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Globalization and Its Discontents f'J
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Capitalist Development, Political Movements, '
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and Gender CD

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.45 .in economics._. the social sden-ces have: long focused on processes and insti-
tutions within single states, sod-eties_. and -econom1es. UntH very re-Cently. the
t-e:rrru. giobnl and transnational were either alien to or marginal to rnains.t:Ieam
sodal scienc-e theories. InternatiDna1 and world \'\'-Ere of couise unde:rstood, but
supranational develDpments could hardly be fathomed. Outside of tbe main-
stream, dependency theory and its more sophisticated variant, world-systems
theory, challenged Marxism's emphasis on class conflicts within single societ-
ies) dravo'ing attention to the transnational natme of capital and l.abor flows
and the implications tberoof fm economic ami political processes at the soci-
etal level, as well as for tbe reproduction of global inequalities} Back in the
mainstream, the-ories of sodal movements and j'new sod;al movements"' a1so
focused on national-level dynamic>-and mainly in the w~st or ill "post-
industrial :so-dety.f'l. But no sooner had these theories. gained prominence in
the 19BOs than new d-evelopments began to challenge smne of their basic
~ssumptions.

The new developments included fonru of governance and forms of activ-

i>m at the global level, as well as transnatiolliil shifu in political economy.
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Ne;..,T governance structures. included the ever-gro,-,-ring pnwer and. influence of
multinational corporation>, the World Ban!<, the IMF, ancl the WTO, along
with the emergence of regional blocs such as the European Union (EU) and
the North Amrncan Free Trade Agreement (NAFfA). TheSf' institutions of
global and regional governance were also behind shifts. in international politi-
cal economy which entailed the move from Ke-ynesian or state-centered eco-
nomic models to neoliberal or free-markEt economic strategH:s. Thus the
1
'structural adjustment and .stabilizationn policies that were advocated for the
Third World eluting the 1980> and 1990s, the transition fmm socialism to cap-
ita1ism in the Second WorldT and the free-market illlprtnt of Reaganism and
Thatchrnsm in the First World all seemed to be part of a global process of eco-
nomic restructuring.' Parallel to the economic restructuring of the worlcl
economy in the 1980s there emergecl a transnational fslam.ic fundamentalist
movement-largely in the Middle E.asL North Afdca, and South .-<\sia-that
sought to curb Western pDlitical ami cultural influences and recuperate tradi-
tional social and gender norms.• The response to these new global develop-
ments took the form of transnational collective action, including the emer-
gence of transnational social movements and advocacy networks that focused
on human rights, the environment, and e-conomic jus-tic-e_ s Women. 1oo, be-
gan to organize and mobilize across borders, particularly armmd the effects of
economic Iestructuting and of Islamic fundamentalism."
Globalization, therefore, has compelled a rethinking of economicz sodo-
Jogical, .and political categories, and a reconsideration of the organizational
form of contemporary co1lecti\.""e action. But th:is rethinking has not .al\•,,Tays led
to consensus. Globalizatlon has been approached from differen I clisciplinary
vantage poinhz and there remain disagreements l\'ithin disciplines. regarding,
for example, the novelty of globall.zation, the extent to which global strnc,.
tun~.s have weakened national structures:, the pennanence versus the contin-
gency of globalization, and the negative ve:r:sus positive -entailments- of global-
ization. Among feminist scholars, ther-e is also some disagreeme!lt as to the
defining features of globalization and their gendEr dynamics.
Globalization: The latest Stage of Capitalism
Is g~ob.alization-the increasing integration of deveJoping -countries in
world trade and world finance, along with deregulation and liberalization of
markets, as.s.et diversification, and increased activity by multinational corpora-
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GiolmJization nmf Its Discontents
tions-a new historical stage? The sociologist Ankle Hoogvelt believes that it
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js1 and writes that economic globalization has tlrree key features: a global mar- 0
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ket discipline, flexible accumulation through global webs, and finandal deep- f'J
ening. Similarly, "Briti>h sodologistl.eslie Sklair refers to the globalization of ""'f'JI "
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capital on a historically unprecedented scale.' 0
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But according to others, globalization is not new. Vandana Shiva, Indian
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physicist, feminist, and en~onmentalist. argues that colonization of the c::
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Third World was the fust stage of globalization. To world-system theorists
such as Immanuel Wallerstein and Christopher Chase-Drum, globalization is
just .another word for the processes that they have . always referred to as
world-systemic: integration into the economic zones of core, periphery,. and
sem.iperiphery, with theii attendant hierarchies of states, and forms of resis-
tance- known as anfuystemic movements. Moreover, the capitalist world-
economy has experienced cyclical processes and secu1ar trends for hundreds
of years. Marxists such as Ellen Meiksins \'l'ood argue that globalization is a Ie-
dundan t term for the intemationaliza lion of capital. Paul Hirst and Grahame
Thompson, authors of Globalization in Question, regard globalization as a "nec-
essary myth."" Many on the left regard globalizatlon, at least its economic cli-
mension, to be an e>:tension of impertallsm. Thus globalization would be con-
sidered the latest (if not the "highest"---flpologies to V. I. Lenin) stage of
capitalism.
Among those \\,-ho a.ccept the tE-rm and the process. debate rages over
whether globalization is good m bad, and whether it is lnev:itable or change-
able. Neoliberal economists and other advocates of the free market argue that
economic globalization will have positive effects on economies.. growth rates,
their development prospects, and pi'Ople's welfare." For progressives like
Walden Bello, Martin Khor, David Korten, Jerry Mander, and others, global-
ization means just the opposite; the global economic process reproduces great
and grov.-'ing inequalities of wealth and incomes '\\'ithin and across countries.
Furthe-rmorE, it is not an inevitable stage but the result of consdous neoliberal
, lPOil<:y'-m:aking by "globalizers" or the agents of globalization such asmultina-
cm:porations and international finandal institutions. Globalization)
therefore, should be vigomusly opposed by organized movements starting at
the grassroots, local) and community levels. 1o Many trade unions leaders have
"deerted the social costs of globalization, such as unemployment, job lnsecu-
' and continued poverty, and they have called for the establishment of
·COre labor standards, fair trade, democratization of global economic manage-
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Z4 GioVafizfng t·Vome~J
ment, a tax on 5peculative financial flmvs (the so-called To hiE Tax}, and a
shift of focus from markets to people. l1
For some economists,. 5-Uch as Jay Mandle, the OECD's: Jean Bonvin, or
those who produced the 1999 UNDP Human Development Repmt, globalization
is "janus-faced" but there is some room for maneuver within its. confines tore-
duce inequalities, pro;.'ided that inv-estment and trade betwE"en ~~cJv.anced and
less. developed c-ountries increases. In a report issued in April2002, Oxfam-UK
argued that trade libe-ralization could benefit developing countri>2s, but it does
not invaiiably do m; what is mme, the multilateral trade system is weighted
against the interests of developing countries mainly he.cau~e co1e countries
practice double standards by urging developing countries to liberalize while
keeping their own market,; closed to imports such as "nuricultural products and
textile.s-.12
Debates continue on the growth of income inequalities across and within
countries.. and whether or not inequalities are assodated with globalization
and especially with the liberalization of prices, labor markets, finandal mar-
kets, and trade. OECD raearch by Angus Maddison on inequalities between
nations since the nineteEnth century shows rising cross--nation::Ll inequalities:
since the 1970s. Anthony Aikinson documents :rising inequalities in the in-
dustrialized countries {except in France). Research by Roberto Patrido Kor-
zenlewicz and Timothy Moran on twentieth-century trends in inequality
finds rising cross-national inequalities but a mixed pjctur-e t\ithin countries.
E<:onomlst Lance Taylor found that globalization and liberalization have not
been uniformly favorable in terms of effects on growth ami income distribu-
tion. Among the eighteen countries studied, only Chile after 19'10 managed to
combine high grm-.."1:11 l'l.'i.th decreas-ing inequallty~in contrast to increasing
inequality over the preceding fifteen yea£>. Volker Bomschier l1as offered sev-
eral explanations for increasing inequality since the 1970s, including macro-
economic policy shifts, as well as technological and educational changes. His
re>earch, as well '" that of Atkinson, suggests that public polic)' ;mel social
norms matter. even ,.lithln a capitalist context. Others maintain that grmving
inequalities are not the n:sult of g1obaliz.ationr and that trade liberalization in
facts benefits £Conomles and populations. According to Ajit Ghose, growing
inequality across countries is in fact causEd by nonliberalit:ation of trade In ag-
ricultural pToduct5 and lack of bas\c human and physical capital that has left
many developing countries dependent on the export of primary commodities.
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Jagdish Bhag\vati argues that market imperl-ectioru should not be tackled
through trade intervention and insists that trade liberalization promote> :z:
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grovrth and pro.s.perity.n <I
The teiiD5 globalization, globa!ity, globalism, global, and tmnsm>tional have ..,.
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been used in a number of ways, and vartou< scholars have sought to distin- 0
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guish the terms conceptually or to define globalization With more precision. CD
For some, globalism should be understood as free market ideology _H Globaliza- --3
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tion it:sclf has a weak definition and a strong one. ln its ~o,.Te.ak definitionf glabal-
izatian refers merely to the international spread of certain trends; in the strong
definition, it refers to a systemic process of clevelopment and cbange, or a new
process of social system building at the global level. This echoes the main
daims of world-system theory (for example, the work of Christopher Chase-
Dunn)~ but other sodologists prefer new r::oncepts, including ucompression of
the world" and "global consdousness" (Roland Robertson), "transnational
practices" thmugh the transnational corporation, the transnational capitalist
dass, and the cultme-ideology of consumerism via the media (Leslie Sldair),
the emerging trarunational state apparatus (William Robinson), the intensifi-
cation of worldwide social relations via "time{space distantiation" {Anthony
Giddens) or "time/space compression" (David Harvey), and "soda! structure
as interactive information nehvorks" (Jvlanuel Castelli)."
Another debate pertains to the extent to which globalization has weakened
the sovereignty of nation-states and the- .autonomy of national economies.
There are some ·who bEI<Iieve that inasmuch as globalization entails 'fdeterri-
torialization" through supranational economic, political, and cultural pm-
cesses and institutions, the nation-state as a power apparatus has been super-
seded. The activities of transnational corporations, global cities, and the
transnational capitalist dass render state-centered analysis outdated, accord-
ing to this view_ Thns Sklair's "theory of the global system" proposes taking
r•the whole world'~ as the starting point-that isJ vie\\'i.ng the ·world not as an
· aggregate of nation-states but as a single unit and obiect of analysis. Cox,
Gray, and others have argued that the options available to states have been
greatly dimln.i>hed by globalization, while Sldair, Robinson, and others have
theortzed the emergence of a deterritorialized trarunational capitalist dass,
With its attendant institutions.'" In contrast, Hirst and Thompson argue that
the nation-state remains the dominant form of gcivemance by comparison
"ith more global or subnationallevels. Similarly, Berger, Dore, and their col-
26 GJ,obaUzing t.Vomen
laborators .s.how that national governments are still able: to pursue differe~t
polides and maintain Oistinctive institutions. and mge caution in generaliz-
ing about the e..xtent of economic g1Ov 12-a t"10n -H
~al·
The debate on the state and glob:alization-\•lhich feminists also have taken
up. as we sh2lll see shortly--,.viU continu€. One should note t:.t.at in the-~i~d1e
· fundamentalism and revolutionary lraman Islam tn!tially
East, where lsl arruc . . n
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s:P>\.,. 1tse as supranau·unal ·~d railed a=;mt "artificial colomahst bmders
u.u. o--- . .
that divided the um:m.a.. o-r the community of lvfuslim believers., the actlVlties.
and objectives. of political movements have l<Hgely remained ~..-rithin n~tional
borders. Moreoverf territorial state nationalism has deep roots 1n the region, as
the ban-lraq war of19BO-S8 and the overlong Israeli-Palestinian conflict have
demonstrated so vividly. On the other hand1 as •ove s.aw \'-ith the en1ergence of
Osama bln Laden's al-Qaeda netwmk in the late 1990s, globalization does
seem to facilitate the formation of loosely organized, deterritoriaUzed transna-
tional groups (with highly objectionable features). lt would ":'pe~r, ~rerefore,
that the capitalist world-sysrem Is comprised <•f a global economy, rnstrtutlo>1al•zetl
but xmequal nation-states, and transnational mo-vements tmd nehvorks.
£conom1>ts and world-system sodoiogists view globalization in largely eco-
nomic terms.. but foi many observet:S it is a multifaceted phenomenon. It refers
to~ inter alia-" time-space compression-" woild cultu:re, the increase in the avail-
able modes of organization, the emergence of multiple and overlapping identi-
ties. and the .ema:gence of hyb:rld sites such as world dtie:sr free trade zo-nes,
offshme banking facilities, borderrones, and ethnic melange neighbmhoods.
Jan Aart Scholte discu»es globalization as deterritorialization, producing and
diffu_-siflg r•suprate:rritorial," 1'traDSWOT!df nand "trans.border" relations between
people. He and Jan Nederve<>n Pieterse regard "hybridization" to be an im-
portant facet of globalization, although both also highlight the unevenness,
as)'IIll!letry, and inequality that are embedded in the new global melange.'"
Feminist Approaches to Globalization and Gender
The Jiteratme I have just discussed tends to be inattPntive to gender, but
an emerging feminist scholarship on globalization puts gender, and often
women, at the center of analy:s.is. At pr~sent, at least t\\'o femin!st perspective-s
on globalization may be identified. ln one perspective, feminists. analyze the
operation> of capital via the >tate, global economy, and international finandal
institutions (IFI5) through the prlsms of gender and cb>S. They are also inter-
estedin how consdou.:snes.s. and s-elf-organization offer resistance and altema-
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Globalization ami Its Discontents 27
tive frameworks at both national and glo-hallevels.I9 Here~ the state matters
not only conceptually but also politically, for only states can provide adequate :z:
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social arrangem en ts for which citizens must contribute and hom which they
may d"Dland accountability. We may refer to this as the Marxist-feminist or
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femlni.st political economy approach to globalization. In the second approach, 0
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attention is dir-ected to symbolic representations of economic gJobalizatinnr CD
gendered binaries in the construction of knowledge about globalization, con- --3
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tradictory and decente.n:d organizations, and. heterogeneous suhjectivities. 1n
tbis postmodemist m postcolonialist feminist approach, there is a tendency to
play down or reject the importance of the state, the global economy, and
global femi:ni.sm in favor of theorizing that emphasizes agency, identities, dif-
ferences; hi-erarchies: based on race, class, gender, .sexual orientation. etc.... and
multiple form> and sites of power.
in an early version of the postmodemist approach, Inderwal Grewal and
Caren Kaplan rejected the center-periphety model assodated with world-
systems theory or dependency theory in favor of "transnational cultural
flows/' "the: Oiversity of1vomen"s agency," and I!.scattered hegemonies such as
global economic structures, patriarchal nationalisms, 'authentic' forms of tra-
dition, local structures of domination, and legal-juridical oppression on multi-
ple levels."
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In a more recent contribution, Marianne Marchand took ex-
~eption with much of the Marxist-feminist or feminist political economy
· literature that, for example, call> women a "vulnerable group.• Her objection
was that such an approach "does not allow for any differentiation among
women and men in terms of class, race, ethnidty, age, nationality, and educa-
tion." She criticized approaches that use "dualistic categorizatioru or dichoto-
. _ mies• such as productive/reproductive work, paid/unpaid labor, and co=od-
ity/care economy, and warned that behind such concepts lurks "the danger of
a female sphere or matenalist approach.'" Emphasizing .r"<:omplexiti-es$ contin-
~encie>, ami contradictions," Marchand endorsed an approach to the em erg-
- mg Wodd order as one that recognizes "'structures of... and practices. around~
dass. gender-" ethn.idty-" race_ sexual orientation~ and r-eligion.~"21 Similarly, Su-
-.?.anne Bergeron took issue with "'globaiocentric1 " t•capitaloc-entric, u and state-
~entered feminist analyses~ criticizing much of the feminist political economy
literature, induding the critiques of structural adjusunent, for "emphasi:zlng
. , the role that national policy can play by instituting national .restrictions on in-
.. lernati
· Dnal capital, social safety nets, fair-play laws, and health and safetyieg-
ulations • Sh .ti . d f . .
· · e m aze ernmt concepts of globalization that assume the
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"existence of a power structure in \":hich global capital dominat-es its olhers" 01
that calls for resistance strategies by women ba:sed on global identity, such as
global feminism. She see:med to prefer ''alternative notions of feminist subiec-
ti\-"ity" and ''scattered hegeTilonies."22
In a number of studies on th-e genda:ed nature of globali.z.ation, scholars
emphasize the 1vays in which masculinities and femininities are insnibed in
its processes and institutions. According to]. K. Gibson-Grahan1. globalization
may be seen as a ''r.a_pe scr.iptJ' and .a masculine proje-ct, while L H. M. Ling re-
fers to globalization as "hypennasculinity"--a line of .argmnentation also
elaborated by Charlotte Hooper 1!Ild by llVV. Connell, who ha> argued that
the lmplirit gender politics of neolil>erafum Jndmles a "transnational busi-
ness masculinity.'-' Indeed, the influential magazine Tite Eamornist coined the
term .. Davos.lvianJ' in re-ference to the globalized businessmen and politicians
who meet in Switzerland fo.r the l,"•lodd Economic Forum.23 Sim.Hady, J...far-
chand and Runyan vnote:
ln the neoUberal discourse on globalization, the staie is typically ...-feminized" in
relation to ilie: mmt robust mark-et by being r-epresented .as .a drag on th:e global
economy that must bE' subordinated and minimized. ... [I-Iow-evetl, tht: st.ite aho
parndoxically takes on a new role b)' becoming more ak.in to the private .sector
(,i!.J1-d thus masculinized) as. it is .intanationiiliz.ed to assist global capital and as its
coercive and SUI"V.eiHance .capadties :;ue being enhan-ced .... 1M] ffiistrles that fo-
cus on dome:stic- health, education, .and social welfar-e :ilH': bec-oming incn:-asingty
disadvantaged or "feminized" ill relation to ministries of finance .i!:nd econom1<:
affairs that are directly re1ated to the global economy and thus, inVE:.Sted
masculine authority..Z'l
Spike Peterson's contribution moves away from the postmodernis.t focus
on difference, specificity, and locality ln favor of a femlnlst m«tananative and
an lnsl>tence on the "glol>al" as the unit of analysis. Integrating Marxist, femi-
nist, world-systems, and postroloniali>t analyses, Peterson offffs a new read-
ing of the global political economy that revolves around the pToductive, re-
productive, and virtual economies, all of which draw on and consist of
gendered ideologies, id-entities, and institution~. This. new framing, she ar-
gues, "provides a way to see informal activities, flexibilization, global produc-
tion. migration flows, capital movements, and virtual activiti-es as. in-extricah)e
and interacting dimension.> of neolil>eral globalization.''" In a conceptualiza-
tion that l>roadens the scope of "the economic" to Jncl ude mltural processes
GWbalizatltm am11t5 Vlsmnll'rll5
illld gender dynamics, Peterson bridges the Marxist-f€:IIlinis.t and postmodem-
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ist feminist perspectives, drawing out the strongest arguments in each. 0
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In both feminist approaches that I have discussed, globalization is a f'J
gendered process with objectionable :featuJes..- but in the Marxist-feminist or ""'I "
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feminist political economy approach the ne.xu> of capital, class, and gender 0
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determines. how women and men are involved in and affected by the eco-
.....,
nomic, poHtical, and cultural dimensions of globalization in various parts of c::
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the wodd and at the levcls of the global t::conomy.. the national economy~
and the household. For thi5- Ieason, Bergecon and other critics of femin.is.t po-
litical economy have missed the point. Rather than being strictly "globalo-
centric, • feminist political economy looks at the operations of capital, class,
and gender locally, nationally, and globally. Nor is feminist political econ-
omy .strictly speaking fjstate centered." Feminists cannot and do not examine
the state as a discrete entity, divorced from supranational economlc and _po-
litical forces. For Marxist-femlnists in particular..- the state remains a: salient
category am! has by no means withered away, but states are weaker or stron-
ger ln the global economy, and here the concepts of North and South or,
more specifically, core, periphery, and semiperiphery are relevant and useful.
Feminist political econorrrists. also evince what I call a "critical r-ealist'"' ap-
proach to the slate. Highly critical of the patriarchal and neoliberal state,
they also recognize it as an lnstitution-{}r a set of app<rra.tuses--that has di-
rect bearing on ;.•lomen's rights and interests '"'ithln the sodety and in the
·home, largely through pul>lic policies and legal frameworks. For example,
many women's organizations in lvfuslim countries are struggling for the re-
~\'i.th
form of Muslim family laws, also known as personal status codes. They appeal
to the state to introduce reforms and impiove women's legal status_,. even
though it is the state that has instituted and enforced the discriminatory
laws. At the same time, feminists in Muslim cotmtries look to CEDAVv and
the UN's women's rights agenda for legitimacy and support Jn their struggles
wilh their ruling elites and with the Islamist movements that ol>ject to any
changes in Muslim family law. lliewhere. women have appealed to the state
to instihJte equal opportunity polities, o:r an tidiscrim:ination legislations or
r-eproductive rights, or family leave polities. And around the \•lodd, ·women
have a special interest in the welfare state. Thus ln 2002 the network Women
in Development Europe (\VIDE) •.xpand"d its focus on trade to include "a
politically lnfmmed power analysis," because of concerns that the
"19ll"W<ll<l shift of many EU governments was resulting ln a stronger neo-
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30 Globalizing ~·Vomen
liberal policy agenda "with many human rights violations ami an attempt to
break dm-m_ the 'i......elfare state.'·'26 The state matters. to women in their daily
lives, and of comse to MaiXist-ferninists and feminist political economists ill
their conceptual approaches.
Feminists have Jong b€en concerned ·with gender and power.. but feminist
political economists view gender and power d.ifferentl}• from_ postmorle:nlists.
Rather than the uscattt:red hegemonies1r posited by postmodernist fe:minist!ij
we see political and economic pm.,~er concentrated in multinational corpora-
tions based in core countries, in 1nsti tutions of global govtlflance such as the
World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO, and in 1A'ashington, D. C.-though we
also see these institutions as forms of patriarchal power that work through or
around state systems. A Marxist-feminist might agree 1.\'ith Leslie: Sklair and
with V\7illiam Robins.on concerning the formation of a transnationa1 capitalist
class (TCC) that has shaped the global economy and institutions of global
governance. But she would also point out that the TCC is an overwhelmingly
male capitalist dass and largely concentrated in the core countries. And while
l fo; one wol.J.!d agree With Roblnson and other globa.!ization tlu;DJ:ists that a
capitalist tramnational state apparatus is emerging, I would point out that
tl::Us apparatus is stronger and mo:re: vi:sib]e in the core countries-and possibly
in the periphery, where V>.'orld Bank and IMF staff seem to be the mllin
decision-makers-than it is ill the semiperlphery. SUTely this is why the state
still matters to feminist scholars. not to mention women activists in the semi-
periphery and activists within transnational feminist networks.'·' For this rea-
son/ wom-en's movements. t'lr'Ork both in and against th-e state, scrutinize pub-
lic polldes at national and global levels, and make demands on stales and
international organizations alike_
Globalization and Collective Action
Globalization scholars and activists alike tend to distinguish between "glo-
balization from above" and s'globalization from belO\"l."28 The foJDleJ refers to
the neoliberal economic policy environment and the growing power of inter-
national financial institutions, trade organizations~ .and other dominant inter-
national forc-es. that have triggered collective responses from labor, en-,.iron-
mental, and fm1inist groups-that is, from the forces of globaliz.atlon from
below. lt may be said that these .s.odal forces and sodal movement organiza-
tions are the agents or histo:dcal subjects of globalization from below.
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Glohalizntion and lt5 Diswments 31
The global integration of mark-ets and the adoption by gov€rnments of :z:
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hannful e-conomic policies are key aspects of globalization, and they have be-en <I
challenged in significant ways by the movements and net;..-mks that think
""
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and act both locally and globally to challenge the hegEIIlony of corporate
0
capital. Much has been written about the pro1ife:ration and gro\vinginfluence 0
co
of nongovernmental organizations {NGOs)~ international nongovernmental .....,
organizations {INGOs) f and transnational sodal movem_-ent organizations c::
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(TSMOs) such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, and about the rela-
tive success nf the campaigns of these and other human rights and environ-
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menta! organizations. Michael Cerny argues that because globalization has =
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profoundly altered the way the structurE of goods and assets is shaped-for ex-
,;::
am.ple, divorcing finance capital from the state and privatizing sei'\>~Jces-trans­ [Tl
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national forms of collEctive action have emerged over Ie:distributive public C>
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goods such as health and welfare services and employment policies, which [Tl
C>
w-er-e once the province- of the :state:.29 To be sure-" we have -;.vitne:ssed growing [Tl
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calls at the global level for full employment, jab security, decent work, in-
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creaSed-develOpm-ent lliistallce on the pari-Of"tffe ·core:·-cou:Iifri€S, the~obin­ ~;o
Tax on sp&ulative financial transactions, and other redlstrtbutive measures.
What we also have witnessed is the fonnation of NGOs, INGOs, TSMOs, and
TANs that explicitly target economic globalization and its :institutions tlrrough
various forms of collective action, including <fuect action.
Examples are the worldwide opposition to the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment (MAl) in 1998, dramatic protests in Seattle in NovEIIlber 1999-
during the WfO Ministerial Conference that was supposed to launch a "1\fil-
lennial Round" of world trade negotiations-and the protests against the
World Bank and the IMF in Washington, D.C., in April2000, when a coalition
of groups formed to demand an end to the Third World debt. A cycle of pro-
tests continued through most of 20[)0 and 2001, and included the anticapital-
bt protests in London on May Day 2000, the antiglobalization protests in Mel-
bourne and Prague in September 2000 and in Montreal the following month,
and protests in Zu:dch ill January 2001. When the World Economic Forum
met at Davos :in February 2001, protests took place there-" too. lvforeovers a
counterconference was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil (a stronghold of the left-
Wing Workers Party of Brazil), ill what would become the fust of a series of al-
ternative globalization gathermgs that have come to be known as the \'lorld
Social Forum.'" The cycle of protests continued in Quebec City, Canada, in
Aprll 2001, in Goteborg, Sweden, in june during the EU summit, and the fol-
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.......
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3Z
lovving month in GenoaT Italy, }'.'here the G-8 were meeting. The tragedy of
September 11 put a tempor.aT}.,. halt to the antigloba1ization protestsf but they
resumed in early 2002. In February 2002 the W mid Economic Forum met in
New York, and about one thousand an tiglobalization protesters appeared. The
ne..xt month. as the European Union :summit took place- in Spain~ about five
hundred thousand people held an anticapitalist piutest in Barcelona that also
denounced lsraeli actions in Palestine and U.S. plans to invade Iraq.31 During
the remainder of 2002, the anliglobalization movement joined forces with the
gru.-.ving antiwar movement,.- culminating in a huge demonstr.ation in Flor-
ence:I Italy, in November. \'>'here 0'il€r a half million people front an over Eu-
rope gathered to protest capitalism and \"{M making. 1\.ffiliom more marched
in early 2003 in antiwar protests around the world. And when the leaders of
the main core countries, the so-called GBI met in Evian, France, Jn early June
2003, an alternative swnmit, along w•th protests, took place in nearby Ge-
neva, Switzerland.
Schola:Is refer to these forms of global activism m supranational politics
and solidarity as transnational social mov-ements,.l2 transnational ad\rocacy
networks/J or antisy.stemic and counterhegemonic movements.J-#1 Others re-
fer to them a> part of the making of the tranma tiona! public sphere 35 or global
dvil.society.36 On the left~ activists refer to the global economic justice- move-
ment m the anticapit.alistfaltemative globalization movement.
The new .scholarship on globalization, sodal movements.-" and transna-
tional advocacy net\;.Torks -prol.ides a useful framewoik for understanding the
activities of the women-".s movemEnt at the globalleve-1, even though the liter-
ature often overlooks feminlst mobilization. The literature shows that TSMOs
and TA..t'Js engage in r~eardl.l' advocacy.r lobbying, and direct actlon, These aie
planned and -coo-rdinated through the us.e of information technologies:, whlle
the relatively low cost of international travel and rcla.._xed visa rehTUlations facil-
itate participation in n1ajor events or mobilization for protest actions. As such.
a global infrastructure ha> been built by these transnational so dill movements
and transnational advocacy networks. And as this bClok will 'how, transna-
tionaJ feminist neh-oTorks have contributed to this global infrastructure.
In their 1997 book, Smith, Chatfield, and Pagnucco eJUtmlne<l social move-
ments and global transformation, the relatio.Il5hip between tra.nsnational so-
cial movements and global governance, and implications for social move-
ment theory. They were especially interested in the formation ar1d activities of
TSMOs. The case sturues in the book showed how movements and their orga-
( (
niz,ations increasingly mobilize tra.n5nationa1 resources in national conflicts, :z:
0
generate constituencies for multilateral policy, and target international insti- <I
tutiolli. Among the cases studied -;,ve:re the Peace Brigades International in Sri f'J
Lanka, humanitarian oTganizations during the Ethlopia-Eritrea conflict_,. hu- ""'f'JI "
0
man .rights organizations in :Latin America_,. and the woTk of EarthAction Inter- 0
CD
national. The case studies rev.caled that activists at the national level increas- .....,
ingly dra'i.\T on iniem.ationa.l conventions, stanciards, OI treaties to legitimize c::
fT1
their own campaigns, lobby within intergovernmental organizations to d.raw
.attentlon to prob1e-ms \Vithin their countri-es, and. he1p fDTm transnational co-
alitions or alliances. around spedfic issm::s or ob;ectives.
Keck and Sikkink argued in their 1998 book that "the rapidly changing
configuration of world politiC<" entails the formation of transnational advo-
cacy networks (fANs) such as human :rights advocacy networks, environ-
mental advocacy netv.mrks, and transnational nehvorks. on violenc-e against
women, all of which hegan to proliferate in the late twentieth century. They
shmved how noru.tate actors interact with each other. . with states~ and ~vith in-
ternn-tional organizations, a11d how intemationa1 nongovernmental organiza-
tions promote institutional and policy changes in the .in temational order.
Keck and Sikkink referred to organizations and individuals l'Vithin advocacy
1
nenvorks. as . . political entrepreneurs. '"'ho mobilize resources like information
and memher>hlp and show a sophisticated awareness of the political opportu-
nity structures \\1thin which they are operating." TANs, they ''''Plained, en-
gage in "information politics, symbolic politics, leverage pCllitics, ond ac-
countability politics" with the objective of changing norms and standards. In
some cases they succeed, while in other cases they face constraints. Similarly,
for Smith and her colleagne>, TSMOs transmit information and thus aid the
diffusion of ideas and practic--es and facilitate moblliz.ation for mov-ement
goals. Accmding to one contrtbutm, "they also help diffuse norms and values
about partidpation in policymak:ing and execution and serve as constituen-
cies for other NGOs and for lGOs, thus fostering democratization.""
An important contribution of the Keck and Sikkink volume was its atten-
tion to thE! transnational campaign around violence again.st ,...~omen, a cam-
paign that has proven to be very effective. One may question, however, the au-
thoiS-" assertion that the issue of ·violence was more effecti•;re in mobilizing
Women th.an was the issue of e~onomic inequalities.3B It is important to recall
that the world . ..s women first mobilized around -economic deve1opm-ent issues
during the United Nations' Decade on Women (l97S-8S). Two TfNs that are
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now wcll known mobilized .in opposition to the v..rorld Bank and Jt..·fF's policies
of structural adjustment, which they argued advenely affected the welfare and
economic rights of working-das.s and low-income: women. These: networks--
Women in Development Europe (\'\'IDE} and Development Alternatives with
Women fo:r a Ne\"\~ Era (DAWN}-remain forused on issues of developmNit as--
sistance, trade policy.. and neoliberal economic poUde.s. Both neh\.Torks moni-
tor and criticize the European Union's development assistance and tradepoli-
cie; with African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries, and the policy frameworks
of the World Bank, the IMF, and the WfO. Although it is true that the global
women.rs movement has been very effective in raising awareness about vio-
lence agaimt women and, at the 1993 UN conference on human rights, helped
to establish inte:rnational norms that criminali.ze- wartime rape as. a human
.rights violation.rl!i' it is also true that global feminist activism has dra\\'TI atten-
tion to the harrnM effects of structural adjustment polities, leo ding the World
Bank to modify its policy .framewo.rk and take gender issues more seriously.
(See chapter 5.} Transnational feminism has been effective in both arenas of
human rights and economic policy.
Terry Boswell and Clrristopher Chase-Dunn, wrttingwithin a world-systems
theoretical frame:l.vork, have examined antisy.sternic activity.,. in world-his:torical
perspective. Theypointoutthat economic globalization has led to much dissat-
isfaction and ume<l, because of growing Jncome inequalitie;, declining labor
standards, continuing economic difficulties, and the emergence of new forrns
of global gov=ance that appear hegemonic and undemocratic. And what of
al temative framewmks proposed by oppositional movements? "Despite global-
ization,." they YVIite, . .'international politica1 parties and labor unions have not
bero among those international organi.zations on the rise. ,,..w Noting the rise of
.s.odalmovements and advocacy neh\•orks. centered on human rights, the envi-
ronment, and vmrnei_I's rights, and the persistence of laborr ethnic, and other
revolts ill developing countries, they conclude that: "A dust-er of reYolts in the
semi-periphery, vlhenmatched "With demands from core .s:odal movements. and
peripheral states for changes in international relation>, could make debated is-
rues of global standards m obvious solution. This would inrei:Iospect appear to
be .a v1orld revolution, one that would initiate new moyen1ents for global
change. " 41 lloswell and Chase-Dunn also 21cknowledge the p:rogres:sive nature
of the women's movement {although they do not elaborate on its character, ac-
tivities, or demands), and they suggest that an alliance of global movement>-
labor, environmEntal, and women's movements-could pose a formidable
( (
Giobaliwtion ami Its Discontents 35
challenge to 1he hegemony of global capitalism and its institutions. through the
:z:
building of global democracy. 0
<I
f'J
-"'-
Globalization: A Multidimensional and f'J
0
'
Gendered Perspective 0
co
--3
Having considered some of the literatme and debates on globalization and c::
rT1
global acrivism, we are Jn a position to define the concept and process in a
way that takes into account its varied dimensions and its. gender dynamics:.
Globalization i> a complex economic, political, cultural, iiTid geographic
p1ncess in which the mobility of capital.r organiz..ations. ideas, discourses, and
peoples has taken on an increasingly global or transnationill form. As a multi-
faceted phenomenon, globallzation may be elucidated in terms of economic,
pDlitical, and cultural dimensions. Economic globalization pertains to deeper
integration and more rapid interaction of economies through production~
trade, and (111llegulated} finandal transactions by banks and multinational
corporations, with an increased role for the World .Bank and the International
Moneta!}' Fund, as well .as the more recent 1,'\'orld Trade Organization. "Global-
izers" include the IFis, the \'ITO, the U.S. Treasury, the major capitalist states,
MNCs, and the transnational capitali;tclass. Although the capitalist world->ys-
tem has always been globalizing and there have been various waves of global-
ization (e.g., the 1870-1914 period, which is well documented}, it is probably
!rue that the trade, capital flows, and technological advances and transfers
since the 1970s are moreJntensive and extensive than in earlierpertods. In this
respect the world-system perspective is especially useful Jn identifj'ing cycles
and secular trends in the internationalization of capital. The cyclical processes
include the rise and fall of hegemons, the Kondratieff waves, a cyde of warfare
among core- states, and cycles of colonization and de.colonization. Secular
. trend; indude the long-term proletarianization of the world's work force (Jn-
; dudingwage work and .informal labor by women and men)r growing concen-
. ·tration of capital in ever-larger fums, and the Jncreasing internationalization
Df investment and of trade.•z
Political globallzation refers to an increasing trenCI toward multilateralism
Which the United Nations plays a keymle), toward an emerging "tr.ansna-
. tional state apparatus./' and toward the emergence of national and intema-
nongovemmental organlza lions that act as watchdogs over govem-
.,_<U"Jlts and have increased their activities i!Jld influence. The combination of
=
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36 G!obalizir<g t.Vonr£11
lNGDs, TSMDs, and TANs constitute the making of a global dvil society or
transnational public sph-ere that may he .s.een as. countering the neoliheral and
nond€mocratic practices and institutions of economic globalization_H But a
consequence of globaliz.ation has: been the weakening of .s.tate capacity and
state sovereignty. Political sdentist:S- and sociologists.. including :f-eminist s,chol-
.an. have ponder-ed the prospects. of the national state_.. as ,...Tell as democr.a tic de~
cis.ion-making and citizen participation, in a context of regionalization and
globalization in which international finand.al institutions ha'~le increasing
power over national economies and state decision-making. Many are hopeful
that international 1aws and nonn:s \\'ill result in a more stable and -Cooperative
world. But as we saw with interventions in Afghanistan in ZOOl and in Iraq in
2003, international law has little to say about unilatcral milltary action by a
powerful core country such as the United States.
It should be noted t:hat economic globalization has been accompanied by a
pervasive ideological campaign that herald> "the market" a> the sole legiti-
mate institution and its concomitants--induding the prtva!e sector, the busi-
ness class.~ free trade, .and minimal government interference-as the only ra-
1ional path to growth and prosperity. This is especially true in the United
States~ where the majo:r media have played an important role Jn legitimiz.ing
neoliberal economics. but the ideology of the market also has encompassed
much of social-democratic Europe. For the developing 1vodd, the main ideo-
logues of neoliberalism have been the World llank and the !Mf..
Cultural globafu.ation refers to worldwide cultural standar<lization-"15 ill
"Coca: Colonization"' and .u~,.fcDonaldization"--as well as tu postcolonial cul--
tures, cultural pluralism, and "hybridization." The various aspects of global-
ization have promoted growing contacts betv<een different cultures, leading
partly to greater understanding and -cooperation and part1y to the emergence
of transnational communities and hybrid identities. But globalization has also
hardened the opposition of different identities. This has taken the form of,
inter alia, reactive movements such as fundamentalism and communalism~
'""Thlch seek to recuperate traditional patterns:, including patriarchal gender re·
lations, in reaction to the "\Vestemizing" trends of ,globalization. Various
forms of identity politics are the paradoxical outgrowth of globalization,
which Benjamin Barber aptly 5U=artzes as "Jihad vs. McvVorld.""'
Consi5tent with the contradictory nature of globalization, ihe impact on
women has been mixed. One feature of economic globalization has been the
generation of jobs fo1 women in export-processing, free trade zones. and
( \.
37
wor1d market factories. This has enab1ed women in many developing coun-
:z:
trle:s to eam and control income and to break a;yay from the hold of patriar- 0
<I
chal structures, incluiling traditional homehold and familial relations. How- _,_
f'J
ever~ much uf the work available to .....Tomen is badly paidi or demeaning, o:r I
f'J
0
insecure; moreover, women"s. unempJoyrnent Tates ar-e higher th.an mEn's a!- 0
CD
mo.st evei}"'l-vhere, and informal sectors appear to be expanding. The femini-
--3
zation of poverty :is another unwelcome feature of economic globalization. c
t'T1
Worse still is the apparent grm,vth in trafficking in women, or the migration of
prostituted vlomen .4:.
The weakening of the nation-state and the national economy similarly has
contradictory effects. On the one hand, the withering away of the welfarist,
developmentalist state as a result of the neolibcral economic policy tum is a
unifoimly negative outcome for womenJ in core and semiperipheral regions
alike. Dn the other hand, the legitimacy of the global women's tights agenda
allows feminists "on the ground"' to make additional demands on the state for
women's equality, autonomy, and empowerment. The globafu.ation of con-
cepts and di>comses of human rights and of women's Tights and the activities
ofiNGOs and T.SMOs have emboldened women aml created space for women's
organizations to grow nationany and transnational1y.ln tum, this represents .a -
wuntertrend to the particularisms and the identity politics of contemporary
globalization.
A5 we have seen above, globalization is a complex, multidimensional pro-
cess that is still unfolding. I would argue, however, that it Js at h£art an eco-
nomic process~ and that changes in economic relations. institutions, and poli-
cies corutitute the drt\~ng force. It is useful, therefore, to examine more
doselythese economic processes and their concomitant labor force dynamics,
polr>tilrrg out the ways in which they also reflect gender relations and ideolo-
gies. I will also show how the post-Keynesian shift to neolibffalisrri belpecl
bring about Islamic fundamentafut movements.
The Advent of Neoliberalis.m
The free market policy environment, global trade regime, and technologi-
advances that characterize economic globalization entail new economic
. J?Olicies and production "}'Stems with important implications for national
sum as skill Iequirements, labor market regulations, education
and employment. The 1980s saw the flourishing of "flexible" or
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38 G!fJbaliting ~.Vomm
upost-Fordist" pioductioru system.s that were guided by neolib-Eral economic
orthodoxy-what some have called "market fundamentalism." In addition to
calls for cutbacks in the social and economic actjvitie> o! the state, the
neolibe.ral policy frame-,.._To:rk hlduded "structural adjustment polides·" for pe-
-ripheral and semiperipheral -countries as the only solution to economic crisis.
and the only path to economic gru'>--.'th.
Structural adjustment polides, \Vhich aimed to balance budgets. an-d increase
competitiv-eness through trade and price liberalization.. included .reduction of
the public-sector wage bill and g:ro\\Tth of the private sector, privat::ization of so-
cial .services,. encouragement of fo:rcign investment,. and the production of
e
goods and .smices for e-xport tradab1es-") through ., flexible-" labor processes. 46
The international finandal institutions, espedally the World Bank and the
L\.1F, were the chieflmtigatms of this free-market policy shift_ Structuraladjust-
ment po-licies were first implemented in some African and. Latin American
countries as a result of the debt crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s_ They were ex-
tended to nther countries in the mid-1980s and were suhsequently adopted in a
number of Middle East countries, including Morocco, Turlliia, Jordan, and
EgyptY Structural adjustment polities were key elements in the decline of
welfartst and developmentafut states in the periphery and semipertphery-
Structural adjustment became a very controversial topic in the develop-
ment-shldies lite:ratu:re; some development -economists found that it worked
in some place:s but not :in others_, 1-vhile other economists. regarde-d the e-ntire
tum to be a disastEr lo:r national sovere1gntyr e-conontic development, ·and
people's well-being. In the early 1980s, critical voice> began to argue that ad-
justment and stabilization programs In developing countries were having par-
ticularly adverse effects on women_ Da Gama Santos (19BS} recognized that
the gender division of labor and the differential positions of women and men
in the sphere> of production and reproduction suggested that.the new policy
shifts would lead to very different outcomes for women and men, although
the>e gender differences would diller further by social class ;md by economic
sector. The now-classic UI\.'JCEF studyr Adjustment li-rit!J n Humm-r F41Ce, high-
lighter! the social costs of adjustment and provided emphical evidence of the
deterioration of social conditions in ten countries undergoing adiustment.-~8
Subsequent studies found that there were differential Impacts on the various
categories of the poor, induding the r'c-hronic.h' poor. "borderlin-e" poorr and
the "n~\v") OI ''worldng poor:• M on~ scholar noted. "'structural adjustment's
most devastating negative impacts were the constricting of public investment
(
Globa1izotiof1 and Its Djs.wntents: 39
as government budgets shrank, and the failure to addres.s. directly the piob- :z:
0
Jerm of unemployment, poverty and stagnant standards of living-"49 <I
The feminisl development literature (WID{GAD) was especially critical, rv
~
I
drrrging structural adjustment with carrying out its objectives on the backs of rv
0
the poor and especially on poor women. Jn many "\vays. the women of the 0
CD
working class and urban poor became the "'shock absorbers" of neoliberal eco- -3
c
nomic policies_5o Rising unemployment and reduced ~\·ages for men led to in- ['T1
creased economic .activity on the part of wom-en and child1en. This occurred
also in households: headed by wom~n, an increasing proportion of all house-
holds m r.qost Iegions. "'\Vomen had to assume extra productive and reproduc-
tive activities in order to survive the austerities of adjustment and stabilization
polide> (such as higher prices), and to compensate for the withdrawal or re-
duction of gO"r.remment subsidies of food and services. 1-ior-eover, structural
adjustment policies-1.\~th their attendant price increases, elimination of sub-
sidies, sodaJ servi·ce decreases, and IDtroduction or increase of 1'user feesN for
t"cost recovery'' in the provision of .schooling and health care-heightened the
Iisk and vulnerability of women and children in households where the distri-
bution of consumption and the provision of health care and education fa-
vored men or income-earning adults. Women had to bear most of the re..s.pon-
sibility of cop.ingl.\~th .increased prices and .shrinking :incomes, as women were
_the one-s Jargcly responsible for household budgeting and maintenance. The
gender as well as class blase> of structural adjustment were clear_ By removing
-subsidies for education md healthcare, the policies increased the labor time
and other burdens of non-elitE l\'omen. Thus the polities contained an im.-
. plidt and unspoken assumption of the elasticity ofwomen'slabor time, or the
idea that women would always fill the gap created by public "-"Penditure cuts
-in health and soda! service>_
Household survival strategies included increases in the unpaid as well as
paid labm of women. In the Philippine>, as Sylvia Chant showed, mean house-
. hold size increased, as relatives pooled their resources. Janet Tanski found that
::_the combined effects of economic crisis and structural adjustment in Peru led to
a significant lm:rease In poverty, with worse outcomes for households headed
·by women_ Structural adjustment policies and other fm:ms of neoliberalism
to he major factors behind the . . .feminization of poverty. >rs1
In this way,. not only· did struch.Iral at:ljustrnent have advers-e cla~s effects,
. but by ignoring the soda! relations of gender and gender ideologies, they of-
exacerbated unequal gender relations_ A5 Diane Elson aml others argued,
40
inasmuch .as privatization displaces public provisioning and women are com.-
pelled to compens.ate for cutbacks by fficreasing their productive and repro-
ductive activities,. thae is a male bias in structural adjustment and simila-r
neo!il>eral policies.
The structural ad,ustment polides and austerity measures of the \.Yorld
B-ank and ThiF in the 1970s and 1980s led to a wave of protests that were
known a> JMF protests or food rtots. {Countries ln the Middle East and North
Africa, which later produced Is.lamist movements, also u·perienc-ed such r~­
ot:s.) This wa>followed twenty years later by a new cycle of protests. Although
l>oth mould l>e regarded as tvm stagesln the cycle of protest against globaliza-
tion, we can identify some differences beru.n::en them. The eatlier wave of
antiausterity protests w.as: spontaneous; it consisted of discrete protests v.rithin
national bmdets; protc:sts- were often called by unions. and groups of {mai.e)
workers.; and the protests. were fo:r the most part nonideologicaL S.:! The more
recent ,.1mv-e of .antiglobalization protest:;. is. organ..ized; it is transnational; it
evinc-es aoss-dass .alliances of labor. -environm-ental groups, and feminist
group.s.; and the dis.comse is often explidtly anticapitalist, \\oith dear critiques
of multinational corpmations, the World Bank, the IMF, and the \\ITO.
Inequalities and DemoaatizatimJ: Two Faces of Globalization
.Earlier ln this chapter heferred to the "janm-iaced" nature of globalization
that some scholars .have identified as a result of its. negative and positive en-
tailments. CertainJy nne of the negative consequences of its economic dimen-
sion has been the gro;.•lth of inequalities... which has given rise to much aiti-
dsm as well as to the emergence of the global iustice movement. Anothet
aspect of globafu2tion, which is a part of its political dimension, is the spread
of the discourse of democracy, of democracy movements . and of political lib--
eralization and de..mocratization in various countries of the semiperiphery.
The following section discusses these two faces of globalization and highlight5
their gender dynamics.
The adverse effect> of economic globallza tion have been felt w1thin all re-
gions, and espedally by their respective labor forces. With increased trade, the
prices of imported goods often compete "ith the prices of domestic products,
fmclng domestic capitalists to attempt to cut labor costs. ln the developed
countries, as plants relocated to sites elsewhere in search of cheaper costs. of
labm and production, jobs disappeared and wages eroded in the declining in-
dustrial sectors. As the developed countries shifted fiom manufacturtng to
( r
high-tech services, blue-coUar unemployment grew. along with the exp.ansion
:z:
ol part-time and temporary jobs. This came at the "'-1'ense of the kind ofstable 0
<I
employment that men came to expect during "the golden age of capitalism~"
_,_
f'J
or the A-p11ase of th€ postwar capitalist expansion, from about 1950 to 1973. I
f'J
Indeed, World Real GDP grew by 4.6 percent during 1964-73.53 1n the Middle 0
0
CD
East and North Africa {lvfENA), gro\..'th continued to the. mid-1980s. du-e to
high oil prices. But for developing countries as a whole, the B-pha.se downturn
of the 1980s saw a >hift from internally oriented to externally oriented gwwth
strategies and the shrinkage oflarge public sectors and nationalized mdustries. =
The re;ult was an expansion of informal sectors, sell-employment, and tempo-
rary employment. In most of the former socialist wmld, restructurmg led to
loss of output, the creation of unemployment, and increased poverty. 1n both
developing and developed regions, the stable, organized, and mostly male la-
bor force hec3Jne increasingly IJfiexible' and "feminized." Keeping the cost of
labor low encomaged the growth of demand fm female labor, while declming
household budgets led to an increase in the supply of job-seeking women.
As. we saw earlier ID the chapter. :a debate- continues among econm:nists r-e-
garding the relationship betw-een grmving inequalities and neoliberal ero-
. ·· nomic polideo. Crttics of globalization, including feminist critics, point out
that neoli!Jeral economic polides of liberalization and privatization are be-
hind the observed growth in soda! inequalities mound the world.54 In the
· · 199{)s, the fifth of the wmld's people living in the highest income countries
bad 86 percent of world GDP, &2 percent of world ""-1'0rt :markets, 68 percent
of foreign direct lnvestment, and 74 percent of telephone lines. The bottom
in the pooreot countrieo, had about 1 percent in each category. Of toT- :z:
p
direct ill vestment in de-vcloping countries and the countries of Central
an.d lO<istan Europe ln the 19 90s, more than SO percent went to twenty coun-
and mainly to Chlna.55 Goesling argues that the 1980s and 1990s were _,_
,chara,ct<!Ii,·ed by the r~diminishing significance of beh"'ee-n-nation income dif· =
0.)
lEI'ences/' but even so, he concedes that "between-nation inequality still ac- =
(J'l
(J'l
for more than two-thirds of lnequality in the world distribution of in- f'J
the wor1d'.s. most stagg~g inequalities are observed across nations,
nc,t ",;''•'~ them.'' According to the UNDP, "the level of inequality worldwide
'''''tllln-·rounltry income Inequalities likewise have grown. \Vorld Bank data
that the average per capita income of the poorest third of all countries
"'0
from 3.1 percent of the rtchest third to 1.9 percent between 1970 and
(
 4Z Glob-alilif•g Vlomen
1995-tlhlt is, duting the pertod of globalization. Meanwhile, the middle
third suffered a decline from 12.5 percent to 11.4 percent. The total popula-
tion living on less than $1 a day ro>e from 1.2 billion in 1987 to around 1.5
billion in the late 1990s..57 Peoplelll some-eight}.,.-five countries were wo1s.e off
in many respects. than they were a decade eadier. 1n the 1990s reve.r:se:s -weie
recorded in sixteen count::Iies, largely becarue of the impact of HIV-AIDS in
southern and East Afrlc;:11, and economic stagnation in Sub-Saharan Africa~
Eastern Europe, and the countries of the former Soviet Union. In MENA,levels
of poverty do not appxoximate those of South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa~ in
pm duf' to subsidies financed by oil wealth and in part due to long>tanding
Ieligious. practices. ot charity, but the region has seen declining standards of
living. the emergence of srthe working poor." and rising inequali tie5-. 58 This is
because, as in other Iegions, MENA govemmf'llts reduced the public sector
wage bill, cut subsidies, introduced user fees for schooling and health, and al-
lowed wages to stagnate_ Consequently. unemployment g:re:w and household
incomes fell. This led to aruf'in the supply of job-seeking women hom work-
ing-class and middlf'-rlass families, but gainful employment has eluded them.
Double-digit unemployment has ptlgued the Middle East and North Africa,
and unemployment Iates have been especially high for women. The econo-
mist Lance Taylor has noted that in most of the countries he has studied~ the
share of the economically .active population (or the j'participation rateu} in-
creased Imder liberalization, .and that the unemployed as a proportion of the
economically active went up as well. His conclusion is that "libenilization and
deteriorating growth and equity perfonnances can easily go hanCI-in-hand."59
Globalization has coindded with the so-called third wa\·e of democratiza-
tion. Accoromgto Samuel Huntington, the fust wave began in H\28 and ended
in 1922; the second wave began in 1926 and ended in 1%4. The thiid wave be-
gan in 1974, with the collapse of the Salazar/Caetano and Fianco dictatorships
in Portugal and Spain, followed hy democratization in Latin America and some
East and .Southeast Asian countries in the 1980s and African countries m th-e
1990s. 60 The~e has be Ell some political liberalization ln countries of the Middle
East ami North Africa, although full-fledged democratization has not yet oc-
curred,. and there :remain s.e:vere restrictions on political parties, NGO:s; free
speech, fref'dom of the press, and the civil and political rtght> of citizens.6l But
even VO'here democratization has taken placeJ such as in Brazil, South Africa,
and Russia, it has not necessarily brought about economic prosperity or social
equity. 62 As we have discussed above (see also chaptf'I 3), the era of globallza-
~ --.
( (
t]on has been characterized by grov.'ing income and social inequalities across
countries. and within societies. Such inequalities-which have been the basis :z:
0
for dass conflicts ami revolutiom in the pa>t-may be triggering the cycle of <I
f'J
anticapitalist globalization protests. mentioned above. til For eXample, Amer::i- -"'"
I
f'J
can unions were well represented in the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in late 0
0
1999; they continue to Iaise- objections to the TI€W mles. of the WTO~ .and in CD
2003 they began to call fo:r the adoption of a national health plan in the Unit-ed --3
c::
rT1
States. In May and June 2000 there were six generahtrike.s jnvolvingmillions
ofv.-roikers again:st the ~ffectsof globalization and neolibn...ralism:-in India, Ar-
gentirul, Nigeria, South Korea, South Africa, and Uruguay."' Wmkers went on
strike in Tmkey for more- pay and for a voice in dedsion-making. and the same
ocCUiled in h.an. In Gr€ec€'.r the federation of Greek telecnmmunications work-
ers, representing 18,500 of the 19,700 wmke~s in the Hellenic Telecommunica-
tions Oiganizlltion (OTil mounted a seven-day strike in autumn 200() when
. the govemmerit announced it would cutits stake in the oTE and support pri-
vatiZation. 6 ' Argentines tioted in 2001 and 2002, demonstrating their lack of
confidence ill the govf'IDID.ents that had been r<'sponsible for the corruption
and austerity measures that led to a drastic decline in the standaid of living.••
In 2002-3, about two hunrued factOlif$.---mploying more than ten thousand
': imtior1wide and pmducing evei}'thing from tractors to ice am-were taken
and run hy workers. 67 In addition to triggertng worker protests at the na-
1-evel~ the existence of inequalities-between classes, the sexes, and
COJmtnf':,_,tmms the b.asi.s of antiglob.alization protests and infonns the activi-
and objectives of the majm transnational social IDO\'ements, including the
movement.
Real democracy is of course a major demand of th~ global justic-e move-
which .s.e-ek:s. greater democratic deds.ion-making an eronoriDc _policy as
as international security (w.ay and peace) issues. And around the world,
teJni.z1islts have largely welcomed democra tlzatlon, as it ha> allowed their orga-
nntatiorrs to flourish. However, just as democracy has not necessarily brought
economic pmsperity or social justice (e.g., in llrazil, South Afuca, Rus-
or Nigeria), neither has it necessarily brought about political forces and
soctety groups that hold values of pluralism, tolermce, and gender egual-
ln some cases, espedally in lvff.NA, •democratic" elections have brought
power Islamm fuiCes-and then patriarchal agendas have alarmed many
ill Mu>Iim sodeties. Indeed, in jordan, Egypt, ;md especially Algeria,
sought to instiinte orthodox furms of religiou> and moral behavior
,.
\.
4-4 Globalizing H·..-cmen
and patriru-chal form5 of family r-elations. Thus we have .seen ''demonacy
without democrats," as the sd1ola:r Ghassan Salam§ has noted.68 An excep-
tion, hm.\.,.ever, may be Turkey, "'There seventy years of Kemalisrn and a decade
of democratization produced .in 2002 .a mling Isla:m.ic party that adhered to
the constitutional framewo:rk of secular republicanism while also pushing for
greater human rights and indiVidual freedoms. n<.t
The Emergence of Fundamentalist Movements
I have said above that globalization entails in part an attempt to impose
a certain homogenization of economic policies; political practices.,. cultural
symbols, and ideology. This has been met with the resisrnnce of local peoples
and social movements, though not .an of the resistance has be€fl progressive.
Benjamin Barber uses. the term jilmd as shorthand to describe religious funda-
mentalism, di>lntegrative tribalism, ethnic nationalisms, am! <imilar kincls of
identity politics carried out by local peoples "to sustain solidarity ami tradi-
tion against the nation-state>s. legalistic and piuralixtic abstractions as well .as
against the new commerdal imperialism of McWorld."lO Jihad is in struggle
against modernity and cultural impetiali.sm aHke~ and "'anS\\'e.rs the coJn-
plaints of those mired in poverty and despaii as a result of unregulated global
markets and of capitalism upmotecl from the humanizing constraints of the
democratic nation-state." 71 This is an apt way of contextualizing Islamic fun-
damentalism.
In the Middle .East and North .Africa, Islamic fundamentalist n1ovements
emerged in the 1970s, expanded during the 1\>SOs, ancl peaked in the early
1990s. To a certain extent, they reflected the contrarlictions of modernization,
the <lli'ficult transition to modernity under way in the region, and the conflict
beTI•leen traditional and modern norms,. relations:, and iru;titu tions. But Js-
lamic fundamentalist movements .also emerged 21.s. \\'"Odd communism \\'f'"nt
into decline, as the global economic policy environment shifted from Keynes-
ian to neoliberal, and as Wks on a new international economic order (NIEO)
collapsed. At the same time. . important cultural changes were taking place
globally and 'j.\'ithin countries, including the intemationaH2.ation of \'Vest-em
popnlar culture am! changes in gender relations ami the position of women.
The Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, which led tothefmmaton of thEI>!ami<:
Republic of Iran, had a demonstration effect throughout the MENA region,
and indeed the t-.-!uslim world. It appeared to many dissidents that a project
( (
Globtlilmtion ami Its Dismr~tents 45
fo:r the Islamization of state and sodety could prevail, and that this 1-\.Tould be
·1··~
•••••••
•
....,-·- -
the .solution to economic and political crises. 1t ~"Tonld be a mistake, however,
:z:
0
<I
to view 1.s.lamis.t movements as pristine and spontaneous social movements. ..,.
f'J
I
During the.1970s and 1980s, many "\•lere encouraged and financed by external f'J
0
forces-such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United States, and vartous MENA 0
CD
governments--in order to undermine and supplant left-wing or communist
-3
movernents.n. c::
rT1
More specifically, we may identify the following factors in the emergmce
of Is.1amist movements::
Economic factots, including the unrealized promises of national
development, the persistence of inequalities domestically and
internationally, and the hnplementation of If..1F·mandated austerity
measures. Some fundamentalist movements. targeted both their own
nation 5tates and thf' Vtmrld capitalist order as sources of injustice-
ami claimed that the solution would be an !>Iamie order. The
disparities and inequalities within countries had to do with dedinin~
oil revenues or corruption o:r misguided Iesource allocation priorities
"
(e.g., huge military purchases). Later, they had to do ·with the
austerith:s associated with structural .adjustments.
• Political factors, including authorttartan rnie and the absence of
democratic or partidpato:ry political institutions. A; mentioned
above, some governments had a hand in the emergence of Islamism.
This was true of Iran, Egypt, and Turkey, where strategies to
undermine left -wing movements led to the financing of Islamic
group>. Even ISrael encouraged Hamas as a way of subverting the
excl u>ive authority of the PL 0 among the Palestinian population.
The United States encouraged an Wa.mist rebellion against a
left-wing and modernizing government in Afghanistan, and spent
the 1980s militarily and fimmdally supporting the Afghan
Mujahideen. A related political factor in the Ii>e of Islamic
fundamentalist movements was the non-resolution of the
Palestinian problem, which many fundamentali5t movements
identified as. a key reason for their emergence. The Islamization
of the Palestinian liberation movement it>elf is the result of ]sraeli
intransigence toward the state-building project of the PLO and the
Palestine National Authority.
46 G!obalizir1g l.Ymnen
Gender and social change. The role, status, comportment, and attile
of v.;roroen have constituted a major preoccupation of fundamentalist
moveinents. Fundam_entalist movements called for veiling becau.s.e
}>,.{uslim women had been taking off their veils; the movemPnts
called for a -retum to traditional family v.alues, to female domesticity
and the like bE':cause women had been entering public spaces and
the public sphere, which IDI so long had been the province of
m-en. Some of this preoccupation of fundamentalist movements is
theologically rooted; much of it can be explained Jn terms of the
inevitable £'mergence of gender conflict at a time of tt:nsion between
the old pal:Iiarchal order and the emerging feminist movement"
There is both an ideological and a material basis for this gender
conilict.n
islamic fundamentalist movements are responses to 1ntema1 contradic-
tions a..Tid to external threats. They reflect the tensions and contradictions of
the transition to modernity and the conflict b_etv.Teen tradit~onal and modern
values, norms, and .5-odal relations.. And they .ille a reaction to the threat of
"VVe:stern" cultural domination. Vt.7omen'.s. rights--and 1he conflict over th-e
mle>,tights, and privileges of men and women, and the structure and status of
the family-are at the center of this transition, conflict, .and Ieaction. In the
MENAregion, governments have dealt with the fundamentalist threat in vari-
ous ways,. som:etim-e.s _by accommodating fundamentalist d-emands, some--
tim-ES by allowing them into the political process, and sometimes by confiont-
ing them head-on.l'.ally on, the Tunisian government banned the an-Nahda
movement outright; the Syrian government put down its g~owing lslamist
movement violently ami effectively. Accommodation was initially the re-
sponse of the governments of Egypt and Algeria, who adopted mea<ures
restricting \'.mmen's tights as a 'i.\Tay of placating lslami:st movements; these
measures included the reinforcf'I!lent of the most patriarchal principles of
MU51im family law. When Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and A!gerta opened up the
pDlitical process, Islamlsts foiiDed poliUcal parties and found their way into
legislative bodles and ministerial positions. But when Jslamists took up arms
against governments, sought to overthrow th-em.- or used violence .and terror
Jn a way that threatened the power and authority of the state (as in Egypt and
especially Jn Algeria in the 1990s), governments and militaries turned on the
Is.lamist mov-ements.. their leaders. and m-embers. In the late 1990s, Morocco
vfltne-.s.sed a conflict-albeit a nonviolent one-between femini:tts and the
new socialist government on one side and the fundamentalist movement on :z:
0
the other. The point of contention was a proposed national dBlelopment plan <I
for the advancement of v.Tomen that included measures to revise the (patriar- _,_
f'J
I
chal) family law, which Moroccan feminis;ts had been' calling for since 1993. f'J
Is.laroists mobilized agairut the plan, denouncing it as un-Is.lamic and (rather
=
=
CD
cleverly) as a conspiracy of the \.'i,,forld Bank. much hated in Morocco.74
V>lhat dD Islamist mDvements want! Although they amse in the midst of
economic and political ais.es and :sometimes even refer to unemployment and =
deteriOiating standards of living a> soda! pwblems, they are Jn fact less con-
cerned with economic, military, or fmeign policy matters than they a~e with
pDlitiCS, culture, family, and mmality. Reacting to social changes brought
about by modernization and secularization~ fundamentalist movements ar-e
mncemed \\ith identity, morality, and the family. This preoccupation place>
a heavy burden on women, who rue seen as the bearers of traditioni religios-
ity, and morality, and as the reproducers of the faithful. Such views have pro-
found effe-cts on 1j.\TOmen"s J.i:~gal status and sodal positions, esp-ect.ally \•'lthen
fundamentalist views are successfully inscribed in constitutions, family laws,
penal codes, and other public polide>.
In most cases Islamic fundam5Italists do not offer an economic plan. or an
alternative pmg~am on securtty, or peispectives on Jnternational rela lion>.
Nor do social juruce issues, tied as they an' to economic planning and devel-
opment, appear to Jnterest them. In the absence of a welfrue state, lslarnist
...,.,
g~oups do provide social services. and run Chariti-es, but they offer no perspec- s;:
_tives.onsodoeconomic development. Thuslslamistmoveme-nt5 in opposition :z:
. have had almost no effect on labor law, economic polli:y, military ex'Pendi- 9
ture>, or even foreign policy. By contrast, their influence has been g~eatest in (j
public policies pertaining to women and the family. 1bis is of course not en- _,__,_
tirely true of the Islamic Republic of han, where an Islamist movement toD~ e5
pov.-rei. But even there, an "Islamic development plan"J never took shape, vari· C)
Ul
om ad hoc economic polides have be€11 tried sJnce 1979, and some of tht Rl
most profound change> came about Jn the area; of culture, morality, and gen
de~, as well as in the political system (clerical rule) and the legal hamewOik
(which came to be based on Islamic law}, rather than in the economic realm
. No Islam ist movement or government Jn power has produced a theory o
practice of democratic governance, of the :rights. of citiz.eruJ or of socioffo
nomic equality. In 1997, when the refmmlst candidate Mohammad Khatam ::U
(
4B Globalization mul It5 Disamt-e.rrts 49

·was elected to the presidency. there was some hope that han .might deve-lop reactions to globalization. Fearing \"'/-estern mfluence on th-eir O'-\'Il cultures. :z:
0
into a novrllslarnic democracy. Years later-" however, the democratization of traditions, and religionr conseiV21tive Islamic thinkers Oispute notioiTS- of gen- <I
state >tructures remained intipient and stalled. der equality, glorify the family and women's domestic roles, empha>ize public rv
~
I
By the tum of the new century, scholars v.rere arguing that hlamic funda- morality, def-end veiling, and excoriate V\1estem
cultural normsJ5
As Noha rv
0
mentalist movements- '""Tere on fhe wane, and that political Jslarn had lost Us El-Mikawy has noted, "The counter-reaction to globalization in Egypt has 0
CD
attraction and allure, at least in the Middle East and North Africa. This was been consErvative and populist, idealizing women, reifying their privat-e role .....,
based on the observation that fundamentalist movements in power had been as mothers and undermining their public rol-e as dvic partners, l\1ost J:slam.ic c
['T1

unable: to create economic grol'\'l:h and prosperity (for example, in the Jslanlic activists focus on the family a> the highe.st civil unit and intrude on that unit
Republic of Iran, in Pakistan, and in Sudan), and that the publics were exhibit- with authoritarian utterances which reduce women to their biological func-
ing revulsion over th-e level of violence:: associated "'vith Islamists. (for example, tion and the social role to that of pedagogical agents. perpetuating the coruer-
in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan). By that time, too. feminists in ~1uslim VJ~tive agenda."'• In the chapta: that follows, I elaborate on those global eco-
countries had developed various strategi-es. to combat fundamentalism and of- nomic processes that hav-e affected women in distinctive \'lays and have
fer alten1.atives. Early onr an important strategy· was to fonn a transnational engendered transnational feminist response>.
network of antifundammtalist feminists, called \'\7omen Uving under }...fuslim
Laws (see chapter 5). At around the- same time. lianian women Jiving in exile
in Europe and the United State> formed femini>t groups that weie opposed to
fundamentalism and the lslamiza tion project in han. In Britain, 1N omen
against Fundamentalism ami Southall Black Sisters took puJ,lic positiom
against grm-ving fundamentalism among immigrant comn1uni1ies and what
they saw as milguided multicultural polities that conceded too much to (of-
ten patriarchal) male leaders of immigrant communities. in Algeria, new femi-
nist organiz.atioru fonned ill fue late 1980s in response. to the- gro\•.-.:ing po\•ler
Ofl:he Islamist movam:nt. Jn the refugee (:amps. of Pakistan in the 1990s'" the
Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) railed against
the jehadis and the Taliban. And the Sisterhood Is Global Institute, under the
diiection of an expatt:fate hanian feminist, adv.anced the caus.e of Muslim
women•s human rights, and helped to establish a regional branch in Amrnanr
Jordan. Another innovative strategy has come to be known a> !>Iamie femi-
nism-an intellectual movement of b-E-lieving women whose interpietation of
the Koran serves to challenge political Islam and orthodoxy.
As \-'{€ shall see. in subs-equent chaptersr \.\Tomen in MusHm countries--in-
cluding the lviiddle East and North Africa-have been affected by globaliza-
tion in its various dimensions. In some countries, women have come to enjoy
the benefits. of economic grm.vth, fo1eign direct investm-ents .and NGO activ-
ity) finding johs in factories and the s-e-rvice sector o:r building careers in public
services or the NGO secto:r. Others eke out a living in the informal sector or
join the ranks of the unemployed. Yet others have become victims of Islamist
=
--....
=
(