Amy G. Mazur

Politics, gender, and concepts : theory and methodology

1. Introduction Amy G. Mazur and Gary Goertz 2. Mapping gender and politics concepts: ten guidelines Gary Goertz and Amy G. Mazur Part I. Gendering Concepts: 3. Gendering democracy Pamela Paxton 4. Gendering representation Karen Celis 5. Gendering the welfare state Diane Sainsbury 6. Gendering governance Georgina Waylen 7. Gendering development Kathleen Staudt Part II. Gender-Specific Concepts: 8. Gender ideology: masculinism and feminalism Georgia Duerst-Lahti 9. Intersectionality S. Laurel Weldon 10. Womens movements, feminism, and feminist movements Dorothy E. McBride and Amy G. Mazur 11. State feminism Amy G. Mazur and Dorothy E. McBride Appendix. A website for additional gender and politics concepts.

State Feminism, Women's Movements, and Job Training : Making Democracies Work in the Global Economy

Drawing from the work of internationally renowned scholars from the Research Network on Gender, Politics and the State (RNGS), this study offers in-depth analysis of the relationship between state feminism, womens movements and public policy and places them within a comparative theoretical framework. Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Canada, and the U.S. are all discussed individually.

Politics, Gender, and Concepts: Women's movements, feminism, and feminist movements

“Womens movement” is a term widely used by journalists, activists, politicians, scholars, and citizens alike; most people have a general idea of the concepts meaning. Despite the widespread attention to the term since the 1970s, social science is in the early stages of conceptualization (Beckwith 2005a). A quick glance at scholarly work on womens movements indicates there is agreement on neither a general definition nor how the concept should be used in empirical research. In fact, researchers seldom give an explicit definition of the term. Can we be sure that womens movement scholars are talking about the same thing? If not, studies and theories of womens movements risk being inaccurate and perhaps even unintentionally misleading. Our own research on womens movements and womens policy agencies reveals a debate among scholars that has left unanswered many questions about how to use womens movements as a concept for good research. The more notable ones include: How can movement characteristics be measured? How can movement impact be measured? What distinguishes women participants in government and politics from the movement? Can men be in womens movements? Is “womens movement” a singular or collective noun, or are there many movements? Are womens movements defined by their mobilization of women exclusively, or by their goals, or both? For example, are womens peace movements womens movements? The absence of a consensus about the conceptual use of “womens movement” is quite similar for the related concept “feminist movement/feminism,” but with a controversial twist.

State Feminism since the 1980s: From Loose Notion to Operationalized Concept

We argue that since the term state feminism first appeared in the 1980s, it has gone through three stages of development, becoming a formal concept useful in cross-national analysis in the last stage. Scholars first used the term loosely to describe a range of state activities with a gender/womens issues focus. Next, the concept became associated with the study of womens policy agencies. Most recently, a group of comparative gender and policy scholars—the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS)—has developed systematic nominal and operational definitions of state feminism to study if, how, and why womens policy agencies make alliances with womens movements within the state to achieve feminist outcomes.

Women's Movements and the State: Job-Training Policy in France and the U.S.

The goal of this article is to propose a model of state feminism to analyze the impact of womens movements on state activities in post-industrial democracies. It builds on conventional theories of social movement impact, specifically addressing problems of longitudinal and comparative analyses, and introduces an intervening variable-the role of womens policy machineries. This study examines the role of these machineries in France and the United States in injecting feminist stances into the content and processes of six job-training policy debates and assesses the explanatory usefulness of two clusters of independent variables. The findings challenge the conventional wisdom about womens movement successes in the U.S. and France by showing that a strong movement does not necessarily lead to a full state response in the absence of intervention of womens policy machineries. In turn they point to the importance of left-wing govemments and the relation of the womens movement to them. The conclusion includes plans for further testing of the state feminism framework by means of comparative studies in other countries and other policy areas.

Politics, Gender, and Concepts: Mapping gender and politics concepts: ten guidelines

Concepts play a variety of roles in the research enterprise; they appear in scope conditions, case selection, contextual, independent, and dependent variables. Systematic data collection typically involves multiple concepts; what data are collected, the units and the scope of the data. The validity and usefulness of much research thus rest on the solidity of its conceptual foundations. Concepts are ultimately important because without them we would have empty theories and causal explanations. Concept analysis, (de)construction, and usage are of special importance to gender and politics scholars. Many gender research projects begin by attacking the “taken-for-granted” character of key social science relationships. This often involves bringing out the gender bias built into – but hidden – in the core of concepts. In this way much gender research is foundational in character: it explores the basic gender biases embedded in widely used concepts of political analysis. While feminist scholars have continually engaged in concept criticism, concept reformulation, and concept creation, there has been no attempt, that we are aware of, to synthesize a set of methodologies for such endeavors. This chapter, and the volume as a whole, present a set of coherent guidelines for dealing with concepts. More generally, courses on quantitative methods and research design based on statistical principles often devote little or no attention to the methodology of concepts. While sections devoted to measurement are common, there is rarely much on concept methodology.

Feminist comparative policy: A new field of study

This article presents feminist comparative policy (FCP) as a new field of study. It argues that FCP scholars have successfully developed a distinct approach to doing political research and a significant scientific community which follows this approach. In doing so, FCP scholars, particularly since the early 1990s, have moved this area of study into a new stage of institutionalization and influence. These achievements are documented in a discussion of first, the development and major features of the FCP approach and second, the individuals and research infrastructure that comprise the FCP community. The conclusion considers the successes of FCP in the context of speculations about its contributions to non feminist political science.

Toward the Systematic Study of Feminist Policy in Practice:An Essential First Step

ABSTRACT This article proposes an analytical construct, based on feminist and non-feminist policy studies, to be eventually used in the systematic study of feminist policy in practice in postindustrial democracies. The measurement allows for the analysis of democracy, representation, and symbolic reform in terms of the array of policy actors who come forward during the crucial implementation and evaluation stages, the policy instruments that are used in these phases, and policy outcomes. As the article argues, developing this analytical measurement constitutes the essential first step in the emerging research cycle on feminist policy postadoption in a comparative perspective.

Drawing Comparative Lessons from France and Germany

The article reviews the lessons learned from a systematic comparison of the policy cases in France and Germany, presented in the previous articles, for building a theory of feminist policy formation and for the design of effective policy in this new arena of government action. It assesses the relative impact of Europeanization and different contextual factors found in each national setting-gender policy regimes, state-society relations, political party influences, structure of the state, womens movement mobilization, womens policy offices, and the role of women in political office. The analysis concludes the symposium with a reflection upon these findings in terms of our knowledge and under-standing of feminist policy and the responsiveness of Western postindustrial democracies to demands for social justice and equality. Copyright 2003 by The Policy Studies Organization.

Comparing Feminist Policy in Politics and at Work in France and Germany: Shared European Union Setting, Divergent National Contexts

This essay introduces the seven articles in the symposium. Placing this special issue within the purview of the new field of Feminist Comparative Policy, the analysis shows how the symposium contributes to comparative theories of feminist policy formation in Western postindustrial democracies. It then defines the three subareas of feminist policy covered in the rest of the volume-political representation, equal employment, and reconciliation-explains why the German and French cases were selected for comparative analysis, discusses the importance of the ongoing process of Europeanization for feminist policy in the two countries, and finishes with a presentation of the outline for the seven articles. Copyright 2003 by The Policy Studies Organization.