Feminist reflections on discourses of power + sharing, in power-sharing theory
- International Political Science Review
- 41(1), Jan, 2020: p.58-72
A recent call by some feminist conflict mediation practitioners proposes to rename power-sharing: either by prioritizing sharing over power or by replacing ‘power’ with the word ‘responsibility’. The purpose of these discursive reformulations is to move beyond just adding women to power-sharing institutions; instead, these proposals signal a desire to promote inclusion through a feminist emphasis on sharing in power-sharing systems above a masculinist emphasis on power. Inspired by these proposals and reflecting on the experiences of gender mediation experts, I work through critical feminist theories of intersectionality and feminist empowerment to show how power-sharing theory can be reimagined so that power is not just understood as coercive or as a finite resource that can only be divided between a limited number of privileged groups; rather, power can also be productive, as well as a central feature of all hierarchical relationships. I also explore how a feminist care ethic can offer alternative ways of conceiving of sharing in governance. My objective is to demonstrate how feminist approaches can provide a new language of both power and sharing to illuminate pathways through the ‘exclusion amid inclusion’ dilemma in power-sharing theory.- Reproduced
Ethics of care, Gender and conflict, Power-sharing, Ethnic conflict, Gender and peacebuilding, Feminist approaches to conflict resolution, Intersectionality