#MeToo,white feminism and taking everyday politics seriously in the global political economy

ABSTRACT

This paper examines social media movements, specifically #MeToo, in relation to the politics of feminism and white privilege in the contemporary global political economy. Analysis of social media movements is located as a key part of the intricate web of practices that enable certain types of gendered identity and socioeconomic privilege to intersect, in powerful ways and to potent effect. The paper argues that, while scholarship on the global political economy has not often taken seriously popular culture sources in and across world politics, and needs to do better in this regard, investigating the politics of popular culture, race and socioeconomic privilege in contemporary world politics is important. This is because such analysis foregrounds everyday, cultural practices of knowledge formation, building space for emphasising relations of power but also highlighting the possibilities of and for resistance, agency and avenues for creative thinking and doing in world politics.     

Reconsidering nationalism and feminism: the Kurdish political movement in Turkey

Feminist scholars have documented with reference to multiple empirical contexts that feminist claims within nationalist movements are often side‐lined, constructed as ‘inauthentic’ and frequently discredited for imitating supposedly western notions of gender‐based equality. Despite these historical precedents, some feminist scholars have pointed to the positive aspects of nationalist movements, which frequently open up spaces for gender‐based claims. Our research is based on the recognition that we cannot discuss and evaluate the fraught relationship in the abstract but that we need to look at the specific historical and empirical contexts and articulations of nationalism and feminism. The specific case study we draw from is the relationship between the Kurdish women's movement and the wider Kurdish political movement in Turkey. We are exploring the ways that the Kurdish movement in Turkey has politicised Kurdish women's rights activists and examine how Kurdish women activists have reacted to patriarchal tendencies within the Kurdish movement.     

Women,gender and feminism in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This review article, written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Journal of Political Science (formerly Politics), analyses articles focusing on women, gender and feminism that were published in the journal. The analysis demonstrates that the study of gender is relevant to a broad range of fields, and methodological approaches used, in political science. It also demonstrates that political science knowledge is itself historically and socially constructed, reflecting both traditional social power relations and the influence of the social movements that challenge them. Consequently, key articles have drawn attention to the ways in which the frameworks of mainstream forms of political science were gender-biased and have sometimes continued to be so, particularly in terms of narrow constructions of the ‘political’. Such narrow constructions may still be contributing to some ongoing gaps in the literature, despite the important contributions made by work published in the journal.     

The nullification crisis,southern discontents,and the American political process

The Nullification crisis has frequently been misunderstood because too much emphasis has been placed on South Carolina and the dramatic events of 1832–33. The broader perspective presented here reveals that not just South Carolina but the whole South (except the border states) turned against federal authority in the 1820s, driven by economic discontents and anxieties about maintaining control of the South's racial minorities. In 1828, however, this rebellious outlook found political satisfaction when Andrew Jackson and his supporters took control in Washington and proceeded to redress most of the South's grievances, including, in 1832, the difficult issue of the protective tariff. As a result, the rest of the South stood aside when South Carolina obstructed federal revenue laws, and South Carolina escaped from the crisis only by accepting a settlement that gave it a nominal victory while, in reality, restoring to Northern protectionists some of the advantages they had lost in the settlement of 1832. The interests of the South were best protected not by obstructing federal law, but by participating in the nation's democratic process.     

Malthusianism,socialism and feminism in the United States

This article examines and compares Adam Ferguson's and Guillaume-Thomas Raynal's analyses of modern commercial states by reconstructing their accounts of the history and politics of the Dutch Republic. For both writers, the Dutch case stood as a clear instance of the political dangers implicit in a particular type of commercial polity, and both sought to apply its lessons to an understanding of the future of their own states. Although Ferguson's and Raynal's arguments about the decline of the Dutch trading state overlapped, their analyses reflected different evaluations of the relationship between modern states and modern economic institutions (trading companies and public debts). The broader purpose of the article is to shed light on the distinctive theories of commerce and models of European development that informed the major works of Enlightenment historiography and political thought produced by Ferguson and Raynal in the 1760s and 1770s.     

Women and children,war and peace: political agency in time of conflict

The four books under review focus on different aspects of war and conflict, but they all make it clear that women and children are more than their victims. They can be, and often are, active participants in all dimensions of conflict, from taking up arms to working for peace. While all four books paint an appropriately grim picture of war and its impact, there is also some optimism to be found in the resilience shown by women and children as they face the brutality of war and often actively seek to work for peace. Three of the books examine women's involvement in conflict, war, peace and peacemaking, and the aftermath of these events, albeit in very different ways—although all view women as active participants in the process rather than as victims. The fourth book included in this article, Children and global conflict, is not only relevant to the discussion, but also provides another important lens through which we can examine issues of conflict, war and peace. This review article provides insight into the contrition made to the field by these recent books individually, as well as when considered as parts of a whole.     

The Australian League of Rights and the process of political conversion

An empirical study of Australian League of Rights' supporters demonstrates their intensely held ideological convictions. Such devotees commonly seek to convert others to their belief system which they regard as “sacrosanct” while other modes of thought are ill‐informed and harmful. Their proselytisation technique attempts to make the “target” doubt previously unquestioned notions, thereby creating personal anguish and conflict.

Most researchers believe strain or deprivation to be necessary factors in the conversion process although such strain need not be perceived by others. Empirical difficulties are encountered using a seven‐step model to view conversion. The model has certain serious limitations, owing to the alien position of the researcher and the inevitable post‐hoc rationalisation of respondents. Nevertheless it has some utility in the field situation and is suggested as being broadly applicable as an heuristic tool.