Conclusion
Both the existence and the need for a feminist theory of the state have been challenged in feminist debates. This chapter has been based on an understanding that we do need critical feminist tools to analyse the state.
Initially, much feminist energy was directed into answering questions about the essence of the state: what is the state? Answers ranged from the liberal, patriarchal or capitalist state to the women-friendly or poststructural state. The discussion in the previous section suggested that the question to ask is not one about the essence of the state but how best to analyse the state. The most recent feminist debates on the state, discussed above, clearly show the need for these tools. This chapter has provided one possible way forward and argued for combining the comparative and discursive elements of the previous feminist theories about the state. Feminist comparative discourse analysis sensitizes feminist analyses to the importance of the context. The methodological framework results in an understanding of the impossibility of establishing universally what the state is. It also makes it possible to analyse differences within states: in and between institutions, discourses and actors and to situate states in the changing institutional context.Further reading
Banaszak, Lee Ann, Beckwith, Karen and Rucht, Dieter (eds) (2003) Women’s Movements Facing the Reconfigured State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Bergqvist, Christina etal. (eds) (1999) Equal Democracies: Gender and Politics in the Nordic Countries (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press).
MacKinnon, Catharine (1989) Towards a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
O’Connor, Julia, Orloff, Ann Shola and Shaver, Sheila (1999) States, Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism and Social Policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Rai, Shirin and Lievesley, Geraldine (eds) (1996) Women and the State: International Perspectives (London: Taylor & Francis).
Randall, Vicky and Waylen, Georgina (eds) (1998) Gender, Politics and the State (London: Routledge).
Watson, Sophie (ed.) (1990) Playing the State (London: Verso).
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