Week 8 reading notes: N. Fraser “Struggle over needs: outline of a socialist-feminist critical theory of
late capitalist political culture”
Focus of article: discuss discourse about needs
Introduction
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Needs claims are contextual and contested; not as simple as they seem
“thin” needs interpretation v. “thick” needs interpretation
o Ex: thin needs interpretation = “homeless people need shelter in order to live
o Ex: thick needs interpretation = “what kind of shelter do homeless people need in order
to live? How do we implement programs to get the right kind of shelter?”
Assumptions f need interpretation in politics:
o Needs are simply given and unproblematic
o It doesn’t matter who interprets the needs; assumption doesn’t take into account who
gets to establish an authoritative “thick” needs definition
o Assumes that forms of public discourse used to interpret needs are adequate and fair;
are these forms of public discourse biased in favor of dominant social groups?
o Assumptions ignore key questions: Where/in what institutions are needs being
interpreted? What are the social relations between those interpreting the needs?
3 moments: Fraser’s solutions to blind spots in need interpretation
o Struggle to establish or deny political status of given need, struggle to give it legitimacy
o Struggle over interpretation of need, struggle to get power to define the need,
determine what actions would satisfy it
o Struggle over satisfaction of need, struggle to secure or withhold provisions
Section 1
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Welfare state societies have competing ways of interpreting people’s needs: Fraser calls this
“Sociocultural means of interpretation and communication” (MIC)
While welfare states are heterogeneous/pluralist in their interpretation of needs, late capitalist
societies are not only pluralist, but stratified; different social groups exist with unequal status, so
MIC is similarly stratified
o Different groups compete for resources to have their needs met, even if it is the same
need
 Ex: Scientific community’s interpretation of the needs of people living with
HIV/AIDS vs. LGBT community’s interpretation of the needs of people living with
HIV/AIDs; LGBT community’s interpretation often overlooked, does not have
status equal to scientific community
Section 2
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Sense of what is a political issue and what is not a political issue varies from culture to culture,
and time period to time period
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Ex: reproductive rights have been politicized, categorized as a private/personal issue,
and then politicized again within the last century
In late capitalist societies, one of the primary stakes of social conflict is where the limits of the
“political” will be drawn
De-politicizing social discourses in male-dominated capitalist societies:
o Domestic institutions (male-headed households): depoliticize certain issues by framing
them as “personal “or “family” matters
o Official economic capitalist institutions: depoliticize certain issues by framing them as
“economic” matters
o By depoliticizing matters, these two institutions shield these matters from public
contestation; both institutions support domination/subordination
 Ex: framing wife battering as a “personal” rather than a “political” issue
reinforces gender subordination
 Result: members of subordinated groups internalize need interpretations that
work to their disadvantage
o In late capitalist society, needs that get addressed in a politicized way are “runaway
needs”: needs that managed to ‘break out’ of the spheres of domestic and official
economic institutions
 Where do runaway needs go? Hybrid discursive space, called ‘the social arena’
 Needs in the ‘social’ arena are markers of social-structural shifts in boundaries
separating the ‘political’, ‘economic’, ‘domestic/personal’ spheres
Section 3
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3 kinds of needs discourses in late capitalist societies:
o Oppositional forms of needs talk; needs are politicized ‘from below’
o Reprivatization discourses; response to oppositional discourse, articulate/reinforce the
already entrenched/already existing need interpretations
o Expert need discourses; link popular movements to the state through social problem
solving, institution building, professional class formation
Section 4
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Politics of need example: wife battering
o “wife battering” was not a term that existed until the 1970s; was previously referred to
as ‘wife beating’
o Feminist activists worked to politicize wife battering, so it would not be seen as a purely
‘personal’ issue; coined new terms, descriptions, analyses, and devised new ways of
addressing female subjects
o While this was a victory from the feminist perspective, there were consequences;
battered women sheltered were transformed as a result of increased public funds
 Ex: shelters became staffed by social workers without personal experience with
battery, practices of shelters individualized, less politicized
Conclusion
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Fraser; we can distinguish better from worse interpretations of people’s needs; must look at
procedural and consequentialist considerations
o Procedural considerations: must consider procedures concerning the social processes by
which competing need interpretations are generated
 Procedural consideration dictates that the best need interpretations are those
reaches by means of communicative processes that approximate ideals of
democracy, equality, and fairness
o Consequential considerations: must compare alternative distributive outcomes of rival
interpretations
o Determining which needs interpretations are best requires balancing democracy and
equality
Relationship between needs and rights:
o Fraser advocates translating justified needs claims into social rights