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SLIDE ONE
THE ‘NEW’ MATERIALISM IN IR
What it Does(not) and Can(not) tells us about the Gendered Dimensions of ‘Austerity’
Daniela Tepe-Belfrage
Department of Politics
University of Sheffield
E-mail: d.tepe-belfrage@sheffield.ac.uk
Jill Steans
POLSIS
University of Birmingham
E-mail: j.a.steans@bham.ac.uk
SLIDE TWO
INTRODUCTION
The aim of re-introducing materialist thinking to IR following a dominance of
constructivist/postmodern thinking in ‘critical IR’ certainly has to do with an interest
in addressing the needs of those left behind by developments in the 21st century.
In this paper we engage with the ‘new materialism’ debate in IR/IPE from the
perspective of the feminist interest in gender and specifically the position of women
and in the wake of the financial crisis. We survey the litany of social/welfare and
economic policies that attend the new ‘austerity’ and point to their (likely) impacts on
gender equality/inequality, women’s autonomy and poverty. Our particular ‘case
study’ is the UK.
First, we set out our understanding of the new materialism, consider some of the
criticism of new materialism and pose the questions: What is new about the new
materialism debate? Is it fit to analyse a 21st century capitalism? What is its politics?
Second, we attempt to relate this debate to a debate in feminist theory that covers
similar terrain; feminist materialism versus feminist constructivism/poststructuralism.
(e.g. Delphy’s critique of Butler).
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Third, we flesh out Delphy’s materialist feminism and specifically her concerns with
women’s (productive and reproductive) labour and violence against women.
Fourth, we revisit the new materialism in IR in the light of this and also revisit our
initial questions. We ask whether the ‘new’ materialism does in fact reproduce some
of the ‘old’ problems in Marxism with respect to the marginalization or neglect of
gender which were first raised in the 1970s.
SLIDE THREE
THE NEW MATERIALISM IN IR/IPE
Why a new materialism in IR?
As we read Cammack’s and other’s interventions their aim seems to be to develop an
analytical and critical framework to critique current developments on a global scale
and in particular to highlight consequences for the ‘poor’. We fully agree with this
intervention. Therefore our starting point is to look closely at what the new
materialism has to offer.
What is it?
The concept of a ‘New Materialism’ has been introduced by Paul Cammack in an
analysis of World Bank and IMF policies in 2003 (Cammack 2003) building on
articles published in 2001 and 2002, and has been expanded upon by him in a paper
discussing the Politics of Global Competitiveness in 2006. The term has been further
picked up in a developing debate in Historial Materialism involving interventions by
Marcus Taylor (2005) and Greig Carnock (2008) referring to Cammack’s research
agenda as contrasting the ‘old materialism’ of Open Marxism.
Cammack’s New Materialism aims at re-introducing a historical materialist
framework to analyse ‘the governance of global capitalism’ (Cammack 2003: 37). He
does this against the background of the argument that capitalism has advanced to the
degree ‘where the idea of the ‘completion of the world market’ provides an
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appropriate focus of analysis’ (ebd. 39) therefore requiring this intervention.
Cammack understands capitalist accumulation, in line with Marx, to require a
multiplication of the proletariat and the constant reproduction of a ‘reserve-army of
labour’ (Marx 1976) alongside. As such, while he argues that primitive accumulation
is ongoing, capitalist accumulation is expanded via global neoliberalism to a global
market.
The main concept through which he analyses the governance of global capitalism is
that of ‘relative autonomy’, which he applies to world politics. He claims that
International Institutions, particularly the World Bank and the IMF have secured a
position of relative autonomy from particular capitalist and state interests’ – similarly
at how Poulantzas understood the ‘relative autonomy’ of the state from particular
class interests (Poulantzas 1975). Cammack argues, that the form analysis of the state
(Hirsch 2005), i.e. the necessity of the state in capitalism to take a form that is
relatively independent from the economy in order to guarantee competition, can be
transferred to the international level.
‘The assumption behind this is straightforward – that were capitalist enterprises
compete globally, and where the terrain of the ‘global capitalist economy’ is shared
between a multitude of competing politically independent territorial states, the
contradictions generated by the development of capitalism will demand management
across the world market as a whole by authoritative institutions with autonomy both
from particular capitalist enterprises and from particular capitalist states’ (Cammack
2003: 43)
Through this lens Cammack goes on to analyse political practices of the IMF and
particularly the World Bank over recent year. In line with his understanding of
capitalist accumulation he argues that the logic of World Bank politics is a completion
of a neoliberal project which, as indicated above, has as its heart the reproduction of a
world market, entangling all peoples in its net and ‘with this, the growth of the
international character of the capitalist regime’ (Marx 1976: 929). As such an efficient
global labour market is to be created via absolute poverty reduction ‘in which the
existing proletariat will ‘float’ easily in and out of work, and the ‘latent’ proletariat,
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whether small peasant producers or young women as yet insufficiently accessible to
capital’s reach, will be ‘freed’ and fully proletarised’ (Cammack 2003: 45).
How has it been criticized – New vs. Old materialism
Marcus Taylor has, while appreciating Cammack’s attempt to re-introduce Marxist
analysis to global governance, criticised Cammack’s work for remaining within a
functionalist-structuralist logic of Marxist scholarship, reifying the technical logics of
capitalism accumulation and by attributing to the ‘World Bank the capacity to
exercise ‘relative autonomy’ from class and national interests that it simply does not
have’ (Charnock 2008: 118). He argues that Cammack ignores the contradictory
logics of capitalism and struggle from his representation of international organisations
(Taylor 2005: 154).
He proposes to view the World Bank rather
‘[A]s an historically developed moment of capitalist social relations’ thereby making
it ‘possible to understand how the World Bank embodies the inherent contradiction of
the latter. As such, the World Bank does not the resolve the contradictions of global
capitalism but reproduces them in new and developed forms….Contrary to
understanding the Bank in a closed manner of structural functionalism, opening the
World Bank in this way aids our understanding of the possibilities and limits to
struggles that target international financial institutions’ (ebd. 154)
As indicated above, Taylor is particularly concerned with the notion of relative
autonomy in Cammack’s work and the way, in which the relatively autonomous
character of international institutions is presumed as a function of capitalism, thereby
treating these institutions as predetermined.
Taylor suggests to return to an ‘old materialism’ thereby referring to open Marxism
wedded to a negative critique of the political economy, which ‘allows us to
comprehend how the social and material reproduction of global capitalist society is
mediated through abstract yet dominating social force (the movement of value) that
imposes itself in seemingly objective fashion upon all social actors’ (ebd.: 161). It
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allows accounting for the openness of institutional and political struggles within a
profoundly contradictory process of capitalist societalisation.
Crucially, this turn towards Open Marxism is not solely an analytical move, but a
political one as well, as pointed out by Charnock 2008: 121 in that ‘the implications
of this logic are not simply analytical, but also political since they tend towards
advocating reformism through the recapturing of political institutions, rather than the
emancipation of the revolutionary subject’
Beyond, identifying the political project of Open Marxism, Greig Charnock’s
intervention into the debate in 2008 supports the development of a new materialist
research agenda as suggested by Cammack, yet takes Taylor’s critique of a structuralfunctionalist logic within Cammack’s work seriously. He proposes ‘a critical theory
which views globalisation as a major capitalist offensive; which acknowledges the
mediating influence of neoliberal discourses, doctrines and orthodoxies in the course
of capital’s unfolding crisis; and which takes as its main focus of critique the
activities of key international regulative agencies’ (Charnock 2008: 138).
Thus acknowledging Taylor’s critique of the new materialism suggested by
Cammack, Charnock starting point is similarly a critique of Open Marxism as it is
underlying Taylor’s intervention. He points out how this strand of Marxism by
remaining on a very high level of abstraction fails to move towards analysing actually
existing forms of neoliberal ideology and class struggles therefore restricting its
proponents ability to undertake critical research, ‘which can account for the quotidian
‘messiness’ of myriad social processes as they unfold simultaneously and concretely’
(ebd. 122). Furthermore, Charnock refers to the critique of Open Marxism to reduce
social antagonisms to unmediated effects of class struggle (see also Bieler and Morton
2003) and the lack of ability of this approach to account for the role of particular
discourses in reproducing class struggles and legitimising capitalism (Charnock 2008:
123).
Ultimately, his synthesis of Open Marxism and the new Materialism of Cammock
aims at uncovering the way in which bourgeois thought mystifies the class character
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of neoliberal globalisation – Charnock highlights in particular to role of neoliberal
ideology in this endeavour or in his own words,
‘The task of the NMRP (New Materialist Research Project, authors) is, therefore,
firstly to engage in immanent critique, to expose the true character of key discourses
and initiatives like de CDF (Comprehensive Development Framework, authors) as
class practice; and then to trace concretely how the moment of unity in the unity-inseparation of ‘capital’ and ‘state’ reasserts itself through the failure of such class
practice to subordinate class struggle expressed through forms of crisis’ (Charnock
2008: 131).
What is new about the new materialism debate? Is it fit to analyse a 21st century
capitalism? What is it politics?
As even recognised by Charnock (2008: 118), Taylor’s intervention echoes debates
‘which developed within the Conference of Socialist Economists from the 1970s
onwards, and which involved criticisms of, inter alia, Louis Althusser, Nicos
Poulantzas, the ‘regulation school’, and Bob Jessop by the proponents of ‘open
Marxism’’. Yet, also Charnock’s intervention remains within the boundaries of these
‘old’ Marxist arguments, his case of an integration of Cammack’s aim with Taylor’s
critique remains firmly stuck with the parameters of Marxist analysis of the 1970ies.
It is therefore unclear what is actually new about the new materialism.
What is particularly striking in this context is how the debate around the new
materialism takes no recognition of any work analysing other contradictions than
class as constitutive of capitalism. The debate remains firmly located within a class
framework reproducing old materialist categories of class reductionism with a (not
even particularly) new dress.
As such we need to ask whether such a framework actually enables us to address a
21st century capitalism. As true critical theorists, we need to look at who it is that is
actually suffering from this form of capitalism and how their suffering can be
understood theoretically. We will try to do so on a national scale as our starting point.
We will look at some of the consequences of the financial crisis in the UK and will do
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so through a feminist materialist lens. This enables us to return to the new materialism
in IR afterwards to see whether their intervention is “fit for purpose”.
SLIDE FOUR
MATERIALISM AND THE ‘CULTURAL TURN’ IN FEMINISM
While we welcome a debate on materialism in IR, after a long period during which
constructivism and post-structuralism have become somewhat hegemonic within
‘critical IR’, we also have reservations about the form it is taking (at least as we are
understanding it here).
We will elaborate further on this in due course, but here we will just say a few words
about how we relate this discussion on materialism in IR to debates within feminist
theory. We think it is fair to say that within feminist IR (though not feminist IPE),
constructivism and poststructuralist IR has become similarly dominant. As such,
feminist IR tends to (wholly) privilege the discursive/ideational over material, and
thus down-play gender as a social relation of inequality.
We argue that constructivist/poststructuralist feminism is not particularly helpful in
elucidating the financial crisis and austerity; specifically issues of social inequality,
gender inequality and related issues of social justice attendant on the financial crisis
and the responses to it (in short the new ‘austerity’) In contrast, we find much that is
helpful in material feminism.
While we eschew approaches to gender that are crudely essentialist, at the same time
we argue that this understanding of ‘woman’ specifically as a wholly cultural
construction is problematic. This point was addressed by Christine Delphy (details of
article and date). She argued that the 'cultural turn' –a shift in feminism’s emphasis
from ‘things’ (such as women’s productive and reproductive work and male violence)
to ‘words’, issues of language, representation, and subjectivity (see also Barrett,
1992)-in feminism dismissed the very real oppression of women: ‘The cultural turn
effectively side-lined materialist analysis and emptied the concept of gender of its
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social import as a hierarchical division between women and men.’ (Jackson, 2001:
284).
To illustrate this point, it is helpful to elaborate a little on material feminism, which
examines the ‘material conditions under which social arrangements, including those
of gender hierarchy, develop’ and how material conditions play a vital role in the
social production of gender.’
Delphy argued that gender is a position in the mode of production; domestic labour
and the social reproduction and care work that takes place in the home. Therefore, we
have to analyze not just capitalism and social relations of production in capitalism,
but also patriarchal social relations.
We don’t want to get side-tracked here into a discussion of whether patriarchy is in
some way more fundamental or oppressive than capitalism. It suffices to say that
patriarchal social relations and structures cannot simply be ignored or set aside in the
analysis of social relations of inequality – as has become especially visible when
analysising the financial crisis. Social inequality is surely at the core of Marxism?
Yet, as we will elaborate below, the ‘new materialism’ appears to do precisely that.
We will further elaborate on work and violence below, but first we need to say
something about how material feminism (Delphy) engages with the question of
‘difference.’
As Jackson (2001:286) argues ‘Social structural analysis, provided it is not
crudely reductionist, can address the diverse locations occupied by women within
local and global contexts.’ (see also Walby, 1992). Jackson continues; ‘Those
“differences,” which preoccupy postmodernists, are often more than just
“differences”—the most significant of them are founded upon real, material
inequalities.
Institutionalised
racism,
the
heritage
of...colonialism,
and
imperialism, along with local and global divisions of labour, are at least as
important as culturally constituted difference…If we neglect the structural,
material dimensions of social life, we may risk valorising differences that are
products of oppression and inequality.’ (Jackson, 2001:286)
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Material feminism considers how women and men of various races and ethnicities are
kept in their lower economic status due to an imbalance of power that privileges those
who already have privilege, thereby protecting the status quo.
We do not much elaborate on race and ethnicity in this paper (but will do in a later
draft). We simply note here, once again, that material feminists argue that gender and
race and ethnicity must be considered in economic analysis. And that we need to
understand and analyzethe intersectionalities of class, gender, race and ethnicity- in
order to elucidate multiple oppressions.
So, materialist feminism (and the critique of Butler et al) needs to be revisited in the
light of financial crisis. But it is important to emphasize that Delphy also challenged
the ‘least productive forms of 1970s Marxism, in which every form of inequality that
was not demonstrably functional to capitalism was declared nonmaterial’ (Jackson,
2001: 283). This leads us to question whether the ‘new materialism’ helpful to
(material) feminist analysis?
SLIDE FIVE
GENDERING ‘AUSTERITY’
We will now elaborate our argument in regard to the financial crisis and austerity
measures. For reasons of time and space, we will not spend time here analyzing the
financial crisis (we will devote more space to this in our final paper). Instead we will
again focus on and elaborate Delphy’s concern with labour (productive and
reproductive) and violence.
Work/Labour
In feminist economics (influenced by materialist feminism), the term ‘double burden’
has been employed to describe the workload of men and women who work to earn
money, but also have responsibility for unpaid, domestic labour (social reproduction,
care and household work).
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Even in those countries which have gone furthest in developing the ‘dual’
worker/carer citizenship model.(Nordic/EU), women continue to carry most of the
burden of unpaid labour/care work.
This is crucial in understanding not only the ‘double burden’, but also the terms and
conditions under which women enter the labour market; specifically, why women
often end up in part-time jobs or are employed on ‘flexible’ (i.e insecure) terms and
why women are over-represented among the low paid.
The double burden is particularly difficult to manage for single parents, the majority
of whom (not all) are single mothers. Single mothers usually have higher rates of
employment and children at home. It is for this reason that state support for child-care
(which might take a variety of forms) is particularly important. The state is not
inherently patriarchal (and can indeed-potentially-be a vehicle for progressive gender
politics). Historically the British welfare state has been implicated in the production
and reproduction of gender inequality and patriarchy in its support for the bread
winner/home maker familial model, thus reinforcing the economic dependency of
women on a male partner.
However, the state has also played a role in promoting women’s autonomy by
providing employment opportunities for women, often on relatively favourable terms
vis-à-vis the private sector (flexible, yet relatively secure work, better rates of pay and
so on) and through the provision of services that facilitate women’s entry into the
labour market. Despite this, single-mothers are still more likely to be paid less and
face more discrimination in the jobs market than married women and men.
Unsurprisingly, female headed families are much more likely than dual parent or male
headed families to live in poverty (Women’s Budget Group).
‘Austerity’ measures-cuts in public expenditure and cuts/changes in welfare threaten
to render the position of women in the job’s market much more precarious (this is
already happening) (See: TUC False Economy; Women’s Budget Group). (see notes
for examples of this). Post financial crisis, the withdrawal of state support in terms of
child and welfare benefits, the provision of services and so on, have an impact on
many groups and on the poor particularly, but more so poor women.i
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It is also important to highlight here how pregnant women are affected by these
changes (see note). ii We cannot much elaborate this point greatly here, suffice to say
that it highlights a problem in radical constructivist approaches which refuse any
‘foundation’ to sex-gender differences, insisting that gender is multiple, diverse and
not ‘attached’ to the sexed body. We afford a large scope to the ideational/ideology in
the production and reproduction of gender inequality and acknowledge Butler’s point
that we need to understand why women, rather than men, are constructed as primary
carers, Nevertheless, pregnancy does attest to how embodied gender difference is
sometimes highly relevant to understanding specific forms of discrimination which
can enforce social relations of dependency.
Violence
Post financial crisis, are we seeing moves to reinstitute a household model based on a
single breadwinner and dependent carer (regardless of whether or not men want to
share parenting and women want to take up paid work)? There is plenty of evidence
to suggest that this is the case.
As Lister argues; ‘Economic dependence makes women more vulnerable to domestic
violence – indeed it can be a form of violence itself’ (2012). An Oxfam studyviii of
BME maternal poverty found in several cases that the his/hers financial arrangements
were so unequal as to suggest fundamental power imbalances which bordered on
‘economic violence’ meaning that ‘a woman has so little access to money that key
aspects of her life pass out of her own control and into her husband’s, fundamentally
curtailing her freedom.’ The loss of this income diminishes women’s (and children’s)
safety and freedom from violence.
While poverty does not explain domestic violence, difficult economic conditions
certainly increase the incidence of domestic violence. Moreover, there are myriad
ways in which cuts are making it more difficult for vulnerable people to escape from
violence. ix
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SLIDE SIX
REVISITING THE NEW MATERIALISM
Cammack notes:
‘[T]he dynamics of economic, social, political and cultural change in the
contemporary world are increasingly shaped by the pursuit and promotion of
capitalist competitiveness….. the vast majority of governments around the world
explicitly pursuing competitiveness…through the reorientation of social and
economic policies, but international organisations… are all busy urging governments
everywhere to reform the ‘business climate’ in order to promote investment and
domestic entrepreneurship and stimulate competition.’
We agree. In the UK-after a brief moment of Keynsian-type intervention- the
response to financial crisis has been more deregulation, more emphasis on
‘competition’ and litany of social and economic policies to further deregulate labour
markets-working practices and terms and conditions of employment. Reduced social
security and social/welfare rights are the corollary of this.
However, as our brief sketch of the ‘austerity’ in responses to financial crisis, has
shown (we hope) many of these changes have deleterious effects on gender equality
and increase poverty, which also has a gendered face: Moreover, cuts in public
expenditure and welfare expenditure, changes in taxation and welfare benefits bring
about a new configuration of gender relations and familial relationships that might
well push women into economic dependency and make them more vulnerable to
violence.
Thus, gender is deeply implicated in all poverty, social inequality, the ensuing
economic and social distress and international and national responses and all issues of
social justice attendant on the crisis.
In the light of this, we return here to the questions we posed at the outset of our
presentation: What does the new materialism - and the analytical and critical
framework to critique current developments on a global scale and the consequences
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for the ‘poor’ have to offer us? Does it address the needs of those left behind by
developments in the 21st century?
We identify several deficiencies
One obvious problem is the privileging of class over all other social relations of
inequality. Moreover, class is seemingly treated an undifferentiated category
To specify: Doesn’t address patriarchy, or racism, or inter-sectionalities of gender,
class and ethnicity. We accept our presentation hasn’t done that either, but we
recognize this is a deficiency and a problem (which we aim to rectify later)!
Cammack alludes to the ‘latent proletariat’, the ‘reserve army of labour’ and ‘young
women’ drawn into global labour force. While Marxist-feminists in the 1970s drew
upon the reserve army of labour thesis in explaining women’s position in labour
markets and low pay, it is not fully adequate in interrogating women’s position in the
labour market (Eisenstein/Bryson and so on). Further while certainly women in the
workforce might experience labour as alienating, especially when it is performed
under poor conditions and for low pay, as we point out above, it also allows for a
degree of autonomy and allows women (with children especially) to escape from the
violence inherent in economic dependency.
Moreover, historically Marxism has generally been inadequate in understanding and
interrogating issues of ‘human reproduction and sexuality’ that were deemed to be
‘outside the sphere of the social’ (Lovell: 306). Marxists often argued that forms of
difference other than economic were ‘secondary’-not fundamental. Nor has Marxism
been good an explaining problems like violence against women. Feminists back in the
1970s argued that this failure to seriously engage with gender as a social relation of
inequality and to address very many dimensions of women’s experience attested to
male bias and-perhaps-male privilege and a reluctance to address inequality in their
own personal and work relationships.
Certainly, it seems to us that these inadequacies are evident in this ‘new’ materialism,
which leads us to question whether this really a ‘new materialism’ is fit for 21st
century? And whether it does it help us get purchase on what is going on?
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Also, why are there no feminist economists or feminist IPE scholars cited in this
work? What is the politics of the ‘new materialsm’ in IR?
i
A few examples: In the last budget, plans were unveiled to cut a further £10 billion from the welfare
budget by 2016/17. Benefits make up 1/5th of women’s incomes compared to 1/10th of men’s income;
90% of lone parents are single mothers. Changes to the personal tax allowance do not benefit the
poorest people, the majority of whom are women. 42% of women gain nothing whatsoever from this
change compared to 28% men; Cuts in social security are likely to worsen women’s poverty. Single
mothers will lose a month’s income each year, when all the tax and benefit changes are rolled out; we
should note here that plans were floated to remove child benefit entirely where one earner was a higher
rate tax payer. This is important because it potentially takes away the only independent source of
income from principal carer (usually a woman); Universal credit is also likely to depress women’s
employment. The equality impact assessment carried out by the Government (such as it was)
acknowledged that ‘it is possible that in some families second earners may choose to reduce or
rebalance their hours or to leave work….In these cases, the improved ability of the main earner to
support his or her family will increase the options available for families to strike their preferred
work/life balance.’
ii Along with threatened cuts to statutory maternity rights, maternity pay and leave, a long list there of
particularly pregnancy and family related benefits have been completely axed; There have been
widespread cuts to maternity services; 124 Sure Start Centres ii closed since the general election;
Research by Save the Children ii and Daycare Trust ii , Resolution Foundation ii and Netmums ii shows
women considering returning to work after maternity leave are finding they can no longer afford to
work because the childcare costs would outstrip their earnings. The Coalition government did promise
reform of the maternity/paternity leave system to introduce parental leave, but are under pressure to
drop the parental leave proposals from the de-regulation brigade. Anecdotally (trade unions and the
Equality and Human Rights Commission), more women being selected for redundancy whilst on
maternity leave or when they’ve just returned from maternity leave.
viii
Available for download at: http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/exploring-bmematernal-poverty-the-financial-lives-of-ethnic-minority-mothers-i-120665 (accessed September, 2012).
ix Even as women often enter labour market on unfavourable terms, an independent income affords women
the ability to exercise some control over their world. Access to justice will be undermined as services are
eroded and women’s route out of abusive relationships is blocked. Also impact on support services. One of
the most direct impacts of the austerity measures came in the reduction of the Supporting People budget
and the removal of the ‘ring-fence’ which had previously protected such spending. Local Authority funds
to domestic violence and sexual abuse services reduced from £7.8m to £5.4m (between 2010/11 and
2011/12). This is massively disproportionate cuts as compared to the cuts in national budgets. Domestic
and sexual violence services are struggling to keep going whilst commissioners-replaced by non-specialists
who pay lower wages. Cuts mean it is less likely that there will be pro-active response from police to
victims of domestic violence and less support all way along line from refuge accommodation to access to
legal system. There is also an aspect to this that evidences discrimination against specific ethnic groupsHolly Taylor (BSWA):’ The impact of cuts on an already stretched children’s services department has had
a significant impact on their capacity. The result is that women…will often be advised that they have
already taken the appropriate steps and there is no role for children’s services. [W]hen faced with women
who have no recourse to public funds who cannot access refuge or any other accommodation but have
children, we are being advised children’s services will accommodate the children but not the mother, or
they will pay for them to return to their country of origin…women are being penalised for …trying to make
themselves and their children safe.’