Pub Date : 2022-05-17DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X22000137
Marco Radojevic
Abstract This study investigates the subjective effects of gender quotas by examining how quotas affect party elites’ perceptions of quota beneficiaries. Furthermore, it proposes to distinguish between objective and subjective quota effects. Subjective effects were studied by randomizing information on whether politicians got into office through a gender quota. Elites then were asked to rate politicians based on an audio clip and an experimental vignette. Whereas the two treatment groups were told that gender quotas or ceiling quotas for men were employed during a politician’s election, the control group did not receive this information. This experiment was conducted in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. More than 1,000 party elites participated overall. Contrary to expectations, being framed as a “quota woman” only has a negative impact among elites of the radical right. In contrast with the center right, the radical right is opposed not only to quotas but to quota beneficiaries as well.
{"title":"The Subjective Effects of Gender Quotas: Party Elites Do Not Consider “Quota Women” to Be Less Competent","authors":"Marco Radojevic","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X22000137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X22000137","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study investigates the subjective effects of gender quotas by examining how quotas affect party elites’ perceptions of quota beneficiaries. Furthermore, it proposes to distinguish between objective and subjective quota effects. Subjective effects were studied by randomizing information on whether politicians got into office through a gender quota. Elites then were asked to rate politicians based on an audio clip and an experimental vignette. Whereas the two treatment groups were told that gender quotas or ceiling quotas for men were employed during a politician’s election, the control group did not receive this information. This experiment was conducted in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. More than 1,000 party elites participated overall. Contrary to expectations, being framed as a “quota woman” only has a negative impact among elites of the radical right. In contrast with the center right, the radical right is opposed not only to quotas but to quota beneficiaries as well.","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"349 - 372"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43634400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-16DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X21000544
Anna Elomäki, J. Kantola
Abstract The research objective of this article is to analyze the European Parliament’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of feminist governance. Feminist governance can either play a role in ensuring the inclusion of a gender perspective in crisis responses, or, quite the opposite, crises may weaken or sideline feminist governance. The empirical analysis focuses on two aspects of feminist governance: (1) a dedicated gender equality body and (2) gender mainstreaming. In addition to assessing the effectiveness of feminist governance, the analysis sheds light on the political struggles behind the policy positions. The article argues that feminist governance in the European Parliament was successful in inserting a gender perspective into the COVID-19 response. The article pinpoints the effects of the achievements of the European Parliament’s Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee and gender mainstreaming on gendering the pandemic crisis response.
{"title":"Feminist Governance in the European Parliament: The Political Struggle over the Inclusion of Gender in the EU’s COVID-19 Response","authors":"Anna Elomäki, J. Kantola","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X21000544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X21000544","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The research objective of this article is to analyze the European Parliament’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of feminist governance. Feminist governance can either play a role in ensuring the inclusion of a gender perspective in crisis responses, or, quite the opposite, crises may weaken or sideline feminist governance. The empirical analysis focuses on two aspects of feminist governance: (1) a dedicated gender equality body and (2) gender mainstreaming. In addition to assessing the effectiveness of feminist governance, the analysis sheds light on the political struggles behind the policy positions. The article argues that feminist governance in the European Parliament was successful in inserting a gender perspective into the COVID-19 response. The article pinpoints the effects of the achievements of the European Parliament’s Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee and gender mainstreaming on gendering the pandemic crisis response.","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"327 - 348"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46971249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-12DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X21000489
Zuzana Fellegi, Kateřina Kočí, K. Benešová
Abstract While female representation in the top diplomatic circles was almost nonexistent during the Czechoslovak era, the number of female diplomats in the Czech Republic has steadily increased since the fall of the state-socialist regime. Women are currently solidly represented in the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), but very few (14%) reach highest diplomatic positions. This study examines the main challenges that influence the careers of top diplomats using quantitative and qualitative data, including official statistics and documents of the Czech MFA and interviews with top diplomats and officials. The results indicate that work-family conflicts are the main challenge for all diplomats. However, women are apparently affected more disproportionately because of the existing “double burden” and a specific “concept of motherhood” vested in a deeply essentialist understanding of gender roles. These barriers have origins at the personal, institutional, and state levels that are strongly interrelated and historically and politically path dependent.
{"title":"Work and Family Balance in Top Diplomacy: The Case of the Czech Republic","authors":"Zuzana Fellegi, Kateřina Kočí, K. Benešová","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X21000489","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X21000489","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract While female representation in the top diplomatic circles was almost nonexistent during the Czechoslovak era, the number of female diplomats in the Czech Republic has steadily increased since the fall of the state-socialist regime. Women are currently solidly represented in the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), but very few (14%) reach highest diplomatic positions. This study examines the main challenges that influence the careers of top diplomats using quantitative and qualitative data, including official statistics and documents of the Czech MFA and interviews with top diplomats and officials. The results indicate that work-family conflicts are the main challenge for all diplomats. However, women are apparently affected more disproportionately because of the existing “double burden” and a specific “concept of motherhood” vested in a deeply essentialist understanding of gender roles. These barriers have origins at the personal, institutional, and state levels that are strongly interrelated and historically and politically path dependent.","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"220 - 246"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49612967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X22000058
Zahra Runderkamp
What is worth studying in political science? Many lists would certainly feature parliaments, as democratic institutions. But who would or should be the central object of study therein? Cherry Miller’s recent book Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons opens up a broader world that looks beyond Members of Parliament (MPs) and studies the gendering nature of arrangements within parliaments by means of ethnography. In Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Miller asks: what is worth studying in the study of parliaments? In place of prevailing approaches, Miller argues for a less ceremonial focus, centering the everyday experiences of parliamentary actors and how the parliament works in practice. She proposes studying the “gendering of the everyday” or, as the subtitle of the book suggests, looking “beneath the spectacle.” Central to this analysis is Miller’s combination of practice—especially noteworthy is the ethnographic fieldwork—and theory, in particular feminist discursive institutionalism and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. Miller’s book can be seen in the broader light of a more feminist political science—withmore attention to the everyday and the personal, as well as special attention to issues of gender. The book is also part of a growing body of work within and outside parliamentary studies that is more explicit about parliaments not just as democratic and representative institutions but, ultimately, as workplaces. This recognition is especially important when we look through a gender lens, where parliaments are still male-dominated and change has been slow, both in terms of parliamentary culture and percentages of (a diversity of) women participating. An everyday approach potentially makes both scrutiny and change easier. At the same time, how to study the everyday is not obvious. To this question, Miller offers ample response. Miller’s “everyday approach” uses feminist discursive institutionalism and focuses on the reproduction of gender regimes. In this
{"title":"Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons. By Cherry Miller. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 323 pp. $85.79 (cloth). ISBN: 9783030642396.","authors":"Zahra Runderkamp","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X22000058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X22000058","url":null,"abstract":"What is worth studying in political science? Many lists would certainly feature parliaments, as democratic institutions. But who would or should be the central object of study therein? Cherry Miller’s recent book Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons opens up a broader world that looks beyond Members of Parliament (MPs) and studies the gendering nature of arrangements within parliaments by means of ethnography. In Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Miller asks: what is worth studying in the study of parliaments? In place of prevailing approaches, Miller argues for a less ceremonial focus, centering the everyday experiences of parliamentary actors and how the parliament works in practice. She proposes studying the “gendering of the everyday” or, as the subtitle of the book suggests, looking “beneath the spectacle.” Central to this analysis is Miller’s combination of practice—especially noteworthy is the ethnographic fieldwork—and theory, in particular feminist discursive institutionalism and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. Miller’s book can be seen in the broader light of a more feminist political science—withmore attention to the everyday and the personal, as well as special attention to issues of gender. The book is also part of a growing body of work within and outside parliamentary studies that is more explicit about parliaments not just as democratic and representative institutions but, ultimately, as workplaces. This recognition is especially important when we look through a gender lens, where parliaments are still male-dominated and change has been slow, both in terms of parliamentary culture and percentages of (a diversity of) women participating. An everyday approach potentially makes both scrutiny and change easier. At the same time, how to study the everyday is not obvious. To this question, Miller offers ample response. Miller’s “everyday approach” uses feminist discursive institutionalism and focuses on the reproduction of gender regimes. In this","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"316 - 317"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46141737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-22DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X21000490
Benjamin de Vet, Robin Devroe
Abstract Parliaments are still often criticized for being gendered—that is, for maintaining problematic inequalities between male and female officeholders. While research highlights how female members of parliament (MPs) take the floor less often than men, especially during debates on “hard” policy domains, much remains unknown about the role that political parties play in fostering such differences. Drawing on a novel data set on the use of parliamentary questions in Belgium (N = 180,783), this article examines gendered patterns in the substantive focus of MPs’ parliamentary work. It confirms that differences in the issue concentrations of male and female MPs exist, but they are larger when access to the floor is more restricted and party control is stronger. Our findings yield important insights into the gendered side effects of parliamentary procedure and shed some light on the “choice versus coercion” controversy with regard to women's substantive focus of parliamentary work.
{"title":"Party Control, Intraparty Competition, and the Substantive Focus of Women's Parliamentary Questions: Evidence from Belgium","authors":"Benjamin de Vet, Robin Devroe","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X21000490","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X21000490","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Parliaments are still often criticized for being gendered—that is, for maintaining problematic inequalities between male and female officeholders. While research highlights how female members of parliament (MPs) take the floor less often than men, especially during debates on “hard” policy domains, much remains unknown about the role that political parties play in fostering such differences. Drawing on a novel data set on the use of parliamentary questions in Belgium (N = 180,783), this article examines gendered patterns in the substantive focus of MPs’ parliamentary work. It confirms that differences in the issue concentrations of male and female MPs exist, but they are larger when access to the floor is more restricted and party control is stronger. Our findings yield important insights into the gendered side effects of parliamentary procedure and shed some light on the “choice versus coercion” controversy with regard to women's substantive focus of parliamentary work.","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"247 - 271"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49147250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-12DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X21000398
Marianne Tøraasen
Abstract Although women's representation in Haiti is generally very low, the number of women judges has increased since the demise of authoritarianism and violent conflict in the 1990s. This case study explores why. I find that “gender-neutral” judicial reforms aimed at strengthening the judiciary have done more for women's judicial representation than explicitly gender-targeted policies, which still lack implementation. Donor-supported reforms have introduced more merit-based and transparent appointment procedures for magistrates (judges and public prosecutors) based on competitive examinations. This has helped women circumvent the largely male power networks that previously excluded them from the judiciary. The judiciary remains understudied in the scholarship on women's access to decision-making in fragile and conflict-affected societies; this article contributes to this emerging literature.
{"title":"Women's Judicial Representation in Haiti: Unintended Gains of State-Building Efforts","authors":"Marianne Tøraasen","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X21000398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X21000398","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although women's representation in Haiti is generally very low, the number of women judges has increased since the demise of authoritarianism and violent conflict in the 1990s. This case study explores why. I find that “gender-neutral” judicial reforms aimed at strengthening the judiciary have done more for women's judicial representation than explicitly gender-targeted policies, which still lack implementation. Donor-supported reforms have introduced more merit-based and transparent appointment procedures for magistrates (judges and public prosecutors) based on competitive examinations. This has helped women circumvent the largely male power networks that previously excluded them from the judiciary. The judiciary remains understudied in the scholarship on women's access to decision-making in fragile and conflict-affected societies; this article contributes to this emerging literature.","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"34 - 65"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46666756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-07DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X21000465
H. Müller, C. Camia
Abstract The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have increased their promotion of women in public life. The expansion of women's rights in these states functions as a central policy tool to stimulate modernization processes. This article investigates how the Gulf governments steer women's empowerment through the press. Regulated by the state, media outlets in GCC countries primarily serve to affirm and amplify the legitimacy of the government. Focusing on 15 English-language newspapers from 2008 to 2017, this article analyzes the degree to which women's empowerment in various arenas of society was addressed and the valence with which it was reported. Moreover, it analyzes whether foreign and domestic news were addressed differently. The article finds that once nondemocracies focus on women's rights, positive media portrayals, especially of domestic news, become central for legitimizing both women's empowerment and the regime. The article contributes to the growing literature on women's rights legislation and the state-media nexus in autocracies.
{"title":"Between Uniformity and Polarization: Women’s Empowerment in the Public Press of GCC States","authors":"H. Müller, C. Camia","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X21000465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X21000465","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have increased their promotion of women in public life. The expansion of women's rights in these states functions as a central policy tool to stimulate modernization processes. This article investigates how the Gulf governments steer women's empowerment through the press. Regulated by the state, media outlets in GCC countries primarily serve to affirm and amplify the legitimacy of the government. Focusing on 15 English-language newspapers from 2008 to 2017, this article analyzes the degree to which women's empowerment in various arenas of society was addressed and the valence with which it was reported. Moreover, it analyzes whether foreign and domestic news were addressed differently. The article finds that once nondemocracies focus on women's rights, positive media portrayals, especially of domestic news, become central for legitimizing both women's empowerment and the regime. The article contributes to the growing literature on women's rights legislation and the state-media nexus in autocracies.","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"166 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43480046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-07DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X21000477
M. Deckman, J. McDonald
Abstract American political activism has surged recently among young citizens, particularly among women and people of color. At the same time, record numbers of women and minority candidates have been running for office. Does seeing more diverse candidates in terms of age, gender, and race propel more interest in political engagement among Generation Z, particularly women? Using a survey experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey of Generation Z citizens, we present respondents with Democratic politicians who vary based on these three criteria. Women who identify strongly with their gender express greater political engagement when presented with any candidate who does not fit the stereotypical image of a politician (older, white, male). They are spurred not only by role models who represent them descriptively, but by all politicians belonging to historically marginalized groups. These effects, which are not specific to just Democratic women, provide insights that can inform engagement efforts targeting younger Americans.
{"title":"Uninspired by Old White Guys: The Mobilizing Factor of Younger, More Diverse Candidates for Gen Z Women","authors":"M. Deckman, J. McDonald","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X21000477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X21000477","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract American political activism has surged recently among young citizens, particularly among women and people of color. At the same time, record numbers of women and minority candidates have been running for office. Does seeing more diverse candidates in terms of age, gender, and race propel more interest in political engagement among Generation Z, particularly women? Using a survey experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey of Generation Z citizens, we present respondents with Democratic politicians who vary based on these three criteria. Women who identify strongly with their gender express greater political engagement when presented with any candidate who does not fit the stereotypical image of a politician (older, white, male). They are spurred not only by role models who represent them descriptively, but by all politicians belonging to historically marginalized groups. These effects, which are not specific to just Democratic women, provide insights that can inform engagement efforts targeting younger Americans.","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"195 - 219"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44870540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-25DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X22000034
José M. Flores Sanchez
Not One More! offers a vivid and visceral history of the more than 2,000 feminicidios (femicides) that have been perpetrated in the border city of Juárez, Mexico, since the 1990s. Author Nina Maria Lozano argues that feminicidios in Juárez must be viewed and addressed through a materialist framework that can make maquila- doras visible as spaces where gendered violence is perpetrated through and by wealth disparities. Maquiladoras are assembly factories that are integral to neoliberal economic projects such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In these maquiladoras, owned by U.S corporations, poor Mexican women are hired to work in exploitative conditions assembling consumer products. Lozano argues that these conditions make “ the women workers in Juárez. . . materially readily disposable and easy to replace ” (50).
{"title":"Not One More! Feminicidio on the Border. By Nina Maria Lozano. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2019. 188 pp. $29.95 (paper). ISBN: 9780814255196.","authors":"José M. Flores Sanchez","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X22000034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X22000034","url":null,"abstract":"Not One More! offers a vivid and visceral history of the more than 2,000 feminicidios (femicides) that have been perpetrated in the border city of Juárez, Mexico, since the 1990s. Author Nina Maria Lozano argues that feminicidios in Juárez must be viewed and addressed through a materialist framework that can make maquila- doras visible as spaces where gendered violence is perpetrated through and by wealth disparities. Maquiladoras are assembly factories that are integral to neoliberal economic projects such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In these maquiladoras, owned by U.S corporations, poor Mexican women are hired to work in exploitative conditions assembling consumer products. Lozano argues that these conditions make “ the women workers in Juárez. . . materially readily disposable and easy to replace ” (50).","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"311 - 312"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43727909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-25DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X2200006X
Faria A. Nasruddin
In the aftermath of the December 2014 Tehrik-e-Taliban attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, which killed 132 children and 9 teachers and staff, both the Taliban and the Pakistani state put forth their own claims and justifications of violence. To Shenila Khoja-Moolji, this tragic incident is emblematic of how the preexisting conceptualization of sovereignty—as the hegemonic, unified monopolization of violence by the state—inadequately explains the specifically postcolonial context of Pakistan. Using this observation as a point of departure, KhojaMoolji’s Sovereign Attachments: Masculinity, Muslimness, and Affective Politics in Pakistan thus interrogates the “entanglements and shared repertoire” (3) of the Taliban and the Pakistani state; examines various gendered performances and figurations in Pakistan; and posits a new theory of sovereignty, centered on its cultural, discursive, and affective dimensions. Sovereignty, to Khoja-Moolji, is more than an absolute politico-legal concept. Rather, she argues that it is a created and cultivated relationship, or an attachment, between the sovereign and an allied public. In otherwords, sovereignty is a discursive and affective (gendered) performance in which competing sovereigns engage. Applying this definition to her case study, Khoja-Moolji notes that when staking their claims to sovereignty, the Pakistani state and the Taliban extrapolate from the same cultural scripts of gender, sexuality, normative Islam, the family, and imaginations of past and future to foster attachments to their particular visions of the political, whether the Pakistani nation-state or the entire Muslim ummah, and to stipulate who belongs and who does not. Relatedly, another novel concept that Khoja-Moolji develops is “Islamomasculinity,” or the intertwined normative scripts of masculinity and Muslimness, by which authoritative sovereign power is primarily performed by both the Taliban and the Pakistani state. Other gendered figurations—the paternal father, the innocent child, the mourning mother, the brave soldier, the resolute believer, the perverse terrorist, and the dutiful daughter—figure in upholding
{"title":"Sovereign Attachments: Masculinity, Muslimness, and Affective Politics in Pakistan. By Shenila Khoja-Moolji. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021. 288 pp. $85.00 (cloth), $34.95 (paper). ISBN: 9780520336803.","authors":"Faria A. Nasruddin","doi":"10.1017/S1743923X2200006X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X2200006X","url":null,"abstract":"In the aftermath of the December 2014 Tehrik-e-Taliban attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, which killed 132 children and 9 teachers and staff, both the Taliban and the Pakistani state put forth their own claims and justifications of violence. To Shenila Khoja-Moolji, this tragic incident is emblematic of how the preexisting conceptualization of sovereignty—as the hegemonic, unified monopolization of violence by the state—inadequately explains the specifically postcolonial context of Pakistan. Using this observation as a point of departure, KhojaMoolji’s Sovereign Attachments: Masculinity, Muslimness, and Affective Politics in Pakistan thus interrogates the “entanglements and shared repertoire” (3) of the Taliban and the Pakistani state; examines various gendered performances and figurations in Pakistan; and posits a new theory of sovereignty, centered on its cultural, discursive, and affective dimensions. Sovereignty, to Khoja-Moolji, is more than an absolute politico-legal concept. Rather, she argues that it is a created and cultivated relationship, or an attachment, between the sovereign and an allied public. In otherwords, sovereignty is a discursive and affective (gendered) performance in which competing sovereigns engage. Applying this definition to her case study, Khoja-Moolji notes that when staking their claims to sovereignty, the Pakistani state and the Taliban extrapolate from the same cultural scripts of gender, sexuality, normative Islam, the family, and imaginations of past and future to foster attachments to their particular visions of the political, whether the Pakistani nation-state or the entire Muslim ummah, and to stipulate who belongs and who does not. Relatedly, another novel concept that Khoja-Moolji develops is “Islamomasculinity,” or the intertwined normative scripts of masculinity and Muslimness, by which authoritative sovereign power is primarily performed by both the Taliban and the Pakistani state. Other gendered figurations—the paternal father, the innocent child, the mourning mother, the brave soldier, the resolute believer, the perverse terrorist, and the dutiful daughter—figure in upholding","PeriodicalId":47464,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"19 1","pages":"308 - 310"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46548769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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