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

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.

本研究旨在达成双重目标。其一，结合性别与性别盲型紧缩政策的相关研究，以及宏观经济政策社会内涵的女性主义评述，阐明欧盟宏观经济模式与治理体系对欧洲性别平等产生的倒退性影响——尽管欧盟官方文件声称其旨在缩小性别差距。其二，本研究将从政治哲学与经济学双重视角对上述进程展开评估。从政治哲学视角出发，本研究旨在更新南希·弗雷泽（Nancy Fraser）的“再分配/承认”研究框架，用以说明紧缩范式如何通过加剧女性的经济劣势，阻碍女性平等参与公共领域，并催生“制度化错认”的政治实践。对弗雷泽分析框架的梳理，旨在揭示经济不公与分配失当（包括剥削、女性经济边缘化、生存不安、女性失业）、文化不公与错认之间的共谋关系，并凸显构建性别敏感型分配政策的根本必要性。在女性主义后凯恩斯主义/卡莱茨基（Feminist-Post-Keynesian/Kaleckian）经济学范式下，最新研究从一系列假说出发，强调性别敏感型再分配政策的经济价值；与此同时，该理论视角亦揭示了性别敏感型分配政策所固有的对抗属性。本研究提出的跨学科研究路径，为欧洲女性的政治诉求辩论提供了分析框架。