The 1990s represented a shift in the international development agenda  in the direction of a greater emphasis on rights and democracy. This  brought many positive changes in women's rights and political  representation as well as in human rights more broadly. In much of the  world, however, these advances were not matched by significant  progress in the achievement of greater social justice. Rising income  inequalities, coupled with widespread poverty in many countries, have  been accompanied by record levels of crime and violence. Meanwhile the  global shift in the consensus over the role of the state in welfare  provision has in many contexts entailed the down-sizing of public  services and the re-allocation of service delivery to commercial  interests, charitable groups, NGOs and households. Liberalism and its Discontents reflects on this ambivalent record, and  on the significance accorded in international development policy to  rights and democracy in the post-Cold War era. Key items on the  contemporary policy agenda-neo-liberal economic and social policies;  democracy; and multiculturalism-are addressed here by leading scholars  and regional specialists through theoretical reflections and detailed  case studies. Together they constitute a collection which casts  contemporary liberalism in a distinctive light by applying a gender  perspective to the analysis of political and policy processes. Case  studies from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East,  East-Central Europe, South and South-east Asia contribute a  cross-cultural dimension to the analysis of contemporary  liberalism-the dominant value system in the modern world-and how it  exists, and is resisted, in developing and post-transition  societies.

Gender Justice, Development, and Rights (Oxford Studies in Democratization) PDF

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