Securing the Market, Pacifying Civil Society, Empowering Women: The Middle East Partnership Initiative1

Abstract

The “Middle East Partnership Initiative” (MEPI) is now the main framework for U.S. soft interventions in the Middle East. Established by the Republican administration in 2003, this program follows a rationale of political and economic reforms as a means to uproot terrorism and spread democracy. This article offers a content analysis of this program by questioning the assumptions behind the MEPI’s focus on “civil society” and “women’s empowerment” and by showing their significance to neoliberal regimes of pacification and securitization.

Reconceptualizing Gender, Reinscribing Racial-Sexual Boundaries in International Security: The Case of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on “Women, Peace and Security”1

“…From arguments that gender inequality fuels “radicalization” and “terrorism” (Caiazza 2001), to assumptions that Muslim women are more “moderate” (Brown 2008) or that they are natural allies in fighting “patriarchal Islamist terrorism” (Salime 2010), Western decision makers believe that “women’s empowerment” and participation is key to global security and stability (Clinton 2010). The US administration promotes “women’s empowerment” in the Middle East through the Middle East Partnership Initiative, established in 2003 to enhance US intervention to eradicate terrorism (Salime 2010). Sponsored programs include organizing conferences to discuss the challenges facing women in the Middle East and “training” women in political participation (ibid).…”

Gendered Leadership: The Effects of Female Development Agency Leaders on Foreign Aid Spending

“…Supporters of GAD recommend moving beyond gender‐focused programming—women‐specific credit systems, affirmative action plans, leadership training for women, and so forth—and instead focus on reexamining the social structures and institutions that perpetuate gender inequality (Rathgeber ). Unfortunately, because “[GAD] demands a degree of commitment to structural change and power shifts that is unlikely to be found either in national or in international agencies” (Rathgeber :495) it was confined to the ivory tower, and the development sector continued to pursue band‐aid solutions through gender‐focused programs (European Commission ; Salime ).…”

Transnational Traders: El Salvador's Women Couriers in Historical Perspective

“…Recent feminist scholarship on globalization, however, challenges such accounts, which “[depict] women and femininity as rooted, traditional, and charged with maintaining domestic continuity in the face of flux and instability caused by global movements that, explicitly or not, embody a quality of masculinity” (Freeman : 1017). By contrast, rather than globalization suddenly pushing women into “otherwise masculine realms of travel, migration, and labor,” many women's labor and physical mobility—past and present—help shape global processes, “even if in small ways” (Freeman : 1017–1018, 1014; see also Bose ; Salime ; Williams and Baláz 2002: 534).…”