Kate Nash
A “Politics of Ideas” and Women’s Citizenship
Introduction
T h e question this article will address is that of the role of ideas in the d ev elopm en t of th e social a n d political institutions of w om en’s citizenship, historically a n d in fu tu re fem inist strategies. T here has been little direct c o n sid eratio n o f this question on the part o f fem inist theorists, with the n otable ex ception o f A nne Phillips who introduced it in h er recent work, The Politics o f Presence. In this book she makes an in teresting distinction betw een a conventional “politics o f ideas”, in which political representation is taken to involve the representation o f party policies and voter preferences an d beliefs, an d a “politics o f p resence” in which dem ocratic procedures are h e ld to req u ire th e physical presence o f m em bers o f social groups. For Phillips, th e latter is req u ired because while political equality entails the inclusion o f voices previously excluded from the political process, it also req uires an in fo rm ed ju d g e m e n t of the probable outcom e of that process, an d she believes th at the presence of m em bers of historically disadvantaged groups could result in m ore egalitarian policies (Phillips 1995). Phillips is evidently using the term “politics o f ideas” in a very particular way here and in this article I will o p e n u p the discussion o f the relation between ideas and social a n d political practices to com pare h e r theory with an oth er view o f how politics is co n d u c te d at the level of ideas, the theory of hegem ony of Ernesto Laclau a n d C hantai Mouffe. In o rd er to do so we will look at the proposals th at have b een m ade by feminists concerning the relation between the ideas o f liberalism an d the institutions o f w om en’s citizenship in o rder to show th at the theory of hegem ony is best able to deal with the issues raised by this relation. Finally it will be argued that the politics of ideas proposed by Laclau a n d Mouffe is at least as im portant to fem inist strategies to en d the secondary status of w om en’s citizenship as Phillips’ “politics of presence”.
The feminist critique of liberal citizenship
Since this paper is concerned with th e em pirical q uestion o f the ex te n t to which ideas have affected, o r could affect, social a n d political institutions, rath er than norm ative questions co n cern ing how citizenship should be ex
p anded to include women, we will take the historical theory o f citizenship o f T.H Marshall as our stardng point. M arshall’s basic argum ent is well-known and will n o t be outlined in detail h ere. A ccording to his view, liberal rights have been extended since the beginning o f capitalism . Civil rights to indi
vidual freedom - to speech, the ow nership o r property, ju stice b efo re the law and so o n - were established in th e e ig h te en th century, m o re o r less.
Political rights to participation in the exercise of political power were gained with the establishment of the m odern parliam entary system in the n in eteen th century. A nd finally, there was the in stitutio n alisatio n o f social rights to econom ic welfare and to participation in th e social an d cultural life o f the nation with the establishm ent o f the welfare state in the tw entieth century (Marshall 1992). Although there is considerable controversy over M arshall’s theory, particularly regarding its evolutionary logic an d the questio n o f its status as a m odel o f the developm ent o f rights in liberal-dem ocracies o th e r than in Britain (Barbalet 1988, p. 30), it nevertheless provides distinctions between the different forms of rights which have been useful to fem inist critics o f w om en’s citizenship in W estern liberal-dem ocracies.
Theoretically, the most im p ortan t p o in t of th e fem inist critique o f libe
ral citizenship is th at rights have to a large e x te n t b een developed from a male perspective so that they are in ap p ro p riate to women: on the o n e hand, women a n d m en are treated alike when they should be tre a te d differently;
and on the other, w om en are som etim es treated differently from m en, as inferior citizens. T he first case is exem plified by civil an d political rights.
H ere feminists have mainly focused o n form al anti-discrim ination rights which fail to take w om en’s particular e m b o d im e n t a n d circum stances into account; the right to equal pay, for exam ple, w hich fails to recognise the occupational segregation o f the sexes (Frazer and Lacey, 1993 pp. 78-88).
The second case principally involves gender-differentiated welfare rights. As a group, women receive m ore welfare benefits than m en, b u t there is a diffe
rence in the type o f benefits m en an d w om en are en titled to. T h e re is a two-tiered welfare system in Britain and elsewhere: one tier consists of benefits to which citizens are entitled by virtue o f insurance co n tributions p aid on the basis o f waged work; m en are p red o m in an tly e n title d to this type o f benefits. T he o th er consists of benefits which are n o t directly paid for by insurance contributions an d these are p red o m in an tly received by w om en.
A “Politics of Ideas ” and Women ’s Citizenship
They include benefits to which citizens are entitled by virtue o f being the d ep e n d an ts o f insurees, m eans-tested benefits for those in poverty and, in rare cases, benefits which are paid to those who have the m ain responsibil
ity for the care o f ch ild ren o r others who can n ot care for themselves in the h o m e (Patem an 1989; Walby 1994). The type o f welfare benefits which have greatest legitim acy a n d financial value are those received through work-re
lated insurance; the o th e r type is somewhat stigmatised, since they may be seen as u n e a rn e d , an d involves lower sums o f money. W om en’s social citi
zenship is, therefo re, n o t ju s t different from m e n ’s, b u t secondary.
Fem inists, like M arshall, tend to see citizenship in W estern liberal-de
m ocracies as an extension o f liberal rights. But for feminists, the fact that citizenship is liberal is closely related to the disadvantages it presents for wom en. Firstly, liberalism is co ncerned with gender-neutral individuals as the rights-bearing m em bers o f society. For the classical liberalism on which form al rights te n d to be based, only universal principles which treat all in
dividuals identically are acceptable. This makes it difficult for liberal legis
lation to take differences betw een m en and women into account, while in som e cases, like th e fam ous ju d g e m e n t in which it was ruled th at a woman dism issed because she was p reg n a n t was n o t discrim inated against because the sam e tre a tm e n t would have been accorded to a similarly situated man (Frazer an d Lacey 1993, p. 81-2), it turns o ut the gender-neutral individual is actually a m an. In actual fact, then, women are n o t always liberal indi
viduals. In the case o f social rights the m atter is somewhat different; in this m odified version o f liberalism , which comes close to social-democracy, it is acceptable to tre a t differen t categories o f citizens differently in o rd er to en su re th a t m inim al econom ic and social needs are m et equally for all citi
zens (Beveridge 1966, p. 45). But, as we have seen, it is the (male) indi
vidual who is co n tracted to insure him self with the state through paid em ploym ent who is the privileged citizen; the (female) d ep e n d an t of this male b read w in n er is n o t directly insured with the state and is n o t a full citizen.
Secondly, a n d closely linked to the first point, liberalism divides up society in to p u b lic a n d private sp h eres, w here th e private sp h ere tends to be conflated with the hom e. For liberals the private sphere is outside the juris
diction o f th e state, an d w hen this is com bined with the view that family re
lations are n a tu ra l a n d th ere fo re som ehow outside society altogether, it becom es very difficult for liberals to consider granting rights to women in the hom e (Kymlicka 1990, pp. 250-262). It is for this reason that it has proved so difficult to gain civil rights for women in the hom e, and no do u b t why, alth o u g h th e welfare state does minimally recognise the w orkw om en do in the h om e, it is nevertheless seen as inferior to m en ’s econom ic contribu
tion in the public sph ere in term s o f th e quality a n d q uan tity o f w elfare benefits awarded on the basis o f this “fem in in e” con tribution.
Liberalism as an ideology and women’s citizenship
Fem inist criticisms o f liberalism seem to suggest quite a close link be
tween the ideas of liberalism as a political ideology a n d the d ev elopm en t of w om en’s secondary status as citizens. T h a t is, they suggest the link betw een ideas and social an d political institutions with which we are co n cern ed here.
However, the question o f the precise n a tu re o f this relation has n o t b een directly addressed by feminists. T he following accounts are taken from fem i
nist analyses o f liberal political philosophy; I am assum ing th at they can be applied to the m ore specific question o f w o m en ’s citizenship in a liberal society. O n the basis o f the problem s these theories give rise to, it will be suggested th at the theory of hegem ony provides the best ap p ro ach to u n d erstand in g the relation between liberal ideology an d the institutio ns o f w om en’s citizenship, even though it is n o t w ith o ut problem s o f its own.
T he first account we will look at is derived from M arxism an d sees lib
eralism as capitalist ideology. In an article o n seventeenth centu ry liberal
ism, Teresa B rennan and Carole Patem an arg ue th at the m ain tenets o f lib
eralism - individualism and the distinction between public and private spheres - were established in early m o d ern ity with th e rise o f capitalism a n d th e subsequent shift o f production ou t o f th e h om e, and with the liberal politi
cal system which developed alongside it (B ren n an a n d P atem an 1979).
B rennan an d Patem an deny th at political theory can simply be seen as re flecting socio-econom ic changes; they suggest ra th e r th a t liberalism is a necessary condition o f capitalism:
“In d iv id u a ls can n o t b e se e n as fre e ly e n t e r in g c o n tra c ts a n d m a k in g ex c h an g e s w ith each o th e r in th e m a rk e t, a n d as a b le freely to p u rs u e th e ir in terests, u n less th e y have c o m e to b e c o n c eiv ed as f re e a n d e q u a l to e a c h o th e r. F u rth e rm o re , u n le ss th e y a re se e n in th is fa sh io n , th e y have n o n e e d v olu n tarily to a g re e to, o r c o n s e n t to , g o v e rn m e n t o r th e ex ercise o f a u th o rity .” (B re n n a n a n d P a te m a n 1979, p. 184)
B rennan and Patem an explicitly reject econom ic redu ction ism in re
fusing to see ideology as determ ined by the economy; bu t in suggesting th at liberalism is a necessary condition o f capitalism as an econom ic system the problem nevertheless returns. And the econom ic reductionism which haunts Marxist theories of ideology, however n uan ced , is problem atic both from a
A “Politics of Ideas” and Women’s Citizenship
general theoretical po in t o f view and from the m ore particular point of view o f the questio n o f w o m en ’s citizenship with which we are concerned.
Firstly, if liberalism as an ideology is a necessary condition o f the capi
talist econom y, th en it is also p a rt o f that economy; it exists not simply as ideas b u t as th e practices o f capitalism in the form o f contracts, the rules regulating exchanges an d so on. In fact, although it is a feature of the Marxist theory o f ideology that has been particularly drawn out by neo-Marxists, Marx him self m ade this p o in t co n cern in g the legal forms o f capitalism, in par
ticular the wage-form in which labour is “freely” exchanged as a com m od
ity. B ut for Marx, a lth o u g h real in their effects, these forms are at the same tim e m erely a surface app earan ce concealing the essence o f capitalism, the class struggle which takes place over the m eans o f production. It is for this reaso n th a t in capitalism , according to Marx, m an lives alienation in the m aterial conditio ns o f his life; it is an illusory u n d erstanding of the social n a tu re o f p ro d u ctio n , b u t it is an illusion with real social effects (Marx and Engels 1977). This view o f ideology raises difficult epistem ological ques
tions w hich we will co n sid er briefly below, b u t it also presents particular difficulties for fem inist accounts. As work by Marxist feminists has shown, an ex p lanation o f how w om en and m en have been differently positioned in relation to the division betw een the private domestic sphere and the public sp h ere o f the econom y an d state can n o t rely on the, at best, gender-neutral M arxist th eory o f capitalist developm ent since, however n u anced such a theory m ight be, by definition it can not explain sexual division (Barrett 1980;
N icholson 1986). A theory of how ideas are related to the political and social institutions o f w om en’s citizenship can n ot rely on a general theory o f the relation betw een liberalism an d capitalism such as the on e p ut forward by B ren n an a n d P atem an because such a theory can n o t explain why, if liber
alism prov ided th e ideological conditions of capitalism, wom en have n o t b e e n full liberal citizens o n the sam e term s as m en. In o rd er to do so, B ren n an a n d P atem an w ould have to show how ideas are related to prac
tices in ways which p ro d u ce d an d repro du ce gendered capitalist institutions and a lth o u g h it seem s th a t they tacitly assume such a relation in the case of the p u b lic /p riv ate distinction, it can n o t be theorised from the Marxist per
spective they propose.
In h e r later work P atem an proposes a second view o f the relation be
tween political ideology a n d practice. T he public/private distinction of lib
eral political theory is best seen, she argues, as ideological in the critical, epistem ological sense w hich is also derived from Marxism: it obscures and mystifies real un derlying social an d econom ic relations. However, Patem an is now using the term to describe the mystificatory ideas of patriarchy rath er
than those o f capitalism in o rd er to cap tu re the specificity o f w o m e n ’s sub
ordinate position as citizens. Firstly, she argues, having d e fin e d th e h o m e as private, a n d therefore non-political, liberalism th e n forgets a b o u t it an d treats the public sphere as if it existed entirely in d epen den tly; it forgets the interd ep en d en ce of the two in a way th at obscures, for exam ple, the eco
nom ic d e p e n d en ce o f w om en on m ale breadw inners. A nd secondly, th e way in which political ideology forgets a b o u t the hom e allows it to consider that all citizens are in fact the free an d equal au to n om ous individuals o f the public sphere; it allows it to forg et w o m e n ’s s u b o rd in a tio n in th e h o m e
(Patem an 1989, p. 120-3).
T here are a num ber o f problem s with this view o f ideology. Probably the most im portant in terms o f fem inist strategy is that it pre-supposes that theorists have access to the “tru th ” which o th er social actors do n o t possess;
this seems to be an incipiently authoritarian stance given the inherently co n tentious nature of most social issues. Furtherm ore, it would seem that if political theorists can take issue with ideologies, there is n o reason to assum e th a t o th
ers accept them uncritically and that they are effective as mystifications o f re
ality. At the root o f these political problem s are difficult questions co ncernin g the validity o f drawing a sharp distinction betw een ideology and scientific knowledge. The Marxist tradition has long b een grappling with such p ro b lems and it is impossible to do the debatesjustice here. However, th ere seems to be widespread agreem ent that they are irresolvable within the term s o f the Marxist paradigm itself and, as Michele B arrett argues, such unresolved pro b lems com bined with oth er developm ents in social theory have con trib u ted to a paradigm shift to a post-Marxist m odel which sees ideas a n d practices as m ore closely tied together in a theory o f discourse (B arrett 1991, p. 46-7).
We will explore this theory in m ore detail below. In relation to P a tem a n ’s view of ideology, however, it is w orth p o in tin g o u t th a t th e “fo rg ettin g ” o f women has never been com plete, it has only ever b een partial a n d tem po rary. While she is certainly correct to argue th at political theorists have “for
gotten” women in the private sphere, the same is n o t true o f social an d politi
cal movements that have attem pted to institute, m aintain o r subvert the op position between public and private.
The third view o f the relation betw een political ideology an d social an d political practices holds that it is psychological. Political ideas are pro d u ced by m en, and, because m en are socially positioned differently from wom en, they are also psychologically different; political ideology is always generated, then, from a male perspective (DiStefano 1991; B enhabib 1987; Frazer et al.
1992). This claim is n o t often m ade explicitly by fem inist critics o f liberalism;
it is m ore frequently implied. Broadly speaking it is based on the psychoana
A “Politics o f Ideas ” and Women ’s Citizenship
lytic theory o f Nancy Chodorow which links psychology to capitalism: because m en are b ro u g h t u p by attentive m others and absent fathers, in o rd er to becom e m asculine they learn to distance themselves from personal relation
ships an d so p erform well in the impersonal, competitive public sphere of capitalism; wom en, on the o th er hand, retain their close connection with their m others, which makes them ideally suited to caring for the family in the pri
vate dom estic sphere (Chodorow 1978). As a result o f this cultivation of dis
tance in their upbringing, m en are oriented towards thinking morally in terms o f hierarchical universal principles which treat all individuals and situations alike (Gilligan 1982). As we have seen, this is the logic o f the universal prin
ciples of liberal justice which fail to take gender differences into account where they are actually relevant to achieving equality between the sexes (Frazer et al. 1992; B enhabib 1987; Phillips 1992). O n this theory, m en are also given to rigid, dualistic thinking an d especially to the denigration of whatever is as
sociated with the fem inine because of their need to m aintain strict bounda
ries betw een th e auto no m ou s m asculine self an d the dangerous fem inine (m) other. This aspect o f m ale psychology can be seen as responsible for the liberal dichotom y betw een public an d private (DiStefano 1991; Benhabib 1987; Patem an 1986).
T h e m ain problem with this theory is that liberalism has n o t been as rigidly universalistic a n d dualistic as this view proposes. Firstly, liberalism has never totally excluded the fem inine from the public sphere of liberal rights. W om en actually occupy a rath e r ambivalent place in liberal politi
cal ideology an d practice: wom en are frequently included in the universal principles o f liberal justice, som etim es in a way which goes quite far towards challenging th eir su b o rdinate position in society precisely because it does give th em rights as public citizens, while sim ultaneously they are situated, by the very sam e theorists, as inferior creatures, subordinate to m en and w ithout rights in the private dom estic sphere. Liberal theorists have had a m u ch m o re fluid a n d am bivalent conception o f wom en than would seem possible on th e psychological theory o f political ideology. A nd secondly, liberalism itself has been m uch less m onolithic, and m uch m ore varied than this ap p ro a c h suggests (Nash forthcom ing). It is im p o rtan t to look at how w om en have b een p o sitio ned in historically specific versions of liberalism and, from the p o in t o f view o f the question o f fem inist strategies in relation to w o m en ’s citizenship, at how liberalism has actually been m odified by the fem inist use o f its ideas. It is m ore useful to look at liberalism as a tool with which to chang e social a n d political institutions, rath er than supposing that there is a pre-given m asculine (or fem inine) psychology which will m anifest itself in every social p ro d u ct, including political ideology.
Laclau’s and Mouffe’s politics of ideas
The theories of the relation betw een liberal ideology an d social a n d political institutions we have exam ined so far may be said to be foun datio n al insofar as they are all realist theories o f d e te rm in a n t structures, o f society or o f the m in d (even if that m ind is seen, at least to som e extent, as histori
cally specific). Such theories are over-determ inistic, giving rise to accounts o f particular social forms as necessary in relatio n to un derlying structures.
W hat they neglect is social agency, the u n d e rsta n d in g o f w hich gives rise to accounts of the social which emphasise the contextually specific an d co n tin u ally revisable qualities of social structures. It is this em phasis on agency which makes Laclau’s an d M ouffe’s theory o f hegem ony a b e tte r a c co u n t o f the relation between political ideology a n d social an d political institutions th an those theories we have so far considered.
Laclau’s and M ouffe’s theory enables us to situate liberalism as a politi
cal ideology which, although retaining a core o f key term s w ithout w hich it would no longer be situated in the liberal tradition, has b een used in differ
en t ways by different social an d political m ovem ents in attem pts to institute, maintain and disrupt social and political relations. H egem onic articulations are always contingent: they are not the necessary outcom e of a class o r gen
der structure which is hidden to social participants bu t which the theorist can uncover, n o r are they the product o f a pre-given psychological will. T h e suc
cess of a hegem onic project lies in the linking together of ideological elem ents which were previously linked in other ways, o r were floating free, spread across a variety o f different contexts w ithout b ein g rela te d o n e to the other. A hegemonic project attempts to articulate these floating elem ents in ways which will gain support from those who were previously hostile to the project. Fur
therm ore, hegem ony is constitutive: it institutes social identities an d relations in a way that does n ot d ep en d on any a priori social rationality, n o r o n any objectively given social structure. O n Laclau’s an d M ouffe’s theory, ideas and social and political institutions are inseparable because all social practices are meaningful. According to their version o f discourse theory, m aterial objects and actions have no social being unless they have a significance for us which is necessarily linguistic, in the widest sense; for discourse theory, m aterial social practices are inextricably b oun d up with ideas as they are articulated in rela
tions of signification. This is n o t to say th at all ideas have social significance, though none can be ruled ou t as insignificant a priori-, b u t for a hegem onic project to be successful, the articulations it makes m ust be em bodied in insti
tutions which weld together a historical bloc, a hegem onic form ation (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, p. 134-6).
A “Politics of Ideas ” and Women ’s Citizenship
O n this m odel, th en , it can only be as a result o f social action that a hegem onic project is successful. This is n o t to say that ideas are instituted precisely as social actors in ten d, n o r that the use o f ideas has no uninten ded consequences, b u t only that, since a hegem onic project involves re-working ideas in new, a n d in p rincip le unpredictable ways, it would be impossible without the active intervention of social actors. However, although this is clearly a consequence o f their theory, Laclau an d Mouffe have n o t themselves elabo
rate d an adequate account o f social agency. As a result o f their com m itm ent to anti-hum anism they have developed a view of the subject based on Lacanian theory, a subject o f lack a n d identification (Žižek 1990). But there are seri
ous questions co n cerning w hether this subject can do the work Laclau and Mouffe req u ire o f it. Laclau is clear that if there is no a priori determ ination o f a hegem onic form ation, an d if, as he argues, the social field is increasingly p ro n e to dislocations which make evident the contingency and historicity of existing social structures, th en the question is increasingly that o f who makes the hegem onic articulations which create new forms of the social (Laclau, 1990 p. 59). But the theory o f the subject he puts forward to explain how social transform ations take place seems to be that of a subject entirely without agency.
For Laclau, the subject is throw n up by the undecidability of a hegem onic structure and, since on his theory all identity is social, it is nothing b ut a sub
je c t o f lack which can only construct an identity through identification with a partially constituted subject position in an already existing, dislocated social structure (p. 60). T he subject is not, for Laclau, a reflexive social agent; it has n o capacities for strategically planning and purposively re-working the term s o f a hegem onic form ation in o rd er to realise an aim it has set itself.
Laclau’s an d M ouffe’s m odel o f the subject, while usefully pointing out the unconscious and irrational aspects of social identity, seems inadequate to theo
rising the m ore instrum ental an d reasoning aspects of social action: we m ight say that it over-emphasises reaction at the expense of action. This is n ot to say that the alternative is to take agency as politically and epistemologically pre
given. As Ju d ith Butler points out, to think of agency in this way would be to foreclose investigation into its construction and regulation. The point is rather th at “subject” a n d “agency” may n o t always be identical such that the condi
tions o f possibility o f reflexivity and purposiveness n eed to be theorised as well as those o f lack and identification (Butler 1992).
T his p a p e r is n o t co n c ern e d with a general theory of the conditions of possibility o f agency. T h e p o in t h ere is that, even if Laclau and Mouffe do n o t theorise agency adequately, their theory o f hegem ony is nevertheless p referab le to th e o th e r theo ries o f the relation betw een ideology and insti
tutions we have looked at because it requires us to consider the action of
social agents in bringing about particular, m eaningful social a n d political practices. In terms of the question with which we are concerned here, it there
fore sensitises us to the action o f feminists who can affect, and have affected, the institutions of w om en’s citizenship. O nce we look at fem inism and wom
e n ’s citizenship from the perspective o f the theory o f hegem ony we can see how the somewhat peculiar position w om en occupy as citizens in liberal po
litical ideology and practices is to some ex ten t a result o f the efforts o f femi
nists, as well as of those working from a conventional liberal perspective. From the very beginning of liberalism in the seventeenth century, feminists saw the potential in liberalism for w om en’s equality, while at the same tim e w arning against the way in which it subordinated w om en to m en in the non-political domestic sphere. And nineteenth century an d early tw entieth century femi
nism used the existing terms of liberal political ideology in a counter-hegemonic project that influenced the developm ent o f w om en’s citizenship as we know it today. First-wave feminism extended w om en’s civil and political rights to be equal to m en in terms of rights to own property, the right to vote a n d so on, b ut in terms of social rights, for which they cam paigned vigorously before and after political rights for women were won, they pushed for a recognition o f women as different, as primarily co n cerned with caring in the hom e. T he terms in which women were situated as citizens who were prim arily wives and m others in the British post-war welfare state, for exam ple, were to som e ex
tent the result of the influence of “new feminists” like E leanor Rathbone. This is n ot to say that such feminists were entirely successful in their campaigns, b ut contesting and re-articulating the term s o f hegem onic liberalism, along with the new liberalism of the times, m ean t that they were to some ex ten t able to shape wom en’s citizenship according to their m aternalist ideals (Nash forth
coming; Koren and Michel 1993; Bacchi 1990, ch. 3 ).1
1 Ja n e Lewis takes issue with this u n d e rsta n d in g o f fem inist agency, a rg u in g th a t in Britain w hile women were involved in voluntary action a n d local politics, th e re is no evidence th a t they influenced the welfare state a t th e n atio n al level (Lewis 1994).
However, she fails to recognise R a th b o n e ’s successful a tte m p t to p ersu a d e Beveridge to award family allowances to women (th o u g h it is tru e th a t it was no t, as fem inists h o p ed , in tro d u c ed to rew ard w om en’s u n p a id care), a n d also th e e n d o rse m e n t o f th e new welfare state on the part o f “new fem inists” like Vera B rittan (Dale a n d Foster 1986, p. 3). N or does she consider th e m o re inform al influ en ce o f w om en w ho w ere close to the political establishment, n or o f those women actively involved in influencing policy th ro u g h political parties. It was “equal rights” fem inists o f an o ld e r liberal persuasion who were critical o f th e way in w hich th e w elfare state p o sitio n ed w om en as wives an d m others; “new fem inists” - c o n c e rn e d especially with th e co n d itio n s o f working class women and - and wom en in th e la b o u r m ovem ent seem largely to have approved o f the way in which welfare liberalism addressed w om en in th e specificity o f th e ir position as women.
A “Politics of Ideas” and Women’s Citizenship A feminist “politics o f ideas”?
L aclau’s a n d M ouffe’s theory is a theory o f a politics of ideas in that it is c o n c ern e d with the use o f ideological elem ents in hegem onic projects w hich aim to institute new social and political institutions. It is clearly dif
fe re n t from th e “politics o f ideas” p u t forw ard by A nne Phillips. Firstly, because for Phillips politics is restricted to representative democracy in the public sphere; she explicitly argues for a definition o f politics as involving d eliberatio n s in th e public a ren a in which com m on concerns are negoti
ated across differences, seeing the second-wave feminist slogan “the personal is political” as having h e ra ld ed a retreat from politics as such (Phillips 1991 p. 115-9). In the case o f the “politics o f ideas”, for Phillips, it is party poli
cies a n d voter p referen ces which are represented. For the theory o f h e
gemony, on th e o th e r h an d, politics involves the contestation of m eanings across the social field an d th e dém ocratisation of everyday life which are m ore com m only associated with the feminist m ovem ent since the late 1960s.
Secondly, L aclau’s an d M ouffe’s view of agency is quite different from that o f Phillips. As we have seen, Laclau’s and M ouffe’s theory of the politics of ideas im plies th a t agency is req u ired in o rd e r to hegem onise social and political m eanings, a lth o u g h they do n o t specify how agents are form ed.
Phillips, on the o th e r h a n d , is explicitly co ncerned with agency, counter- posing the “politics o f ideas” in h er sense with the “politics of presence” on the grounds that the physical presence of women in the political process could provide the cond ition s in which wom en will be genuinely em pow ered as political agents.
Phillips is explicitly co n cern ed to outline a theory of gender-differenti- ated political rights o n the grounds th at they may provide the solution to w o m en ’s secondary status as citizens. It has com e to be accepted by many feminists that in o rd er for wom en to achieve equality with men, women should have specific citizenship rights aswom en (Patem an 1992; Young 1990). It is probably n o t very controversial now to argue for a minimally different set o f social rights for w om en w here it is a m atter of biological differences be
tween the sexes, with reg ard to pregnancy and breast-feeding, for example.
A nd th e a rg u m e n t for a gender-differentiated citizenship has also been ex
ten d e d , som ew hat m ore controversially, to civil rights in the case o f wom
e n ’s right to self-defence on the grounds of provocation where they have been su bjected to severe, long-term violence by th eir male partners. Phillips, alongside o th e r fem inists, including Iris M arion Young, is arguing that gen- d er-d ifferen tiated political rights are necessary because political rights for w om en as w om en w ould ensure that reasonable num bers of women were
engaged in th e political process an d this w ould be likely to result in m ore egalitarian civil an d social rights for wom en because it w ould th e n be m ore difficult for policy-makers to m arginalise issues which are o f significance to women (Phillips 1995; Young 1990). This raises extrem ely com plex issues concerning representation which will n o t be addressed h e re (Phillips 1991;
Phillips 1995). But it also raises interestin g questions c o n c ern in g th e role of ideas in the political process and th e agency o f w om en as a social group.
Phillips’ tentative hope - that if w om en participate in policy-m aking it will make a difference to the outcom e - is based on the view th a t w om en, though n o t all women, may share a perspective which is distinctive from that of m en on particular issues. In a g reem en t with fem inist a rg um ents against essentialism, Phillips is reluctant to give too m uch w eight to the com m onality of w om en’s experience or shared interests. But she does argue th a t w om en are m ore concerned about certain issues than m en are, o r can be - on m atters o f female reproduction, for exam ple - w hatever th eir actual stance on those issues may be. And she also holds th a t m e n ’s a n d w o m en ’s interests can be in conflict - rights to em ployment for wom en u n derm ine m e n ’s pre-em inence in the labour-m arket, for exam ple - even tho u gh this is n o t a conflict be
tween the interests of all wom en an d those o f all m en (p. 67- 9). Phillips’
strongest arg u m en t for the necessity o f a “politics o f p rese n c e ” is n o t th at women will be more strenuous advocates on w om en’s issues than m en, though she does m ake this point, b ut rath er th at w hen policy is being m ade in new areas when w om en’s concerns have n o t yet b een form ulated, a n d so are n o t even on the agend a for discussion, it is only if th ere are w om en actually present in the policy-making process th a t those concerns stand any chance o f being voiced at all (p. 43-5). It is for this reason, she argues, th a t the
“politics o f ideas”, the conventional view o f rep resentativ e dem ocracy in which what is of concern is what constituents think an d believe, is inadequate.
If w om en’s concerns have n o t yet b een form ulated, they can n o t be re p re sented in this way. A lthough she is clear th a t th e re is no g u a ra n tee th a t w om en’s presence in policy-making will result in m o re egalitarian policies, and although she is against assum ing th at w om en sh are a g ro u p identity, Phillips’ conclusions are based, then, on the possibility that m ost w om en do have a distinct perspective and that m ost m en d o n o t see certain things in the same way (p. 158).
As we have seen, Phillips convincingly co u n terp o ses h e r “politics o f presence” to the conventional “politics o f ideas”. However, from th e p o in t o f view o f the “politics o f ideas” o f the theory of hegem ony, Phillips’ acco un t needs to be su pplem ented with an u n d e rsta n d in g o f how perspectives are
A “Politics of Ideas ” and Women ’s Citizenship
socially co n stru cted ; in particular, o f how “a w om an’s perspective” could b ecom e m eaningful to w om en as women in the policy-making process.
Phillips m akes th e interesting p o in t th at in the case o f class interests, rep re sen ta tio n has n o t seem ed to require a “politics o f presence” because class in terests have b e e n seen as “objective”, as definable and definitive b eyond th e ex p erien ce o f a particular group an d therefore as rep resen t
able by advocates who do n o t themselves directly share those interests (p.
174-5). In th e case o f w om en, however, according to Phillips, interests are n o t seen as so clear cu t a n d this is why she prefers the term “perspective”; in th e case o f w om en it is m ore a m atter o f issues yet to be defined on the basis o f experiences an d perceptio ns o f oppression (p. 176). O ne o f the interest
in g things a b o u t the way Phillips makes this distinction is that she actually sees the distinction itself as a m atter of a difference in perspectives: class in
terests have b een seen as objective where w om en’s interests are not. This is in terestin g because, in bracketing the “tru th ” or otherwise of this p ercep
tion, Phillips com es very close to ado p ting the discourse theory view that everything is a m atte r o f perspective.
T h e idea o f perspective is linked, for discourse theorists, to the im por
tance o f language, because it is in language that experience is organised and given m eaning, th at anything can be perceived o r “know n”. For discourse theorists, th en, while individual women participating in the policy-making process m ight have certain inchoate experiences and perceptions which have n o c u rre n t political validity, to articulate these as “a w om an’s perspective”
m ust involve constructing it as such in language. How w om en’s interests are u n d e rsto o d , w h eth er or n o t all women are taken to have a distinct set of interests, w h eth er som e w om en are held to have a very different set of inter
ests from a n o th e r g roup o f w om en and so on, depends largely on the per
suasiveness o f the argum ents m ade for one view or another. Phillips acknowl
edges as m uch w hen she notes that the position Norwegian women MPs take on issues o f child-care is d e term in ed by party rath er th an gender: the right favours policies to raise the value of work women do in the hom e, while the left advocates e n h a n cin g public child-care provision to increase w om en’s participatio n in the labour m arket (Phillips 1995 p. 76). While women may com e to see them selves as having certain interests in com m on, how those interests are in te rp re te d will d ep en d on how they are constructed in rela
tion to already existing discursive possibilities.
Furtherm ore, the view th at experience is always constructed in language is also linked to the D errid ean idea th at because o f the way in which lan
guage works, th ere is n o possibility o f any kind o f “presence”. D errid a’s theory o f language has b een worked th rough in relation to fem inist theory
an d the issue o f w om en’s presen ce by J u d ith Butler. B u tle r’s th eo ry o f perform ativity as the re-iteration of th e identity o f w om en which b o th reg u lates and constrains its production, a n d at the sam e tim e destabilizes it, is in part derived from D errida’s deconstruction o f A usten ’s Hoiu To Do Things With Words. In Ltd Inc, he shows how perform atives d e p e n d on “iterability”:
the perform ative capacity o f the “serious speech act”, “I nam e this sh ip...”, for exam ple, depends n o tju s t on the co n tex t an d in te n tio n o f th e speaker, b u t also on the repetition (which is at the same tim e, necessarily, the altera
tion), of the words used in disparate “non-serious speech acts”. W hat this m eans is th at words are never fully present, they can n o t be c a p tu red in the intentions o f the speaker, a n d their m ean ing can never be m ade singular and self-evident (Butler 1993; D errida 1988). If we take D e rrid a ’s theory seriously, the construction o f wom en as the possessors o f a set o f interests which could then be rep resen ted in the political process is im possible in that such a construction would always d e p e n d o n o th e r constructions, re peated in o th er contexts, for oth er purposes, which could not, by definition, be identical. T h ere w ould always, necessarily, be a plurality o f w o m e n ’s identities a n d sets o f interests precisely because w om en can never be fully present in one place.
If “w om en” never “is”, in that it is never a fully constituted, single id en tity, this again indicates th at the outcom e o f Phillips’ “politics o f p rese n c e ” is d e p e n d e n t on the “politics o f ideas” elab o rated by Laclau a n d Mouffe.
A lthough the re-iterated identity o f w om en can never be finally fixed, fem i
nist politics involves the contestation a n d re-definition o f w hat it m eans to be a woman and what it m ight m ean in the future. W hile this req uires the disruption of hegem onic definitions, the aspect of fem inist politics advocated by Ju d ith Butler, it may on occasion also req u ire the a tte m p t to establish a new hegem ony which makes it possible for w om en to participate in social and political life on a m ore equal basis with m en. A m ore egalitarian social fo rm atio n may req u ire the a tte m p t to c o n stitu te a fem in ist id en tity fo r women, by fixing a particular version o f w hat it is to be a w om an in legisla
tion concerning the right to self-defence against dom estic violence, for ex
ample, in th e institutionalisation o f citizenship rights, an d p erh ap s in the case of affirmative action in the econom y a n d state (Nash 1994). To this end, Phillips’ “politics of presence” may be o n e aspect o f fem inist hegem onic projects which contest the social an d cultural m eanings o f w o m e n ’s lives in the face o f traditional and au thoritarian conceptions o f family life a n d wom
e n ’s role, a n d which prom ote m ore inclusive definitions o f w om en in o rd e r to establish m ore egalitarian citizenship rights. Insofar as it con trib u tes to such a project, however, it will n o t be the p resence o f w om en in the politi
A “Politics o f Ideas” and Women’s Citizenship
cal process w hich is effective, b u t rath er the contestation and transform a
tion o f w o m en ’s position th a t is achieved in arguing for w om en’s equality, b o th within the form al political process and outside it.
Conclusion
In this p a p e r I have arg u ed th at feminism should be seen as a “politics o f ideas”. Ideas sho uld n o t be seen simply as the epip h en o m en a of socio
econom ic o r psychic structures; they have an efficacy in their own right in
sofar as they are constitutive o f social and political practices. In o rd er to achieve this efficacy they req u ire the elaboration and com m itm ent of social actors who institute them in social practices. O nce we see ideas in this light, it is evident that the form al political process is n o t the only forum from which political change may be realized; indeed the efficacy of ideas in “official”
politics may very well d e p e n d on the politics o f ideas co nducted in civil so
ciety, th e b u reau cratic institutions of the state, an d even the confines of the
“private” dom estic sp h ere, at least as m uch as in the arenas of representa
tive democracy. It follows th en that political agency can n o t be considered in term s o f th e ex p erience o f a particular group of physically present, em b o d ied p ersons in these arenas, as Phillips’ argum ent concerning women as the agents o f fem inist political transform ation suggests. It is rather that since social change dep en ds on the contestation and transform ation of ideas em b ed d ed in social practices carried out by less formally empowered agents, we n e e d to consider how such agency is constructed in o th er social sites and the conditions which m ake it effective in some cases b u t n o t others. It is n o t th at increasing the p resence o f women in the form al political process will have no effect; its effect or otherwise is an empirical matter, not one on which an a priori] u d g e m e n t can be m ade. O n the argum ent presented here, how
ever, insofar as it is successful, the “politics o f presence” will n o t be effective because it enables the represen tatio n of w om en’s unform ulated experience in th e form al political process. It will only be successful if increasing the n u m b ers o f w om en in the political institutions of representative democracy is in te rp re te d as indicating the will and the opportunity to realize a m ore egalitarian form o f citizenship, and such in terpretations are a m atter of a
“politics o f ideas”.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Ann-Marie Fortier, David H ow arth, Jelica Šumič- Riha and Simon T hom pson for helpful com m ents o n this paper.
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