Redistribution, recognition, power: Austerity or an alternative Kaleckian feminist macroeconomic model in the EU?

Abstract

The aim of this paper is twofold. The first is to highlight the regressive impacts on gender equality in Europe of the EU’s macroeconomic model and governance, despite the claims in official EU do­cuments that the intention is to close the gender gap, with reference to research into gender and gender-blind austerity policies and feminist commentary on the social content of macroeconomic policies. The second aim is to assess these processes from both a political-philosophical and an economic perspective. From a political-philosophical perspective this paper aims to update Nancy Fraser’s focus on “redistribu­tion/recognition”, in order to show how the austerity paradigm – by increasing economic disadvantages for women – prevents women’s equal participation in the public sphere and fosters political practices of “institu­tio­na­lized misrecognition”. The review of Fraser’s analytical perspective serves to highlight the com­­plici­ty between economic injustice and maldistribution (exploitation, female economic marginaliza­tion, insecurity, female unemployment) and cultural injustice and misrecognition, and to focus attention on the fundamental need for gender-aware distributional policies. In a Feminist-Post-Keynesian/Kaleckian eco­no­­mic paradigm, new research emphasizes the economic relevance of gender-aware redistribution, star­ting from a range of hypotheses. At the same time, in this theoretical perspective, the inherently confron­tational nature of gender-aware distribution policies is shown. The interdisciplinary approach propo­sed in this paper provides an analytical framework for debating women’s political claims in Europe

Keywords

• austerity policies
• economic justice
• feminist economics
• gender equality
• kalecki