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Disparate Fates in Challenging Times: Women's Policy Agencies and Neoliberalism in Aotearoa/New Zealand and British Columbia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2005

Katherine Teghtsoonian
Katherine Teghtsoonian
Affiliation:
University of Victoria
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Abstract

Abstract. This article develops an explanation for the different approaches to existing women's policy agencies adopted by governments of the right elected to office in Aotearoa/New Zealand (in 1990) and in the province of British Columbia (in 2001). In Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Ministry of Women's Affairs remained structurally intact, while in British Columbia the Ministry of Women's Equality was eliminated and replaced with a women's policy agency that constitutes a small subunit within a much larger ministry. My analysis of these developments focuses on the impact of two institutional features of the women's ministries: (1) the nature of the activities in which they were involved and the different allocations of their budgetary resources that these activities entailed; and (2) the relationship between each ministry and community-based women's groups. I also explore the interaction between these institutional variables and the particular way in which a discourse of “special interests” has been expressed within the party of the right in each case.

Résumé. Cet article développe une explication des différences d'attitude envers les agences chargées des politiques concernant les femmes entre les gouvernements de droite qui ont été élus à Aotearoa/Nouvelle-Zélande (en 1990), et en Colombie-Britannique (en 2001). À Aotearoa/Nouvelle-Zélande, la structure du ministère des Affaires des femmes est restée intacte, tandis qu'en Colombie-Britannique le ministère de l'Égalité des femmes a été éliminé et remplacé par une agence chargée des politiques concernant les femmes, qui n'est qu'une petite sous-unité d'un ministère beaucoup plus étendu. Mon analyse de ces développements porte sur l'impact de deux aspects institutionnels des ministères de la condition féminine: (1) le caractère de leurs activités et les différences correspondantes d'allocation de leurs ressources budgétaires; (2) le rapport entre chaque ministère et les groupes féministes des collectivités locales. En plus, j'explore l'interaction entre ces variables institutionnelles et la formation de l'argument d'“ intérêts particuliers ” avancé par le parti de droite dans chaque cas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 2005 , pp. 307 - 333
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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