Women and New Labour
Engendering politics and policy?
Edited by Claire Annesley, Francesca Gains and Kirstein Rummery
Published
Jun 22, 2007Page count
280 pagesISBN
978-1861348272Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Jun 22, 2007Page count
280 pagesISBN
978-1861348289Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy Press
Women and New Labour
Although there is a growing body of international literature on the feminisation of politics and the policy process and, as New Labour's term of office progresses, a rapidly growing series of texts around New Labour's politics and policies, until now no one text has conducted an analysis of New Labour's politics and policies from a gendered perspective, despite the fact that New Labour have set themselves up to specifically address women's issues and attract women voters. This book fills that gap in an interesting and timely way.
Women and New Labour will be a valuable addition to both feminist and mainstream scholarship in the social sciences, particularly in political science, social policy and economics. Instead of focusing on traditionally feminist areas of politics and policy (such as violent crime against women) the authors opt to focus on three case study areas of mainstream policy (economic policy, foreign policy and welfare policy) from a gendered perspective. The analytical framework provided by the editors yields generalisable insights that will outlast New Labour's third term.
"This book is an excellent account of the impact of women and gender on Labour Party policy, and is an important contribution to both the new literature on women and policy-making and to the relatively neglected area of how parties make policy. It will become a reading list requirement for courses on party politics, public policy and gender and politics." Joni Lovenduski, School of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck College
Claire Annesley is a lecturer in European politics and convenor of the Gender Research Network at the University of Manchester. Her research interests focus on the transition of the welfare state in the direction of the Adult Worker Model in the UK, Germany and the European Union.
Francesca Gains is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and senior research fellow at the Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG) at the University of Manchester. She is currently the research co-ordinator for the Evaluating Local Governance research project for the Department of Communities and Local Government.
Kirstein Rummery is a senior lecturer in social policy at the University of Manchester. She has research interests in disability, citizenship and access to services, and partnership working and governance in the welfare state.
Contents: Part A: Setting the context: New Labour and women: constraints and opportunities in feminising politics ~ Claire Annesley and Francesca Gains; Developments in feminist theory ~ Ursula Vogel and Angelia R Wilson; Women and Nordic Labour parties ~ Guro Bjoergum and Claire Annesley; Feminising policy and politics: from old to New Labour ~ Jill Lovecy; Engendering the machinery of governance ~ Francesca Gains and Catherine Durose; Part B: Case studies: Economy: The gender implications of New Labour's macro-economic policy ~ David Coates and Sarah Oettinger; New Labour policy and the gender pay gap ~ Damian Grimshaw; Foreign policy: Women and international development policy ~ Juanita Elias and Lucy Ferguson; New Labour's foreign and security policy: securitisation and gender ~ Natalie Bormann; Welfare: Parental responsibilities and gender roles ~ Karen Clarke; Labour pains: lesbian and gay citizens ~ Angie Wilson; Caring, citizenship and New Labour: dilemmas and contradictions for disabled and older women ~ Kirstein Rummery; Part C: Theory and policy analysis: Towards an engendered politics and policy? ~ Kirstein Rummery, Francesca Gains and Claire Annesley.
