Authoritarianism, violence, and varieties of gender regimes: Violence as an institutional domain

Abstract

Gender regime theory is developed by adding ‘authoritarian’ as a further variety and deepening the conceptualisation of violence. Authoritarian is added as a further variety of public gender regime in Walby's typology of domestic and public (social democratic and neoliberal) varieties to increase its transnational and global relevance. The analysis of violence as an institutional domain is differentiated between varieties of gender regime. The framework is used to analyse projects and politics that use the criminal justice system of states to address violence in intersectional contexts. Whether the consequences are carceral or not is found to depend on the variety of gender regime. A critical review of concepts and theories of gender regimes and of violence underpins the analysis. The macro level and complex systems analysis aid the analysis of variations in gender relations and the consequences of different kinds of interventions from feminist projects against violence.