Gender Politics in Global Governance

Course Organization

Professor:
Elisabeth Prügl

Course Description

This course explores the way feminist activism has affected policies in international organizations, the way international organizations have worked to advance gender equality, and the political effects of international gender equality policies. It surveys movement, legal and organizational strategies, and explores gender politics in currently salient issue areas ranging from violence and peacemaking to development and international economic restructuring.

The course is conceptualized as a research seminar. It introduces students to contemporary discussions on gender politics in global governance through targeted readings. And it allows students to deepen their knowledge on one topic by developing a research paper. The purpose of the course is two-fold. First, it seeks to introduce students to international feminist policy debates and the contributions of scholars to these debates. Second, it is designed to strengthen students’ research and presentation skills.
 

Syllabus

Requirements

The course combines research and reading. Students are expected to participate in the following ways:

1.    Students write a major research paper (ca. 25 pages +/-3) on one of the topics of discussion identified in the syllabus and further narrowed down with the help of the instructor. They conduct their research and write the paper in the course of the semester. Draft proposals are due on March 1. Final papers are due in my mailbox on June 15, 2010 at noon. I am happy to provide feed-back on preliminary drafts.

2.    Students present their research findings in class. These findings introduce class discussion for the week assigned. Presentations in the early part of the semester have the character of a research proposal and are about 10 minutes long, those in the later the part of the semester report preliminary findings and take up to 20 minutes.

3.    Joint readings provide the basis of our common deliberations. You are expected to have read weekly assigned materials before class. Furthermore, you are expected to prepare at least three interventions for discussion (questions, comments, insights). These interventions need to be submitted in written form (about half a page or a page) at the beginning of the class.

4.    Every week, we discuss students’ research reports in conjunction with our joint readings. You are expected to react to the presentation(s) in an informed manner based on the week’s assigned readings.

Your grade will consist of the following:

Research Paper
Research Presentation
Reading Interventions
Participation    50 percent
20 percent
20 percent
10 percent

Readings

A polycopié is available for purchase.

Course Outline

February 22 – Introduction: What is Gender? What is the Global? What is Governance?

FEMINIST STRATEGIES IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

March 1 –  Activism: Movements, Advocacy Networks, NGOs

DRAFT RESEARCH PROPOSALS DUE

Mary E. Hawkesworth, Outsiders, Insiders, and Outsiders Within: Feminist Strategies for Global Transformation. In M.E. Hawkesworth, Globalization and Feminist Activism. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006.

Aili Mari Tripp, The Evolution of Transnational Feminisms: Consensus, Conflict, and New Dynamics. In Myra Marx Feree and Aili Mari Tripp, eds., Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, pp. 51-75. New York: NYU Press.

Sonia E. Alvarez et al. Encountering Latin American and Caribbean Feminisms. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28, 2 (Winter 2003): 537 (47). 

Recommended:

Eileen Kuttab, The Palestinian Women’s Movement: From Resistance and Liberation to Accommodation and Globalization. In Christine Verschuur, ed., Vents d’Est, Vents d’Ouest: Mouvements de Femmes et Féminismes Anticoloniaux, pp. 101-116. Geneva: IHEID.

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2007. 

Amrita Basu, ed. The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women’s Movements in Global Perspective. Boulder: Westview, 1995.

Joan W. Scott, Cora Kaplan, and Debra Keates, eds., Transitions, Environments, Translations: Feminisms in International Politics. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Mary K. Meyer and Elisabeth Prügl, eds., Gender Politics in Global Governance. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999, Part II.
 

March 8 – Gender Politics in International and Regional Organizations

Margaret Snyder, Unlikely Godmother: The UN and the Global Women’s Movement. In Myra Marx Feree and Aili Mari Tripp, eds., Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, pp. 24-50. New York: NYU Press.

Melinda Adams, Regional Women’s Activism: African Women’s Networks and the African Union. In Myra Marx Feree and Aili Mari Tripp, eds., Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, pp. 187-218. New York: NYU Press.

Sylvia Walby, The European Union and Gender Equality: Emergent Varieties of Gender Regime. Social Politics 11,1 (Spring 2004): 4-29.

Recommended:

Devaki Jain, Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Mary K. Meyer and Elisabeth Prügl, eds., Gender Politics in Global Governance. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999, Part I.

Berkovitch, Nitza, From Motherhood to Citizenship: Women’s Rights and International Organizations. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Elisabeth Prügl, The Global Construction of Gender: Home-based Work in the Political Economy of the 20th Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.


March 15 – Gender Mainstreaming

Jacqui True, Mainstreaming Gender in Global Public Policy. International Feminist Journal of Politics 5, 3 (November 2003): 368-396.

Judith Squires, Is Mainstreaming Transformative? Theorizing Mainstreaming in the Context of Diversity and Deliberation. Social Politics 12, 3 (Fall 2005): 366-388.

Elisabeth Prügl, Does Gender Mainstreaming Work? Feminist Engagements with the German Agricultural State. International Feminist Journal of Politics 11, 2 (May 2009): 174-195.

Recommended:

Rounaq Jahan, The Elusive Agenda: Mainstreaming Women in Development. London: Zed Books, 1995.

Moser Caroline and Annalise Moser. 2005. Gender Mainstreaming Since Beijing: A Review of Success and Limitations in International Institutions. In Mainstreaming Gender in Development: A Critical Review, eds. Fenella Porter and Caroline Sweetman, 11-22. Oxford: Oxfam.

Debbie Budlender, The Political Economy of Women’s Budgets in the South. World Development 28, 7 (2000): 1365-1378.

Elson, Diane, Engendering Government Budgets in the Context of Globalization(s). International Feminist Journal of Politics 6, 4 (December 2004): 623-642.

Carol Miller and Shahra Razavi, eds. Missionaries and Mandarins: Feminist Engagement with Development Institutions. London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1998.

Anne Marie Goetz, ed. Getting Institutions Right for Women in Development. New York: Zed Books, 1997.

Emilie Hafner-Burton and Mark A. Pollack, Mainstreaming Gender in Global Governance. European Journal of International Relations 8, 3 (2002): 339-373.


March 22 – Equal Rights:  Translating CEDAW

Catharine MacKinnon, Introduction: Women’s Status, Men’s States. In C. MacKinnon, Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues, pp. 1-14 and pp. 64-67. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

N. Rajaram and Vaishali Zararia, Translating Women’s Human Rights in a Globalizing World: The Spiral Process in Reducing Gender Injustice in Baroda, India. Global Networks 9, 4 (October 2009): 462-484.

Moya Lloyd, (Women’s) Human Rights: Paradoxes and Possibilities. Review of International Studies 33, 1 (January 2007): 91-103.

Recommended:

Susanne Zwingel, From Intergovernmental Negotiations to (Sub)national Change: A Transnational Perspective on the Impact of CEDAW. International Feminist Journal of Politics 7, 3 (September 2005): 400-424.

Mark M. Gray, Miki Caul Kittilson, and Wayne Sandholtz, Women and Globalization: A Study of 180 Countries, 1975-2000. International Organization 60 (Spring 2006): 293-333.

Kardam, Nüket, The Emerging Global Gender Equality Regime from Neoliberal and Constructivist Perspectives in International Relations. International Feminist Journal of Politics 6, 1 (March 2004): 85-109.

Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin and Shelley Wright, Feminist Approaches to International Law. American Journal of International Law 85, 613 (1991).


March 29 – Women, Gender and Political Participation

Neema Kudva and Kajri Misra, Gender Quotas, the Politics of Presence, and the Feminist Project: What Does the Indian Experience Tell Us? Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 34, 1 (2008): 49 (25).
 
Mona Lena Krook, Joni Lovenduski and Judith Squires, Gender Quotas and Models of Political Citizenship. British Journal of Political Science 39, 4 (2009): 781-803.

Ron Inglehart and Pippa Norris, Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around the World. New York: Cambridge University Press, Chapters 5 and 6.
 
Recommended:

Mona Lena Krook, Reforming Representation: The Diffusion of Candidate Gender Quotas Worldwide. Politics and Gender 2,3 (2006): 303-327.

Ratna M. Sudarshan, Engendering Governance: A Preliminary Enquiry into Formal and Informal Institutions. In Smita Mishra Panda, Engendering Governance Institutions: State, Market and Civil Society, pp. 249-264. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2008.

Comparative Perspectives Symposium: Challenges to Women’s Leadership. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 34, 1 (Autumn 2008).

Critical Perspectives on Gender and Politics. Politics and Gender 4, 3 (September 2008): 473-519.

Mary Caprioli and Mark A. Boyer, Gender, Violence, and International Crisis. Journal of Conflict Resolution 45, 4 (2001): 503 (16).


April 5 – Easter Vacation

GOVERNING SECURITY/GOVERNING BODIES

April 12 – Women in Peacekeeping, Women in Peacemaking

Hilary Charlesworth, Are Women Peaceful? Reflections on the Role of Women in Peace-Building. Feminist Legal Studies 16, 3 (December 2008): 347-361.

Carol Cohn, Mainstreaming Gender in UN Security Policy: A Path to Political Transformation. In Shirin M. Rai and Georgina Waylen, eds., Global Goveranance: Feminist Perspectives, pp. 185-206. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Cynthia Enloe, What if Patriarchy is ‘the Big Picture?’ An Afterword. In Dyan Mazurana, Angela Raven-Roberts, and Jane Papart, eds. Gender, Conflict, and Peacekeeping, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.

Sherill Whittington, Gender and Peacekeeping: The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28, 4 (Summer 2003): 1283 (7).

Recommended:

Laura J. Shepherd, Power and Authority in the Production of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. International Studies Quarterly 52 (2008): 3838-404.

Razack, Sherene H., Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

Sandra Whitworth, Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis. Boulder, Co.: Lynne Rienner, 2004.

Olsson, Louise, and Torunn L. Tryggestad, eds., Women and International Peacekeeping. London: Frank Cass, 2001.

 
April 19 – Women, Gender and War: Laws and Constructions

Carpenter, R. Charli, “Women and Children First”: Gender, Norms and Humanitarian Evacuation in the Balkans 1991-95. International Organization 57, 4 (2003): 661-694.

Kinsella, Helen, “Securing the Civilian: Sex and Gender in the Laws of War.” In Power and Global Governance, eds. Michael N. Barnett and Raymond Duvall. Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Louise Chappell, The International Criminal Court: A New Arena for Transforming Gender Justice. In Shiring M. Rai and Georgina Waylen, eds., Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives, pp. 160-184. Houndsmill: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2008.

Jennifer L. Fluri, Geopolitics of Gender and Violence “from Below.” Political Geography 28, 4 (May 2009): 259-265.

Recommended:

Sjoberg, Laura, The Gendered Realities of the Immunity Principle: Why Gender Analysis Needs Feminism. International Studies Quarterly 50, 4 (December 2006):  889-910.

Sjoberg, Laura, Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq: A Feminist Reformulation of Just War Theory. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006.


April 26 – Violence against Women

Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights and Transnational Culture: Regulating Gender Violence through Global Law. 44 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 53,1 (2006).

Jane Freedman, Protecting Women Asylum Seekers and Refugees: From International Norms to National Protection. International Migration 48, 1: 175-198.
 
Bettina Shell-Duncan, From Health to Human Rights: Female Genital Cutting and the Politics of Intervention. American Anthropologist 110, 2 (June 2008): 225-236.

Ratna Kapur, The Tragedy of Victimization Rhetoric: Resurrecting the “Native” Subject in International/Post-colonial Feminist Legal Politics. Harvard Human Rights Journal 15 (2002): 1-37.

Recommended:

Catharine MacKinnon, Women’s September 11: Rethinking the International Law of Conflict. In C. MacKinnon, Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues, pp. 259-278. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Jutta M. Joachim, Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights. Georgetown University Press, 2007.

Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Transnational Networks on Violence against Women, in M.E. Keck and K. Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, pp. 165-198. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.


GOVERNING ECONOMIES

May 3 – Economic Governance: Development

Diane Elson, Gender Equality and Economic Growth in the World Bank “World Development Report 2006.” Feminist Economics 15, 3 (2009): 35-59.

Bedford, Kate, Governing Intimacy in the World Bank. In Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives, eds. Shirin M. Rai and Georgina Waylen, pp. 84-106. Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Brigitte Young, Globalization and Gender: A European Perspective. In Gender, Globalization, and Democratization, eds. Rita Mae Kelly, Jane H. Bayes, Mary Hawkesworth, and Brigitte Young, pp.27-47. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Recommended:

Benería, Lourdes, On Development, Gender, and Economics. Chapter 1 in L. Benería, Gender, Development, and Globalization: Economics as if All People Mattered. New York, London: Routledge, 2003.

Sharhra Razavi, The Gendered Impacts of Liberalization: Towards “Embedded Liberalism”? In S. Razavi, ed., The Gendered Impact of Liberalization: Towards “Embedded Liberalism”?, pp. 1-34. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Peterson, V. Spike, A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Integrating Reproductive, Productive and Virtual Economies. London, New York: Routledge 2003.

Georgina Waylen, Putting Governance into the Gendered Political Economy of Globalization. International Feminist Journal of Politics 6, 4 (December 2004): 557-578.

Prügl, Elisabeth, Gender and the Making of Global Markets: An Exploration of the Agricultural Sector. In Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives, eds. Shirin M. Rai and Georgina Waylen, pp. 43-63. Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Bergeron, Suzanne, Political Economy Discourses of Globalization and Feminist Politics. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 26, 4 (Summer 2001): 983-1006.

Kate Bedford, Developing Partnerships: Gender, Sexuality, and the Reformed World Bank. University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Elson, Diane, Gender at the Macroeconomic Level. In Towards a Gendered Political Economy, eds. Joanne Cook, Jennifer Roberts and Georgina Waylen, pp. 77-97. Houndsmill, UK: Macmillan Press, 2002.

Elson, Diane and Nilufer Catagay, The Social Content of Macroeconomic Policies. World Development 28, 7 (2002): 1347-1364.

Lourdes Benería and Gita Sen, Class and Gender Inequalities and Women’s Role in Economic Development: Theoretical and Practical Implications. Feminist Studies 8, 1 (Spring 1982): 157-176.

May 10 – Research Week

May 17 – Economic Governance: Trade and Finance

Jacqui True, Trading-Off Gender Equality for Global Europe? The European Union and Free Trade Agreements. European Foreign Affairs Review 14 (2009): 723-742.

Liebowitz, Debra J., Governing Globalization: Feminist Engagements with International Trade Policy. In Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives, eds. Shirin M. Rai and Georgina Waylen, pp. 207-233. Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan (2008).

Helene Schuberth and Brigitte Young, The Role of Gender in Financial Market Regulation. In B. Young, Isa Bakker, and Diane Elson, Gender and Macroeconomic Governance. Forthcoming.

Recommended:

True, Jacqui, Gender Mainstreaming and Regional Trade Governance in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). In Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives, eds. Shirin M. Rai and Georgina Waylen, pp. 129-159. Houndsmill: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008.

May 25 – Pentecost/Whit Monday

May 31 – Migration and Trafficking: The Internationalization of Care Economies

Agathangelou, Anna, “Sexing” Globalization in International Relations: Migrant Sex and Domestic Workers in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. In Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations, eds. Geeta Chowdhry and Sheila Nair, pp. 142-169. London: Routledge, 2002.

Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar, The Care Crisis in the Philippines: Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy. In Global Woman, eds. B. Ehrenreich and A. R. Hochschild, pp. 39-54. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002.

Aihwa Ong, A Bio-Carthography: Maids, Neo-Slavery, and NGOs. In Seyla Benhabib and Judith Resnik, eds., Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender, pp. 157-184. New York: New York University Press.

Recommended:

Ehrenreich, Barbara and Arlie Russell Hochschild, eds., Global Women: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2002.

Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar, Transgressing the Nation-State: The Partial Citizenship and ‘Imagined (Global) Community’ of Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 26, 4 (Summer 2001): 1129-1154.

Hooper, Charlotte, Masculinities in Transition: The Case of Globalization. In Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances, eds. Marianne M. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan, pp. 59-73. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.

Kimberly A. Chang and L.H.M. Ling, Globalization and its Intimate Other: Filipina Domestic Workers in Hong Kong. In Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan, eds., Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances, pp. 27-43. London and New York: Routledge.

Leah Briones, Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency and Rights are not Enough. Ashgate, 2009.

June 15 – FINAL PAPER DUE