Women and Power in the Developing World

Abstract

What do we know about women's negotiation of power in the Global South? The prevailing view tells us that women's power in the Global North is greater than in the South. Yet across analytic levels, the developing world provides striking models of the assertion of women's power that challenge established concepts of political and economic development. At the macro level of state development, research identifies how the subordination of women has been central to the creation and modern infrastructure of liberal democratic states or political orders. Data analysis here provides complementary evidence that the most effective alternatives to patriarchal political orders are originating in the developing world. At the meso level of policy-making processes, developing-world states are more likely than developed-world states to recognize and co-opt women's power. Finally, at the micro level, intrafamily negotiations of patriarchal power are most dynamic in the developing world, with the greatest promise to improve our understanding of the broader systems of power that drive states, policies, and welfare.