Be free? The European Union’s post-Arab Spring women’s empowerment as neoliberal governmentality

This article analyses post-Arab Spring EU initiatives to promote women’s empowerment in the Southern Mediterranean region. Inspired by the Foucauldian concept of governmentality, it investigates empowerment as a technology of biopolitics that is central to the European neoliberal model of governance...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of international relations and development 2019-03, Vol.22 (1), p.136-158
Main Author: Huelss, Hendrik
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arab Spring
Area Studies
Biopolitics
Development Studies
Economic development
Empowerment
Governance
Governmentality
Hierarchies
International Relations
Neoliberalism
Political power
Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International Studies
Power
Structural change
Technology
Women
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Summary:This article analyses post-Arab Spring EU initiatives to promote women’s empowerment in the Southern Mediterranean region. Inspired by the Foucauldian concept of governmentality, it investigates empowerment as a technology of biopolitics that is central to the European neoliberal model of governance. In contrast to dominant images such as normative power Europe that present the EU as a norm-guided actor promoting political liberation, the article argues that the EU deploys a concept of functional freedom meant to facilitate its vision of economic development. As a consequence, the alleged empowerment of women based on the self-optimisation of individuals and the statistical control of the female population is a form of biopower. In this regard, empowerment works as a governmental technology of power instead of offering a measure to foster fundamental structural change in Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) societies. The EU therefore fails in presenting and promoting an alternative normative political vision distinct from the incorporation of women into the hierarchy of the existing market society.
ISSN:1408-6980
1581-1980
DOI:10.1057/s41268-017-0094-0