The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's Gender Action Plan and the Gendered Political Economy of Post-Communist Transition

Abstract

In this article, we explore the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's (EBRD's) place in the gendered political economy of Eastern Central Europe's post-communist transition. We document the gendered modalities surrounding the EBRD's policy strategies for post-communist transition, suggesting that they help to naturalise certain gendered constructions of neoliberal development and market-building. To elaborate these claims we show first, how the EBRD largely ignored gender until the ‘global financial crisis’ when it discovered gender mainstreaming by mobilising the Gender Action Plan (GAP); and then second, how the 2013 revision of the GAP, the Strategic Gender Initiative extended the EBRD's gender aware activities. Both policies illustrate how the EBRD's understanding and application of gender fit firmly within a neoliberal framework promoting transition as a form of modernisation where gender inequality is always posited as external to the market and reproduces uneven and exploitative social relations.

EXTRACTO - Este artículo explora el papel del Banco Europeo de Reconstrucción y Desarrollo (EBRD por sus siglas en inglés) en la política económica de género de transición post –comunista en Europa Central Oriental. Se han documentado las modalidades que rodean las estrategias políticas de género del EBRD en la transición post-comunista, sugiriendo que estas ayudan a naturalizar ciertas construcciones de género del desarrollo y construcción de mercado neoliberal. Para profundizar en estas consideraciones demostramos, primero, cómo el EBRD hizo omisión extensa del género hasta la “crisis financiera global” cuando descubrió la incorporación del género mediante el lanzamiento del Plan de Acción de Géneros (GAP por sus siglas en inglés) y entonces, en segunda instancia, como la revisión del GAP en 2013, denominada Iniciativa estratégica de Géneros amplió la cobertura de las actividades de reconocimiento de género del EBRD. Ambas políticas ilustran como la comprensión y la aplicación de género por parte del EBRD se ajusta firmemente al marco neoliberal que promueve la transición como una forma de modernización en la que la desigualdad de géneros es siempre posicionada como externa al mercado y reproduce relaciones sociales desiguales y de explotación.

Keywords:

• European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
• gender
• feminist IPE
• Eastern Central Europe
• market building
• development

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Citizens, Civil Society and the Politics of ‘Market Building’ in Asia workshop, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, 23–24 February 2012. We are grateful to the workshop participants for their remarks. Huw Macartney and Bill Paterson offered thoughtful comments on earlier drafts. In addition we extend our appreciation to the editors of this special issue whose patience we have sorely tested. Finally, we would also like to thank the three referees for the journal. Their comments, advice, and critical (and in one case extensive) engagement with the initial submission have proved invaluable in helping us to revise the article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 To achieve this we situate the article at the intersection of dialogue between feminist and critical IPE. In no way do we intend to suggest that feminist IPE is not critical. This is more a comment on the disciplinary constructions of particular forms of knowledge. We do this mindful that the restructuring of relations of production under neoliberalisation requires an examination of the changing relations of social reproduction and consumption, taking core concepts of gender seriously. We develop this further in the next section but for now see for example Waylen, 2006; Steans and Tepe, 2010; Murphy, 1996, Macartney and Shields, 2011.

2 Peterson enlarges on this:

Corollary stereotypes of (devalued) femininity and (valued) masculinity map onto the gendered dichotomy of public and private that locates women and feminized work/activities in the family/household as unpaid, unskilled, reproductive and ‘natural’ – in contrast to (over)valorized masculine activities in the public sphere, cast as paid, skilled, productive and ‘political’. (2003, p. 9)

3 For notable exceptions see Pollert (1999); Stenning and Hardy (2005); Kuehnast and Nechemias (2004); and Gal and Kligman (2000), but we would note that many of these interventions remain on the margins of the transitological orthodoxy.

4 This section draws on material from Shields (2015) which outlines the shifting internal discourse of policy at the EBRD in more depth than the necessarily truncated version here.

5 The outcome was that it was considered better to undertake all the changes concurrently and as rapidly as possible, because of the threat that the ‘losers’ would feel the social costs and uncertainties pushed through by the shocks of change a lot quicker than the ‘winners’ would experience success—a message that persists to this day (on ECE compare World Bank 2004; and EBRD 2007; and for contemporary developments in the Middle East/North Africa [MENA] see EBRD 2012).

6 This occurred roughly concurrently with the EBRD's burgeoning interest in Central Asia and the CIS. In an effort to remedy the ‘poor investment climate and underdeveloped market economies’, the EBRD had launched the ‘Early Transition Countries Initiative’ in 2004. This included advice and finance provided to SMEs while the EBRD ‘engage[d] in policy dialogue to the purpose of institutional reform’ (EBRD, 2004). The Women in Business programme constitutes an integral part of this, clearly indicating that governments need ‘better realise the potential of women's contribution to economic development in emerging markets’ (Greenberg, 2010, p. 2). The programme targets women-led enterprises and has executed 86 projects involving consultancy, guidance and subsidies for female entrepreneurs, 36 focus groups and workshops to develop business skills, alongside study tours and networking activities in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Serbia, and the Southern Caucuses. (Greenberg, 2010, p. 3).

Additional information

Funding

Sara Wallin acknowledges the support of the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number NE/J500215/I].

Stuart Shields teaches International Political Economy at the University of Manchester. His most recent work has appeared in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Socialism & Democracy, Journal of International Relations and Development, and Third World Quarterly. He is the co-editor of Critical international political economy: Dialogue, debate and dissensus (2011) and his book The international political economy of transition: Neoliberal hegemony and Eastern Central Europe's transformation was published in (2012) and short-listed for the 2013 BISA IPEG annual book prize. He is the co-convenor of the CSE Trans-Pennine Working Group.

Sara Wallin is a doctoral candidate and a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield. Her Ph.D. project explores gender equality politics and neoliberalism in global governance, focussing particularly on the case of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. During her Ph.D., she has also worked as a research assistant on high-profile projects on the new Sustainable Development Goals, gender and austerity, and British Parliament.