This article presents initial findings from one of the first comparative studies of women as foreign policy decision-makers in Western industrial systems. It begins with an overview of why political leaders matter to the conduct of contemporary international relations and what the existing literature tells us about women’s engagement in that domain. Next, we develop five propositions based on previous research, and evaluate them using longitudinal data from 10 established democratic systems. Analysing the public statements of appointees in the three countries with the most female elites, we report that women decision-makers were more likely to express pro-feminist rhetoric than the men who preceded or succeeded them; moreover, the most vocal pro-equality elites came from left-of-centre political backgrounds, and often had pre-recruitment experience in progressive parties or social movements. The discussion concludes with a brief look at promising directions for future research.
Comparative results indicate disadvantageous conditions for US feminism in the Reagan years, some progress for British women's interests during the Thatcher era, and relatively advantageous outcomes for Canadian feminists in the Mulroney period. The opportunity structures approach is evaluated as an explanation for these findings.
Since the mid–1990s, comparative research on welfare state evolution has
contrasted the contours of postwar social policy expansion with the
parameters of contemporary programme retrenchment. Paul Pierson's 1994
account of pension, housing and income support policies in the United
Kingdom and the United States during the Thatcher and Reagan years
proposed two core arguments with this literature: first, welfare state
expansion and contraction were governed by fundamentally different
dynamics; and second, even conservative, ideologically committed
political executives found it hard to impose radical social policy
changes. Because “the welfare state has proved to be far more resilient
than other key components of national political economies.” Pierson has
maintained, “retrenchment is a distinctive and difficult political
enterprise.”
This article examines relations between organized feminism and the federal Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, focusing on elements of the Canadian women's movement that targeted federal policy change from 1984 to 1993. In questioning the main priorities of both sides and the potential for conflict between them, the discussion uses the conceptual literature on social movement evolution as a base. It assesses formal decision making across five major policy sectors identified by Canadian feminism and presents the perspectives of movement activists on the Mulroney period. Although comparisons with policy action under the Thatcher and Reagan governments indicate a more pro-feminist record in Canada than the United Kingdom or the United States, Canadian materials suggest a narrowing of common ground between the organized women's movement and federal elites during the Mulroney years.
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