Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: According to what might be called the "official" doctrine of liberalism, the kind of equality that matters most is equality of moral and political status. This ideal of equality makes no reference to the abilities or contributions of citizens. Yet, at the same time, contractarian liberals, such as Rawls, rely heavily on another idea of equality: the idea of equality of ability. This idea is contained in what Rawls calls "the circumstances of justice"--the circumstances under which it is rationally possible for justice to emerge. Contractarians claim that justice is not rationally possible where there are huge disparities in people's talents and hence their abilities to contribute to the production of social goods. These two ideas of equality are in conflict, for if one is not a party to justice due to her being unable to contribute to the production of social goods, then her status as a citizen is virtually erased. I argue that in order for liberalism to remain true to its official view, it must reconcile the contractarian emphasis on mutual advantage and equal ability and the ideal of equal status.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Despite its centrality to American political culture, the principle of “equality” is too vague to give clear direction to policymaking; only when it takes on more precise meaning in specific contexts does it shape reform efforts. In this paper, we gain a better understanding of how what we call “equality talk” is produced by comparing and contrasting the development of discourses about equality within three of the most significant redistributive educational reforms Americans undertook after Brown: Title IX, which promotes gender equality; school funding equalization, which attempts to reduce disparities between resource-poor and resource-rich school districts; and school vouchers, which provide publicly-funded scholarships for poor children to attend “better” schools. The latter two, while color-blind, are promoted in part as measures to help reduce racial inequality.
Our analyses show that the discourses about equality within each of these movements have common elements that derive from the Civil Rights Movement and from the borrowing of discourses across the reforms. But there are important differences among the reforms in the ways that the contradiction between “separate” and “equal” is resolved. In the debate about gender equality in athletics under Title IX, few objected to the principle of separate-but-equal. The arguments used by minorities to advocate for school funding equalization and for the adoption of publicly-funded school voucher programs, on the other hand, accept “separate” as the price of “equal”. This work sheds new light on the ways in which values foundational to American political culture shape policy debates.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The use of gender mainstreaming has been widely supported not only within international bodies but also within national strategies for attaining a more gender equal society. Given the political support that gender mainstreaming has received it is important to understand how efficacious it is in practice. This paper poses the question: Is gender mainstreaming a successful or even sufficient strategy for attaining a more gender equal society? More specifically this paper discusses how gender mainstreaming is applied in policy documents, their consequent goal formulations, and how it is implemented in specific measures and projects to attain such goals. The example analyzed here is gender mainstreaming within the transportation sector in Sweden. This example is especially interesting since the 2001 parliamentary decision adding gender equality as a 6th goal of transportation policy. Using committee reports, governmental propositions, and directives from 1997 to 2002, this paper begins with a discourse analysis of the process both leading up to and stretching beyond the government approval of gender equality as the sixth goal of transportation policy in Sweden. It analyzes how policy makers defined and applied gender equality in transportation policy documents. In addition to the discourse analysis, a project that is currently being carried out for the Swedish Federal Highway Administration to implement gender equality will also be presented and analyzed. Preliminary results show that the success of the integration of gender equality as a political strategy is dependent upon breaking the barriers within the transportation sector that oversimplify the differences in women and men's relations to transportation by seeing men as the norm, as adequate experts and decision makers, and as the primary or prototype users. Until such changes are made, gender equality is an ineffectual strategy for promoting change within a male dominated sector. Overall more concrete guidelines and methods are needed if the integration of gender equality is to have a significant effect upon policymaking and thereby upon attaining a more gender equal society in Sweden.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In his later works, Robert Dahl proposed that a strong principle of equality between citizens guaranteed them a right to a democratic process not just in the political (public) sphere, but also in the economic (private) sphere. This politicization and democratization of the market would mean an expansion of social citizenship rights, and the recognition of self-governance at the workplace as democratic participation. In this paper, I argue that, while Dahl's asserted natural right to individual self-governance does considerable work to expand social rights, his view of labor taking place in 'the firm' limits the radical potential of his proposal. Making use of Carole Pateman's work, both as a participatory democratic theorist and a radical feminist, and bringing in Arendt's controversial articulation of the public and private, I make a case for restructuring the political to include democratic governance of the workplace. I examine how the division between a sphere of public action, the workplace, and the household has served a political purpose for whoever has theorized about it. I argue that, while the distinction may be ideological, it organizes the way people perceive and live their lives. As such, the division should continue to be contested even if it is never circumvented.