Question 4 The focus in International Political Economy on neo- realist, Marxist, liberal institutionalist and constructivist theories at the expense of alternatives obscures key political economic drivers of order and change in the international political economy. Critically discuss this argument. GENDER & IPE Name: Jeen Chun International Political Economy Exam January 2016 STU- count: 22,671 Number of pages: 10 B.Sc. International Business and Politics
Introduction Women have been historically marginalized from political economy, and sadly, it is 2016 and we cannot confidently say that the current reality is otherwise. I do not use the word unfortunately on purpose, because it has not been a matter of fortune or coincidence that women have been largely marginalized from political economy, but a matter of both conscious and unconscious patriarchal exclusion of women as important actors in the global political economy. The academic discipline of International Political Economy (IPE) also marginalizes feminist IPE critical theory, unreasonably treating it as a niche theory and giving disproportionately little attention to gender analysis of the painfully gendered political economic world that we live in. Therefore I would like to begin with the very much predictable conclusion: the focus in the academic discipline of IPE on neo- realist, Marxist, liberal- institutionalist and constructive theories at the expense of alternatives specifically in this paper, feminist IPE theory does indeed obscure key political economic drivers women (family, households) of order and change in the international political economy. However this paper does not disregard the importance of these aforementioned theories in IPE, but rather attempts to prove how the whole picture of IPE cannot be truly studied without feminist IPE theory, and how some of these theories can work complementarily with the gender analysis and critique of the feminist IPE and hence create an intellectual synergy. Instead of dividing the paper into the theoretical analysis part and hence the empirical part, this paper is structured with the bigger skeletons of theoretical analysis and supporting empirical evidences incorporated under each theoretical analysis, from areas such as labor, production, trade, international organizations other historical examples. 2
Feminist IPE Theory Then what exactly is feminist IPE theory? According to Rai (2013:264), feminist IPE is an approach that critiques mainstream economic theory and policy, suggests alternative modes of analysis that put center stage both productive and reproductive economies, and develops methodologies to take forward this critique and analysis. There is also something called Gender and International Political Economy (GIPE) which is the study of gendered social relations in the context of international political economy how women and men are situated historically, structurally, and discursively within international political economy and with what outcomes. (Rai, 2013: 263) In this paper I use the term feminist IPE theory in order to indicate the both terms, in respect to the language that was used in the course curriculum. (Broome, 2014:26) Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that feminist approaches of IPE has rich variety and critical differences and therefore one should not lump together as one approach. (Rai, 2013) The feminist IPE theory also critiques and engages with various mainstream and critical theories of IPE, such as neo- realism, liberal- institutionalism, Marxism and constructivism, and scrutinizes broad ranges of empirical terrain of IPE, such as labor, production, finance, crisis, international institutions and so on. Before we go on to applying feminist critiques to other theories and empirical evidences, understanding the concept of social reproduction is the key to the feminist analysis of IPE. Rai (2013: 266) defines social reproduction in three ways: 1) biological reproduction along with sexual and emotional services that are needed to maintain family; 2) unpaid production at home and elsewhere that is required to meet the needs of the community; and 3) reproduction of culture and ideology that stabilizes dominant social relations. Such gender role of social reproduction of women is institutionalized through gendered labor, discourses on production and reproduction, organization and regulations. (Bakker 2007; Laslett and Brenner 1989; Rai 2013) Various streams of feminist scholars engage with the concept of social production, and use the concept in analyzing the IPE of labor and production, and how such relations are institutionalized by different actors. 3
Neo- Realism The first mainstream IPE theory that this paper will scrutinize with the feminist framework is the neo- realist theory. Neo- realism assumes the Hobbesian natural state and hence the anarchic international system. The theory gives little importance to institutions and does not subscribe to the idea of supranational hierarchical order, and instead focuses on the state as primary actor in IPE. An important concept in neo- realist theory is the hegemonic stability theory, which maintains that the current liberal international economic order is only made possible by a hegemon that uses its resources and influence to establish and manage a liberal international economy, and encourages other states to follow the rules and regimes governing international activities. (Gilpin, 2001) Historical evidences that support hegemonic stability theories are Britain s hegemony pre- WWI based on gold standard, and the USA s hegemony post- WWII based on the neo- liberal Bretton Woods institutions such as IMF, World Bank, WTO. Then how do feminist IPE scholars engage with the neo- realist view as state being the central actor? Some feminist IPE maintain that the gendered social relations give organized existence to the state, while the state continues the patriarchal domination of production and social reproduction through institutions such as law, social policy and discursive practices. (Pringle and Watson 1990; Agarwal 1994; Rai 1996; Randall and Waylen 1998; Rai 2013) Other feminist scholars also argue that the state monopoly of violence is in fact male monopoly of violence, and that the patriarchal violence against women at home and in public space has been essential to exploiting women. Therefore, the state maintains the patriarchal dominance via institutionalization of the housewifziation of women s labor of social reproduction within marriage, and work legislation. (Mies, Bennholdt- Thomsen and von Werlhof, 1988; Rai, 2013: 271) In other words, many feminist IPE scholars recognize the state s role as the actors that institutionalize patriarchy. There are also some other feminist scholars that contests with the idea that state is the primary actor of institutionalizing patriarchy, and their views will be dealt with in the next liberal- institutionalism section. 4
Also, a feminist critique can be made on hegemonic stability theory. Neo- realists maintain that the hegemon provides stability through establishing neoliberal international economic regime, however such claim obscures the negative impact that such order poses on women, hence begging for the question: stability for whom? Neoliberal international economic regime encouraged free trade and free movement of capital, therefore increasing the amount of transnational FDIs and shift of the production site from the North to the South. Elson and Pearson (1981) argue that the shift of production from the North to the South reinforced gendered hierarchies rather than challenging it, in their analysis of women s employment in third world export manufacturing. Also, Mies et al. (1988) identifies women as the last colony in global IPE of production and trade, by pointing out that both international and national capital and state systems disproportionately exploit the third world and women s labor. Therefore, the neoliberal hegemon does not only enforce neoliberalism but also patriarchal political economy, thus the feminist scholars criticize the obliviousness of gendered oppression of neoliberal hegemonic stability. Liberal Institutionalism The second mainstream IPE theory that this paper scrutinizes with feminist analytical framework is liberal institutionalist theory. Liberal institutionalism maintains that the increasingly complex net of economic interdependence and creates mutual interests in cooperation, therefore the states participate in international organizations according to their own national interests and hence mitigating the bounded rationality. Keohane (1984) also stresses upon distinguishing cooperation apart from harmony; harmony is an apolitical circumstance in which actors self- interested actions automatically aligns with the others, whereas cooperation is highly political circumstance where patterns of behaviors must be altered and actors must be brought to conformity through a process of negotiation. Similarly to neo- realism, liberal institutionalism also focuses on states and assumes Hobbesian natural state and rational choice theory of absolute or relative gains. 5
Feminist IPE scholars engage with liberal institutionalism by recognizing the role of international institutions in shaping patriarchal global political economy. For instance, Viviene Taylor (2000) pointed out how dominant elites in gendered global institutions promote market- based solutions to socio- political problems and thereby reinforce patriarchal market principles. Prugl (2004; 2008) also maintains that the contemporary international economic institutions spread neo- liberal and patriarchal ideologies and that gender orders embedded the process of globalization in welfare states. She provides evidences such as studies of rhetoric at UN summits that reveals gender- biases in neoliberal discursive frames, (Runyan, 1999) gendered meanings in the ILO s regulatory practices, (Prugl, 1999) and gender biases in development practices (Rogers, 1980). Such extensive studies of feminist IPE scholars demonstrate how economic global governance is gendered, highlighting the role of international organizations in institutionalizing the current global economy. (Rai, 2013; 274-5) Also, a feminist critique can be made to the liberal institutionalist view that rational choices of individual state interests create international cooperation, deluding as if there is such thing as a single national interest. A state consists of diverse interests that are mutually exclusive, therefore the so- called national interest represented in international political economy is merely the prioritized interest of the dominant group patriarchy. Therefore the interests of the oppressed women are not represented in the international cooperation and global governance. Too often, we witness international cooperation prioritizing patriarchal financial and military interests over restoring women s rights and dignity. For example, when Margot Wallström, the feminist Swedish foreign minister, denounced subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia stopped issuing visas to Swedish businessmen. However she maintained that it was unethical for Sweden to continue with its military co- operation agreement with Saudi Arabia, hence thirty Swedish CEOs signed a letter condemning her, and King Carl XVI Gustaf advised her to compromise. (Cohen, N., 2015) This example shows how even under the feminist government, patriarchal elites pressures to prioritize patriarchal interests over women s rights, and how the rest of the world remained silent. 6
Another example is the recent bilateral agreement on the wartime sex slavery (a.k.a comfort women) between South Korea and Japan. The Korean foreign minister signed the final and irreversible agreement in which Japan avoided any legal responsibility of the wartime sex crime and prevented further possibility of taking any legal action. The surviving victims were furious about the sudden agreement, as what they had been fighting for decades was the legal court ruling of ICC and hence restoration of the victims dignity and honor. A speculated reason for why the Korean government suddenly changed its stubborn position upon war crime compensation to a ridiculously generous one, is due to the pressure from the US for their two East Asian allies to resolve this tension quickly, hence strengthening the US position in the East Asian geopolitics against China and North Korea. (Tisdall, 2015) The Western media blindly celebrated this news without much scrutiny of the agreement actually contained. Ban Ki- moon, the Secretary- General of UN, also celebrated this agreement, calling it a landmark agreement. This is also an example of how national interests, international cooperation, the media and the IO institutionalize gendered- priority towards patriarchal interests, while trivializing the state- organized sex violence against women. Marxist IPE Theory The third IPE theory to be put under the feminist microscope is the Marxist IPE theory. The Marxist IPE theory is based on three major assumptions: 1) historical processes of change in societies and at the global level reflect different modes of economic development and wealth accumulation; 2) capitalism is the main driving force in the global political economy; 3) capitalist processes induce class conflict between the owners and the ruling elite and workers who are a subordinate and exploited class. (Broome, 2014: 23) Unlike neo- liberalists or liberal institutionalists, transnational historical materialism argues that dynamics of social class situates above the state as the primary actor of IPE, and concentrates on understanding dialectic totality of structure and agency instead of studying either structure or actors. (Overbeek 2012:165-70; Broome 2014: 23-4) 7
Feminist IPE scholars engage with Marxist IPE theory on a completely different level compared to the level of engagement that we have witnessed thus far, and some Marxist literature also engages with feminism, although not to the same degree and amount. Such level of unprecedented engagement with each other is possible because they are both critical political economy theories that give attention to those marginalized and disempowered in the international political economy, one with class analysis and the other with gender analysis, and these are often not separate issues but closely interlinked ones. There is also a whole branch of feminist IPE scholars called Marxist feminism or socialist feminism that studies social reproduction as exploitation of women s labor subordinate to patriarchy, viewing the family and the household as a site of production, consumption and accumulation. (Rai, 2013; 271) They identified social reproduction as reproduction of the capitalist system and its social relations as a whole (Edholm, Harris & Young, 1978; Mackintosh, 1981; Rai, 2013). There were also some socialist feminist works that characterized capitalism as inherently patriarchal. Einstein (1979:5) showed how class and gender hierarchies are fundamental to the maintenance of the capitalism, by arguing that the recognition of women as a sexual class lays the subversive quality of feminism of liberalism because liberalism is premised upon women s exclusion from public life on this very class basis. The demand for equality for women with men, if taken to its logical conclusion, would dislodge the patriarchal structure necessary to a liberal society. Such works of socialist feminist IPE scholars were developed upon the work of Friedrich Engels work on The Origins of Family, Private Property and the State (1972), in which as stated that the establishment of private property led to exclusion of women from the public sphere and non- domestic labor, thereby making them dependent on the male breadwinner, and hence the state institutionalizing the hierarchical gender relationship further as marriage. (Rai, 2013; 268) Therefore, in the common goal of deconstructing capitalist political economy, feminists and Marxist IPE scholars also give more intersectional attention to the exploited in IPE, such as race, ethnicity, and environment issues. (Agarwal, 2010; Braidotti et al., 1993; Hall, 1997; Friends of the Earth, 2015). 8
However, regardless of how well accepted and engaged Marxist IPE theory is by the feminist IPE scholars, Marxist theory cannot completely avoid the feminist critique as well. Feminist scholars such as Hartmann (1979) pointed out that Marxist political discourse and practice still marginalized gender hierarchy struggles, and how little Engels work on women and family was integrated into Marxist praxis. Indeed, the degree of engagement of the two theories is uneven; far more feminist IPE literature engages with Marxist theories and class analysis, compared to how much the Marxist IPE literature does with feminist theories and gender analysis. Such uneven tendency is also reflected and commonly witnessed in higher educational institutions; many universities, which would allocate resources into educating about Marxist theories in Political Economy, would not allocate any or not nearly as much resource into educating about feminist political economy. Such imbalance shows how even if capitalism may be inherently patriarchal, socialism is not inherently feminist nor even patriarchy- free. For example, women in (formerly) communist states such as Latvia or North Korea were doubly burdened with both domestic and public/private labor, whereas men weren t burdened with domestic labor. Capitalism may be the common enemy of Marxists and feminists, but fighting patriarchy may be a lonelier battle. Constructivism The final IPE theory to be engaged with feminist IPE theory in this paper is constructivist theory. Constructivist IPE gives significance to the roles of ideas and discourses in shaping institutions and global political economy. (Broome, 2014) In the constructivist view, ideas construct both the identity of who an actor thinks they are in a particular social context and what interests these actors seek for in performing their social roles. (Broome, 2014; Blyth, 2003) Therefore, in the constructivist view, an economic theory does not merely work as an instruction sheet that describes how the economy works, but more importantly, as what causes construction of economy by influencing choices over which rules to pick, which policies to follow, and how to design different institutions. (Broome, 2014: 25-6; Blyth 2013: 38-9) 9
Feminist IPE scholars engage with and utilize the constructivist theory in order to explain the formulation of the current gendered political economic institutions. Gendered discourses lead to gendered institutions and global political economic order, and bear in mind that when I say gendered discourse, it doesn t mean only a fraction of all discourses that directly talks about gender, but almost the entirety of all discourses. This is because seemingly gender- blind and gender- neutral discourses are in fact often gendered, as we live in a male- normative society where the masculine discourse is perceived as the normative discourse, and where gender- neutrality often means a mere deletion of femininity hence leaning towards masculinity. Scholars such as Peterson (2003) and Woehl (2008) maintain that the reproduction of gender relations takes a globalized form via discursive, policy, and institutional modes of gender disciplining, which is done through both policymaking and governing by excluding and including certain gendered discourses, techniques, and technologies of governance. (Rai, 2013; 275) Such gendered discourses are formulated, facilitated and institutionalized by the state, mainstream media, international organization, (Prugl, 2004) educational institutions and publications. Rai (2013) also pointed out that feminist IPE theory is marginalized despite the variety and depth of the literature, because school and university curricula much neglects feminist work and therefore marginalizes feminist discourse from the mainstream academic discourse. But the good news is, that constructivist process also allows change in gendered institutions by changing the discourse. Accumulation of powerful feminist critique, literature and activism has resulted in significant shifts within the economic discourse of international institutions; (Rai, 2013) for instance, the UN has been recognizing gender mainstreaming as its strategy from the late 90s (United Nations, 2002). Inspired by this, the current Swedish government also declared gender mainstreaming as their primary strategy and goal, embedding feminism at all levels of institutions, such as feminist foreign policy of Margot Wallström and longest equal paid parental leave policy in the world. (Sweden, 2015) It is no coincidence that the discourse of feminism is also a part of mainstream political discourse in Sweden, unlike most elsewhere. 10
Conclusion Thus far in this paper, we have seen critical assessment of how the focus of IPE on only neo- realist, liberal institutionalist, Marxist and constructivist theories at the expense of the alternatives (feminism) obscures key political economic drivers of order and change in the IPE (women). After a brief introductory explanation of the feminist IPE theory, neo- realism was first engaged by analyzing the significant role of state in formulating gendered institutions and then criticizing the obliviousness of the neoliberal hegemonic stability towards oppression of women. The criticism touched upon empirical terrains of IPE of labor, production and trade. Then, liberal institutionalism was engaged with by analyzing the significance of international governance in institutionalizing patriarchy. The liberal institutionalist theory of national interest in international cooperation was criticized, as it neglects that there is no such thing as a single national interest, and it is the dominant patriarchal interest that is represented in external cooperation. Empirical evidences of Sweden, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan were provided in order to support such critique. After that, the engagement between Marxist and feminist IPE theories were explored, however it was still criticized that Marxism itself could not completely be free from patriarchy. Hence, constructivist theory was engaged with by explaining how gendered discourse results in gendered institutions, and how positive discursive change is resulting in institutional change. Empirical evidences of the UN and Sweden were provided. Foucault said all relationships were power relationships. For too long, we have forgotten, or consciously ignored, the hierarchical power relationship between genders, and deleted women and domestic labor out of the political economic equation. But women are very much real and significant actors and drivers of international political economy, and IPE certainly cannot truly claim to study the whole picture of the world we live in, with half the picture covered with the veil of patriarchal ignorance. 11
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