Understanding the ‘quiet backlash’: Gender equality policy in the context of managerial governance
By: Anna Elomäki (she/her/hers) and Hanna Ylöstalo (she/her/hers)
Gender equality policy has in the past decade been contested across the globe, and in Europe austerity politics, right-wing populism and anti-gender views have led to the closing or defunding of gender equality bodies and the sidelining of gender equality as a political goal. This visible backlash has taken place along with the intensification of longstanding transformations of state and governance that have already for several decades influenced the form and content of gender equality policy. These shifts in policy-making processes and practices are often planned and implemented without public debate and contestation, and they may appear less alarming than the explicit resistance to gender equality policy. Yet they contribute to the current backlash in ways that should not be overlooked by gender equality actors.
Reforms in public governance follow constantly changing ‘management fashions’ connected to private sector trends that have specific characteristics and specific effects on gender equality policy. In our article ‘From promoting gender equality to managing gender equality policy’ we analysed how a recent, under-studied governance reform agenda – the idea of ‘strategic governance’ advocated by the OECD – transformed gender equality policy in Finland. Strategic governance is a form of managerial governance that aims to make policy-making more strategic by, for example, focusing on a small number of broad horizontal policy objectives and aligning them with fiscal goals. It also entails the idea of working together across the government towards common objectives.
The implementation of strategic governance in Finnish policy-making has had various, albeit unintentional effects on gender equality policy. The most visible effect concerned the position of gender equality policy on the previous government’s (2015-2019) agenda. Because of strategic prioritizing, gender equality policy was sidelined and instrumentalized to the government's other goals. Strategic prioritizing also extended to gender equality policy, with the effect that its scope was narrowed as the number of gender equality themes addressed was cut down. Moreover, the measures to promote gender equality have become increasingly aligned with ideals and practices of managerial governance.
In addition to these empirical findings, our article contributes to the theoretization of depoliticizing effects of managerial governance. We suggest that in order to fully understand these effects on gender equality policy, it is important to combine feminist literature on the depoliticizing effects of neoliberal governance with political science literature on managerial governance and depoliticization. From feminist literature we take on board the understanding of depoliticization as the denial of gendered power, whereas the literature on managerial governance and depolitization draws attention the more general denial of political interests and ideologies, which helps to understand the broader depoliticizing shifts in public governance. Our two-dimensional conception of depoliticization makes visible how the denial of gendered power takes place in a context, where the space for societal and political conflicts has in general been reduced. Thus, the general denial of interests, ideologies and conflicts, characteristic of managerial governance, enables the sidelining of gendered power relations – and gender equality policy more broadly.
Our analysis of the effects of strategic governance on gender equality policy in the Finnish context shows the relevance of both these dimensions. The shifts in position, scope and measures of gender equality policy described above sidelined gendered power relations and made it difficult to address them. For example, discussion of existing gender inequalities was excluded from the short and ‘strategic’ gender equality policy documents. The general denial of interests, ideologies and conflicts typical for strategic governance has, in turn, helped to weaken gender equality policy and sideline its most contested elements through representing this weakening as a practical rather than a political decision. For instance, the sidelining of gender equality from the government’s agenda was represented as a technical matter that followed from the principles of strategic governance.
Inquiring about the broader depoliticizing effects of governance reforms helps to understand what could be called a ‘quiet backlash’ of gender equality policy in the context of relatively strong gender equality policy and institutions. A quiet backlash does not necessarily involve an open conflict between gender equality policy and anti-feminist/conservative interests and ideologies, but rather occurs through shifts in governance that are represented as pragmatic rather than political or ideological shifts.
It is important to stress, however, that the depoliticizing effects of governance cannot be separated from party political ideologies and power struggles. The implementation of strategic governance and the simultaneous weakening of gender equality policy took place when a right-conservative government was in office (2015-2019). The government was followed by an openly feminist left-green government led by 34-year old Sanna Marin. Although the ideas of strategic governance have continued to define the left-green government’s work, gender equality issues now have a prominent role in the government programme. These shifts illustrate that governance reforms and discourses can be bent to serve the ideologies of government parties.
Read the full article here: “From promoting gender equality to managing gender equality policy“
Dr Anna Elomäki is Senior Researcher in Gender Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, politics and economy, including gender impacts of economic policies and governance and economization of gender equality policy.
Dr Hanna Ylöstalo is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the Department of Social Research, University of Turku. Her research focuses on the Nordic welfare state reform and particularly on the relations between knowledge, economy and gender equality within this reform.
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