Essays On Gender And Governance - United Nations Development ...

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Locating Gender in the Governance Discourse engendering of institutions (especially state institutions) should be tested against the twin criteria of processes (participatory) and outcomes (gender-equitable). Molyneux’s (1985) distinction between strategic and practical gender interests 12 may also be usefully employed here. The Indian experience of quotas for women in panchayats, for instance, would suggest that these provisions enable a larger number of women to participate in the deliberations and decision-making processes of the institutions of local selfgovernment. The policy outcomes could be assessed in terms of the extent to which their practical gender interests are often advanced, even if their strategic gender interests are usually not. A regime of positive rights has been suggested as a possible instrument of achieving these objectives. The challenge, before a rights-based view of governance, is that of ensuring all three generations of rights simultaneously : seeing them as interdependent and equally important to effectively accomplish. This would encompass not merely the formal structures of power in the three realms of governance, but the informal structures of power, and the family and household as well. A rights-based view of governance also implies, most crucially, that we forsake the topdown approach to governance which predisposes us to emphasise the greater representation of women in the hierarchical structures of the top institutions of governance. Contrary to this, we should treat as instructive the presence - and indeed the preponderance - of women at lower levels, in every arena of governance, to suggest forms of governance that are more participatory. A rights-based view of governance encourages this, as it endorses the making of claims, rather than the passive receiving of quotas/welfare. 12 A useful discussion of such a differentiated view of women’s interests may be found in Caroline O.N. Moser (1993). 124
Locating Gender in the Governance Discourse Paradoxes and Challenges I. Democracy and Representation : Though state institutions have been sought to be engendered through enhanced representation for women in representative as well as executive bodies, several apparently intractable questions remain. 1. Does better representation, with or without quotas, necessarily translate into gender equality? How may we balance the legitimate claim to higher representation with the recognition that representation frequently accomplishes only the engendering of state elites which cannot adequately impact the profoundly gendered structures of power? What are the conditions under which women’s representation - as process - and gender equality - as outcome - can be most optimally linked? 2. Does engendering the state lead to the weakening of the women’s movement? The danger of the co-option by the state of the participants and the slogans of the women’s movement. In the medium to long run, this could result in severing the link between women in the state and the grassroot movements which alone can supply the criticism and fresh ideas, and prevent the ossification of token feminist goals in the state apparatus. Do the models of the ‘femocrats’ in Australia and the ‘state feminists’ in Norway provide good and replicable exemplars? 3. Is the feminist cause best advanced by non-party, non-institutional politics? The evidence relating to political parties is fairly mixed, as parties are known to keep women out of internal decisionmaking mechanisms, put up women candidates in ways suggestive of tokenism, and even effect the fragmentation of a putatively united feminist movement. Thus, because the 125
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Gender and Governance India
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Martha Nussbaum Amrita Basu Yasmin
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Foreword The present volume is an o
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Contributors Martha Nussbaum is the
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Gender and Governance: An Introduct
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Gender and Governance : Concepts an
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The Impact of Gender Inequality on
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