www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/review

Georgina Waylen

Feminist theory and empirical reality

Eschle, C., Global Democracy, Social Movements and Feminism, Boulder Colorado: Westview, 2001, ISBN 0-8133-9149-0.

This book grew out of the author’s D.Phil dissertation and explores the relationship between social movements and democracy in social and political thought in a global context, arguing that recent social and political thought tells us little about the role of social movements in democracy. It therefore is focused primarily on social theory rather than on the analysis of empirical material. As such the content wasn’t quite what I was expecting given the book’s title and perhaps any reservations I might have, stem from this, rather than any lacks within the book itself. The first two chapters look at the differing ways in which modernity, social movements and democracy have been understood, for example by Marxists, anarchists and republicans as well as by the more recent radical and post modern critics writing about new social movements. The third chapter goes on to outline feminist analyses and critiques of these various strands on democracy, highlighting how feminists have rethought concepts of power, politics, agency and change.

As a non-theorist, I found that this book gives a useful overview of the more theoretical literature on democracy that can often appear rather obscure and clearly points out the gender blindness of the mainstream literature on both democracy and (new) social movements. However, I did feel that without a substantial discussion of case study material, it is easy to over-homogenize feminism and talk of over simplistically about the feminist movement. A more empirically based analysis would demonstrate more clearly how difficult it is to make generalizations about feminism that work over the whole world. Indeed Eschle herself admits that more case-studies would be useful. As a result, despite some extensive discussions about third world feminism in the fourth chapter, the book does take a primarily first world perspective. Again more concrete discussion of different social movements might have made this less likely. I found the later chapters of the book on ‘Globalizing Democracy, Globalizing Movements’ and Reconstructing Global Feminism, Engendering Democracy’, the most interesting. Here for example Eschle discusses Nira Yuval Davis’ notion of transversal politics, reminiscent of other scholars’ discussions of conjunctural coalition building, and considers the ways in which global women’s movements can play a key role in this era of globalization.

Overall this is a well-argued and thought-provoking book based on the analysis and synthesis of a wide range of different sources. It will be particularly useful for students who want some more background on the gendered analysis of the theoretical literature on democracy that underlies so much of the work on social movements. It will also provide insights for scholars as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in women’s movements and social movements on a global scale.

Georgina Waylen is at the Department of Politics University of Sheffield g.waylen@sheffield.ac.uk