Jane S. Jaquette

Women and Modernization Theory: A Decade of Feminist Criticism

The literature on womens roles in economic and political development, and on the impact of development policies on women, illuminates both the process of modernization and the nature of male-female relations. Three main kinds of approaches-liberal modernization theory and its feminist critiques, socialist approaches and their feminist critiques, and an eclectic “female sphere” position that emphasizes the need to replace male-dominated theory and practice with female experience and values-are discussed. Each approach has a distinct view of the causes, consequences, and significance of womens inferior status during modernization, and each proposes different strategies of change. The clarification of theoretical differences suggests new opportunities for productive research with implications for public policy.

Women And Gender Equity In Development Theory And Practice: Institutions, Resources, And Mobilization

Seeking to catalyze innovative thinking and practice within the field of women and gender in development, editors Jane S. Jaquette and Gale Summerfield have brought together scholars, policymakers, and development workers to reflect on where the field is today and where it is headed. The contributors draw from their experiences and research in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to illuminate the connections between women’s well-being and globalization, environmental conservation, land rights, access to information technology, employment, and poverty alleviation. Highlighting key institutional issues, contributors analyze the two approaches that dominate the field: women in development (WID) and gender and development (GAD). They assess the results of gender mainstreaming, the difficulties that development agencies have translating gender rhetoric into equity in practice, and the conflicts between gender and the reassertion of indigenous cultural identities. Focusing on resource allocation, contributors explore the gendered effects of land privatization, the need to challenge cultural traditions that impede women’s ability to assert their legal rights, and women’s access to bureaucratic levers of power. Several essays consider women’s mobilizations, including a project to provide Internet access and communications strategies to African NGOs run by women. In the final essay, Irene Tinker, one of the field’s founders, reflects on the interactions between policy innovation and women’s organizing over the three decades since women became a focus of development work. Together the contributors bridge theory and practice to point toward productive new strategies for women and gender in development. Contributors . Maruja Barrig, Sylvia Chant, Louise Fortmann, David Hirschmann, Jane S. Jaquette, Diana Lee-Smith, Audrey Lustgarten, Doe Mayer, Faranak Miraftab, Muadi Mukenge, Barbara Pillsbury, Amara Pongsapich, Elisabeth Prugl, Kirk R. Smith, Kathleen Staudt, Gale Summerfield, Irene Tinker, Catalina Hinchey Trujillo

Feminist Agendas And Democracy In Latin America

Latin American women’s movements played important roles in the democratic transitions in South America during the 1980s and in Central America during the 1990s. However, very little has been written on what has become of these movements and their agendas since the return to democracy. This timely collection examines how women’s movements have responded to the dramatic political, economic, and social changes of the last twenty years. In these essays, leading scholar-activists focus on the various strategies women’s movements have adopted and assess their successes and failures. The book is organized around three broad topics. The first, women’s access to political power at the national level, is addressed by essays on the election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile, gender quotas in Argentina and Brazil, and the responses of the women’s movement to the “Bolivarian revolution” in Venezuela. The second topic, the use of legal strategies, is taken up in essays on women’s rights across the board in Argentina, violence against women in Brazil, and gender in the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Peru. Finally, the international impact of Latin American feminists is explored through an account of their participation in the World Social Forum, an assessment of a Chilean-led project carried out by women’s organizations in several countries to hold governments to the promises they made at international conferences in Cairo and Beijing, and an account of cross-border organizing to address femicides and domestic abuse in the Juarez-El Paso border region. Jane S. Jaquette provides the historical and political context of women’s movement activism in her introduction, and concludes the volume by engaging contemporary debates about feminism, civil society, and democracy. Contributors . Jutta Borner, Mariana Caminotti, Alina Donoso, Gioconda Espina, Jane S. Jaquette, Beatriz Kohen, Julissa Mantilla Falcon, Jutta Marx, Gabriela L. Montoya, Flavia Piovesan, Marcela Rios Tobar, Kathleen Staudt, Teresa Valdes, Virginia Vargas

REGIONAL DIFFERENCES AND CONTRASTING VIEWS

The global trend toward political liberalization has been at the center of comparative politics research for more than a decade. During the same period, the unprecedented mobilization of women has also received substantial attention, largely from feminist scholars but also from foundations, human rights groups, and international donors. Yet little of the literature on democratization has considered womens attitudes or participation. Changes in womens voting behavior, their increasing role in national legislatures, and their continuing activism in civil society will affect the quality of democratic leadership, the priorities of policy making, the building of democratic political cultures, and the responsiveness, trans- parency, and sustainability of democratic institutions. Without a clear understanding of the role that women play in these historic changes, the full meaning of the changes themselves cannot be understood. The trajec- tories of womens movements and the vitality of womens organi-zations are important indicators of how well democratic institutions are working on the ground. Womens political participation affects (and is itself shaped by) democratization, and gender analysis can contribute to a deeper under- standing of democratic transitions. This essay presents some of the findings that are emerging from research on womens roles in democ- ratizing states and links them to regional differences in processes of democratization. The diverse paths followed by womens movements in democratizing countries and the contrasting attitudes toward autonomy among womens movements are instructive examples of these regional differences. Another aspect of the relationship between women and Jane S. Jaquette is Bertha Harton Orr Professor in the liberal arts and professor of politics at Occidental College. Her most recent book, coedited with Sharon L. Wolchik, is Women and Democracy: Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe (1998).

Feminism and the Challenges of the "Post-Cold War' World

Womens political participation is increasing in many countries around the world, but their participation in democratic politics has not altered the neoliberal consensus that is harmful to their interests. Two reasons for this are explored here: the impact of the Cold War in shaping the post-Cold War discourse on markets and states, and the anti-state bias of much of contemporary feminist theory. The essay calls for a rethinking of the consequences of difference theories for feminist political practices, and for a renewed focus on redistributional issues.

The Peruvian Experiment in Retrospect

NO country in Latin America, and few anywhere in the third world, was the subject of more social science writing during the late 1970s and early 1980s than Peru. Books, monographs, articles, and dissertations poured forth from Peru itself, from elsewhere in Latin America, and from the United States, Western Europe, and even the Soviet Union and Japan.

The Women's Movement in Latin America: Feminism and the Transition to Democracy

Womens movements and gender politics in the Brazilian transition, Sonia E. Alvarez the challenge of constructing civil peace - women and democracy in Argentina, Maria del Carmen Feijoo putting conservatism to good use - women and unorthodox politics in Uruguay, from breakdown to transition, Carina Perelli the difficult equilibrium between bread and roses - womens organizations and the transition from dictatorship to democracy in Peru, Maruja Barrig feminist anti-authoritarian politics - the role of womens organizations in the Chilean transition to democracy, Patricia M. Chuchryk conclusion - women and the new democratic politics, Jane S.Jaquette.

Women at the Top: Leadership, Institutions and the Quality of Democracy

Women’s contributions to Third Wave transitions from authoritarian rule toward democracy have been well documented. They helped make democracies more open and pluralistic, strengthened civil society and broadened the definition of leadership to include ‘female’ as well as ‘male’ qualities. As the number of women reaching top-level positions in democracies increases, women are gaining access to and exercise power in countries that are classified as democratic, but which often fall well short of the democratic ideal. Research on women and political power needs to broaden its focus from the ‘women and democracy’ narrative, which equates democratic quality with gender outcomes, to study the concrete impacts of women’s leadership in specific cases. In the face of growing skepticism about democracy and increasing economic and political uncertainty, how can women’s leadership strengthen liberal democratic institutions and help assure that democratic governance can be sustained?

Ruth Abbey. The Return of Feminist Liberalism.

The books reviewed in this section explore feminist politics in a global frame. We aim not just to include writings in feminist international relations, but also to feature multi-disciplinary scholarship pertaining to global gender relations. The section is usually made up of a combination of several distinct elements: Rethinking the Canon, Feminist Classics/Many Voices, review essays and book reviews. ‘Rethinking the Canon’ gives space for an individual to reflect on one text that they feel ought to be essential reading for feminists working on global issues, but which is likely to be marginalized by existing disciplinary boundaries: they are invited to bring the text to our attention and to explain why it is essential reading. ‘Feminist Classics/Many Voices’, by contrast, includes several short appraisals of a book already widely considered a classic for feminists working on global issues. Reviewers draw on their distinct disciplinary, geographical and personal locations to offer diverse readings of the classic text. Review essays survey several texts on a single theme, aiming either to explore a recent debate that has generated a range of new publications or to survey the best of the literature covering a more established area of research. The book reviews provide brief introductions to, and evaluations of, as broad a range of new publications as space allows. Anyone with suggestions for texts to be reviewed, or requests to contribute to the section, is encouraged to contact the Reviews Editor, Suzanne Bergeron, at sbergero@umich.edu, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Michigan Dearborn, Dearborn, MI 48380, USA.

Book ReviewsRight‐Wing Women in Chile: Feminine Power and the Struggle against Allende, 1964–1973. By Margaret Power. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.Contentious Lives: Two Argentine Women, Two Protests, and the Quest for Recognition. By Javier Auyero. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

T he literature on women and politics in Latin America is moving in new and exciting directions. For much of the 1990s, accounts of women’s political participation in the region documented the role of women in the transitions to democracy during the 1980s and early 1990s. In Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, a wide variety of women’s movements, ranging from human rights groups to urban poor women and feminist organizations, challenged the military regimes and struggled to shape the democratic future. In Central America, human rights was the main focus, but the mobilization of women under the socialist government of Nicaragua, the demand for equal rights in traditionally democratic Costa Rica, and the timing of the democratic transitions added new dimensions to the significant shift in political culture that made women for the first time political actors in their own right. Women’s movements may have lost ground after the return to democracy, as many now argue, yet today more women are elected and appointed to office, women’s issues are on national agendas, and, at last count, thirteen countries have some form of electoral quotas for women. In Argentina, where this innovation has been most successful, women now hold over 30 percent of seats in the national legislature.