A Feminist Political Economy Lens Towards Equity and Justice

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A Feminist Political Economy Lens Towards Equity and Justice

By Bhumika Muchhala

Publisher: TWN

Year: 2024   No. of pages: 136

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About the Book

THE global political dynamics of financialisation, sovereign debt distress and fiscal austerity generate structural inequalities within and between nations. A feminist political economy lens centres the social provisioning approach, where economic activity encompasses unpaid and paid work, human well-being is the yardstick of economic success, and power inequities, agency and economic outcomes are shaped by gender and intersectional inequalities. Transforming macro-policy norms and frameworks towards gender and intersectional equity involves reorienting fiscal policy from expenditure reductions to sustained, long-term and gender-responsive investment in public sectors and services to support gender equality and protect women’s economic and social rights.

In this insightful collection of papers and articles, scholar-activist Bhumika Muchhala examines how financial subordination generates conditions of gendered austerity through channels such as social reproduction and unpaid care work, reduced access to quality public services, and regressive taxation. This analysis involves a perceptual shift from viewing women as mere individuals to gender as a system that structures power relations within economy and society. Writing from a critical political economy and South-centric perspective, she also maps out possible pathways – ranging from fiscal policy reformulation and sovereign debt workouts to social dialogue and movement building – towards a decolonial transformation for gender and economic equity.

About the author

Dr Bhumika Muchhala is a scholar, advocate and activist of international political economy and global governance from the lens of the Global South. She has over two decades of experience in policy analysis and advocacy, movement building and political education, with a focus on systemic issues, financialisation, sovereign debt and fiscal austerity through the lens of heterodox, dependency and feminist political economy. Her PhD from The New School is in the international political economy of development.

Contents

Introduction

Papers and essays      

A feminist social contract rooted in fiscal justice

Gendered austerity in the COVID-19 era: A survey of fiscal consolidation in Ecuador and Pakistan

A feminist and decolonial Global Green New Deal: Principles, paradigms and systemic transformations

COVID-19 reveals everything

Debt restructuring, austerity and the urgency of fiscal justice: The case of Sri Lanka

Gendering the debt crisis: Feminists on Sri Lanka’s financial crisis

Articles and op-eds

Ministers meet to tackle COVID-induced debt and liquidity crisis

G20 finance ministers fail to meaningfully address South’s debt distress

The urgency of fiscal justice

Fiscal SOS via Special Drawing Rights sees growing momentum

Argentina and the IMF: It takes two to tango

Divergent recoveries stem from divergent policies

Special Drawing Rights: Saving the global economy and bolstering recovery in pandemic times

SDR issuance must be redistributed from rich to developing countries

For the South, all roads in global economic governance lead to inequality and vulnerability

No new actions to combat debt crises offered by G20 ministers

While developing nations hang on to a cliff’s edge, G20 and IMF officials repeat empty words at their annual meetings

The grand narrative of private finance

Amidst a historic debt crisis and increasing global poverty, the IMF and World Bank fail to deliver in Marrakech.