Engendering Governance Institutions

The focus of the book is on engendering governance institutions that advance the cause of gender equality. The issues of gender equality and women's empowerment are subjects of current interest. This is because over the years very little progress has been achieved on these aspects. Economic reforms in a developing country like India result in constant transformation in the socio-economic and political systems. Hence it becomes important to correctly interpret the role of the multiple stakeholders in governance, namely the state, civil society and the market. By including market institutions in this debate, this book broadened the canvas of what was meant by engendering governance.

The relationship between gender and governance has too often been neglected in both theoretical and empirical work. Until very recently, most influential political thought has been built around a conceptual distinction between the public realm of politics, military affairs, and administration, and the private realm of family and domestic life. Women s role, in a wide range of traditions and in theoretical work influenced by them, has typically been associated with the private realm, and men s role with the public realm. The public/private distinction has been thoroughly criticized as being in many ways misleading and untenable. Nonetheless, it continues to influence both theoretical and empirical work, with the result that women s efforts to gain a voice in governance have often been ignored. The papers in this volume aim to set the record straight. They advance a theoretical structure, both positive and normative, within which the question of gendered governance may usefully be pursued. They also analyze some current developments that indicate many ways in which women are actively participating in governance, in both government and the institutions of civil society, and the obstacles that remain. The essays in this volume are the outcome of a year long collaborative exploration of the multiple factors that influence the process of engendering governance in complex societies, in particular the changing roles of various actors including women s movements, the state and civil society.

In this book, four case studies describe civil society initiatives that have intervened in governance and brought about changes in institutional practice, aiming to secure strategic gender interests, with a global perspective on governance and gender.

The contributors to this volume provide a survey of the existing gender machineries on the international level, explore the way in which feminist movements have approached international organizations and the way IOs have responded, and examine the laws and norms that have been produced and their effects in local contexts globally.

The struggle for women’s rights and to overcome gender oppression has long engaged the efforts of inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations. Feminist Strategies in International Governance provides a new introduction to the contemporary forms of this struggle. It brings together the voices of academics and practitioners to reflect in particular on the effectiveness of human rights strategies and gender mainstreaming. It covers three international issue areas in which feminists currently seek change: women’s human rights and violence against women; the participation of women in peace-making and their protection during conflict; and the gendered effects of development, economic and financial governance. The book combines a critical reflection on the current state of feminist politics with an introduction to urgent issues on the contemporary international agenda. In addition, the book draws on innovative conceptualizations from constructivism in international relations, legal anthropology and discourse theory to provide new framings of current feminist struggles. Offering an accessible guide to the engendering of international governance and examining the challenges for international feminist politics in the future, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international organizations, gender politics and global governance.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of global governance from a gendered perspective. It not only furthers the emerging feminist theorizing on global governance, but also provides a theoretically informed and empirically based analysis of both institutions and transformative practices.

This book investigates women’s political participation in Africa. Going beyond the formal institutions of electoral politics, it explores a range of spaces where everyday politics take place, at national and at local levels. In recent years there have been significant improvements in the number of women elected to parliament in Africa. However, there is little indication that this is translating into better developmental outcomes, and indeed there is mounting evidence that it could in fact help to bolster some authoritarian regimes. Starting from the premise that politics is a far broader project than securing a seat in national or local legislatures alone, this book explores the opportunities for women’s political participation across a number of informal spaces where women and men gather, organise and interact in a more regular and systematic manner. Combining insights from political science, sociology and feminist theory and drawing on detailed cases from the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Rwanda, it examines how power in its multiple dimensions circulates across a range of everyday political spaces, while drawing attention to the links between domestic gender inequalities and the global political economy. Inviting scholars, practitioners and activists to broaden their focus beyond formal electoral institutions if they want to support women to become more politically active, this book provides fresh insights into major issues at the heart of African studies, development studies, gender and development, democratisation, and international relations.

Examines the public law of gender and equality from the perspectives of comparative constitutional law, international law and governance.