Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 6.
12 Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, ‘Power in International Politics’, International Organization 59, no. 1 (2005): 39–75.
13 Parsons, How to Map Arguments in Political Science, 13.
14 Ibid.
15 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
16 Jon Elster, The Cement of Society. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
17 Daniel Béland, ‘Ideas, Institutions, and Policy Change’, Journal of European Public Policy 16, no. 5 (2009):701–18; Daniel Béland and Alex Waddan, ‘Breaking Down Ideas and Institutions: The Politics of Tax Policy in the US and the UK’, Policy Studies 36, no. 2 (2015): 176–95; John L. Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization (NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); Robert C. Lieberman, ‘Ideas, Institutions, and Political Order: Explaining Political Change’, American Political Science Review 96, no. 4 (2002): 697–712; Vivien A. Schmidt, ‘Reconciling Ideas and Institutions Through Discursive Institutionalism’, in Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research, ed. Daniel Béland and Robert H. Cox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 47–64.
18 Tasleem Padamsee, ‘Culture in Connection: Re-Contextualising Ideational Processes in the Analysis of Policy Development’, Social Politics 16, no. 4 (2009): 413–45.
19 Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, Course in General Linguistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966).
20 Padamsee, ‘Culture in Connection’, 421.
21 Kenneth J. Gergen, An Invitation to Social Construction (London: Sage, 1999).
22 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980); Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989); Susan J. Hekman, Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996); Johanna Oksala, Foucault On Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Johanna Oksala, Feminist Experiences: Foucauldian and Phenomenological Investigations (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2016).
23 Ann S. Orloff, ‘Motherhood, Work, and Welfare in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia’, in State/Culture: State-Formation After the Cultural Turn, ed. George Steinmet (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 291–320; Padamsee, ‘Culture in Connection’.
24 Julia Adams and Tasleem Padamsee, ‘Signs and Regimes: Rereading Feminist Work on Welfare States’, Social Politics 8, no. 1 (2001): 1–23; John L. Campbell, ‘Ideas, Politics and Public Policy’, Annual Review of Sociology 28, no. 1 (2002): 21–38.
25 Jane Lewis, ‘Gender and Welfare Regimes: Further Thoughts’, Social Politics 4, no. 2 (1997): 160–77; Ann S. Orloff, ‘Gendering the Comparative Analysis of Welfare States: An Unfinished Agenda’, Sociological Theory 27, no. 3 (2009): 317–43.
26 Lynne Haney, ‘Homeboys, Babies, Men in Suits: The State and the Reproduction of Male Dominance’, American Sociological Review 61, no. 5 (1996): 759–78.
27 Padamsee, ‘Culture in Connection’, 427.
28 Peter A. Hall, ‘Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain’, Comparative Politics 25, no. 3 (1993): 275–96.
29 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 18 December 1979, A/RES/34/180.
30 UN Human Rights Council, Guiding principles on human rights impact assessments of economic reforms – Report of the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, 19 December 2018, A/HRC/40/57, Principle 8(2).
31 Ibid., Principle 8(3).
32 Jane Jenson, ‘Paradigms and Political Discourse: Protective Legislation in France and the United States Before 1914’, Canadian Journal of Political Science 22, no. 2 (1989): 238.
33 Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization; John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little Brown, 1984); Jal Mehta, ‘The Varied Roles of Ideas in Politics: From “Whether” to “How” in Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research (see note 17), 23–46; Deborah A. Stone, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012).
34 Mehta, ‘The Varied Roles of Ideas in Politics’.
35 Michel Foucault, ‘Polemics, Politics and Problematizations: An Interview with Michel Foucault’, in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Michel Foucault (London: Allen Lane, 1997), 111–9; Deborah A. Stone, ‘Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas’, Political Science Quarterly 104, no. 2 (1989): 281–300.
36 Diane Elson, ‘Gender Relations and Economic Issues’, Focus on Gender 1, no. 3 (1993): 4.
37 International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook: The Great Lockdown (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 2020).
38 Susan Himmelweit, ‘Making Visible the Hidden Economy: The Case for Gender-Impact Analysis of Economic Policy’, Feminist Economics 8, no. 1 (2002): 49–70; Gaëlle Ferrant, Luca Maria Pesando and Keiko Nowacka, Unpaid Care Work: The Missing Link in the Analysis of Gender Gaps in Labour Outcomes (Paris: OECD Development Centre Policy Brief, 2014); Nancy Folbre, Developing Care: Recent Research on the Care Economy and Economic Development (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre Canada, 2018); Plan International UK Real Choices, Real Lives: Girls’ Burden of Unpaid Care (London: Plan International UK, 2017); Francesca Francavilla and Gianna Claudia Giannelli ‘Dressing a Ghost: Size and Value of Unpaid Family Care’, Applied Economics 51, no. 28 (2019): 3015–30.
39 Gaelle Ferrant and Annelise Thim Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment: Time Use Data and Gender Inequality (Paris: OECD Development Policy Papers no. 16, 2019)
40 Béland’s discussion relates to bricolage as originally theorised by Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization.
41 Béland, How Ideas and Institutions Shape the Politics of Public Policy, 40.
42 Jenson, ‘Paradigms and Political Discourse’.
43 Bargawi, Cozzi and Himmelweit, Economics and Austerity in Europe; Bob Jessop ‘Narratives of Crisis and Crisis Response: Perspectives from North and South’, in Global Crisis and Transformation, ed. Peter Utting, Sharah Razari and Rebecca Varghese Buchholz (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 23–41; Karamessini and Rubery, Women and Austerity; Julie MacLeavy, ‘A New Politics of Austerity, Workfare and Gender? The UK Coalition Government’s Welfare Reform Proposals’, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 4, no. 3 (2011): 355–67; Ruth Pearson and Diane Elson, ‘Transcending the Impact of the Financial Crisis in the United Kingdom: Towards Plan F – A Feminist Economic Strategy’, Feminist Review 109, no. 1 (2015): 8–30.
44 Diane Perrons, ‘Gender and Inequality: Austerity and Alternatives’, Intereconomics 52, no. 1 (2017): 28–33.
45 Gino Brunswijck, Unhealthy Conditions: IMF Loan Conditionality and its Impact on Health Financing (Brussels: Eurodad, 2018).
46 Christine Lagarde, ‘Empowerment – the Amartya Sen Lecture’ (lecture, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, 6 June 2014); Kristalina Georgieva, ‘IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings’ (talk, World Bank, Washington, DC, 2 November 2019).
47 World Bank, World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020). See Figure 7.13 on p. 187 for a particularly enlightening overview.
48 Agnieszka Graff, Ratna Kapur and Suzanna Danuta Walters ‘Gender and the Rise of the Global Right’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 44, no. 3 (2019): 541–60.
49 Elizabeth S. Corredor, ‘Unpacking “Gender Ideology” and the Global Right’s Antigender Countermovement’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 44, no. 3 (2019): 617.
50 Padamsee, ‘Culture in Connection’, 420.
51 Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change (London: Sage, 2009).
52 Carol Bacchi and Joan Eveline, ‘Mainstreaming and Neoliberalism: A Contested Relationship’, Policy and Society 22, no. 2 (2003): 98–118; Penny Griffin, ‘Crisis, Austerity, and Gendered Governance: A Feminist Perspective’, Feminist Review 109, no. 1 (2015): 49–72.
53 Sally Budgeon, ‘The Resonance of Moderate Feminism and the Gendered Relations of Austerity’, Gender, Work & Organization, 26, no. 8 (2019): 1138–55.
54 Ibid., 1147–8.
55 Ibid., 1140.
56 Ibid., 1147.
57 Padamsee, ‘Culture in Connection’, 428–32.
58 Hall, ‘Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State’.
59 Linda M.G. Zerilli, Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
60 Budgeon, ‘The Resonance of Moderate Feminism’, 1149.
61 Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘Norm Dynamics and Political Change’, International Organization, 54, no. 4 (1998): 897.
62 This latter point has particular relevance for explaining what I expect will be a relatively lacklustre response to the Principles in practice and provides reason why I am – albeit heavy heartedly – pessimistic about the likelihood that states and international financial institutions will undertake or be responsive to women’s human rights impacts assessments of a power-augmented type, at least in the short term. See Human Rights Council resolution 40/L.13, which called on UN agencies and IFIs to consider taking into account the Guiding Principles in the formulation and implementation of their economic reforms and measures.
63 Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘Norm Dynamics and Political Change’, 913.
64 Lieberman, ‘Ideas, Institutions, and Political Order’.
65 Illan Rua Wall, ‘On a Radical Politics for Human Rights’, in The Meanings of Rights: The Philosophy and Social Theory of Human Rights, ed. Conor Gearty and Costas Douzinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 109.
66 Ibid., 118. Here, Wall is engaging with Lefebvre’s suggestion of the ‘right to autogestion’ as operating as both ‘the site and stake of struggle’ as a means to illustrate his more fundamental argument regarding the disruptive potential of human rights in the critical tradition to ‘radically open a particular situation to being-otherwise’. Another take on this argument is discussed in Sumi Madhok, ‘Developmentalism, Gender and Rights: From a Politics of Origins to a Politics of Meanings’, in Human Rights: India and the West, ed. Jay Drydyk and Ashwani Peetush (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015).
67 These sentiments are also implicit throughout, Radhika Balakrishnan, James Heintz and Diane Elson, Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice: The Radical Potential of Human Rights (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016). Although the authors do not theorise the radicalness of human rights per se.
68 Charlotte Bunch and Niamh Reilly ‘Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Twenty-Five Years On’, in International Human Rights of Women, ed. Niamh Reilly (Singapore: Springer, 2019); Charlotte Bunch ‘Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-Vision of Human Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly, 12, no. 4 (1990): 486–98.
69 For a persuasive critical account of the various feminisms that have been relied upon in contemporary political discourse, see, Clare Hemmings, Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011).
70 I give thanks to the Editors of this Special Edition for prompting me to reflect on this potentiality.
71 John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970); Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender and the Family (New York: Basic Books, 1989).
72 Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990).