The myth of the nation-state: Theorizing society and polities in a global era

The analysis of globalization requires attention to the social and political units that are being variously undermined, restructured or facilitated by this process. Sociology has often assumed that the unit of analysis is society, in which economic, political and cultural processes are coterminous, and that this concept maps onto that of nation-state. This article argues that the nation-state is more mythical than real. This is for four reasons: first, there are more nations than states; second, several key examples of presumed nation-states are actually empires; third, there are diverse and significant polities in addition to states, including the European Union and some organized religions; fourth, polities overlap and rarely politically saturate the territory where they are located. An implication of acknowledging the wider range and overlapping nature of polities is to open greater conceptual space for the analysis of gender and ethnicity in analyses of globalization. Finally the article re-conceptualizes ‘polities’ and ‘society’

Is Europe Cascading into Fascism?: Addressing Key Concepts including Gender and Violence

Is Europe cascading into fascism? The answer to this question matters for understanding the opposition to gender equality projects in Europe. The article addresses some of the key concepts needed to answer this question. Is ‘fascism’ or ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’ or just ‘neoliberalism’ the most appropriate concept to capture the turn to the right? The article compares the extent to which these concepts encompass ‘violence’ and ‘gender’. ‘Fascism’ is an important benchmarkfrom European history, but Europe has not yet reached its levels of violence. The qualifier ‘authoritarian’ is not needed for ‘neoliberalism’ since it generates a trajectory towards violence. Some conceptual work is required in order to develop ‘neoliberalism’ to encompass ‘gender’ and ‘violence’, but there are bodies of work that support such a development. Including gender in analyses of the macro level changes occurring in Europe requires the concept of ‘varieties of gender regime’, which enables the conceptualisation of neoliberalism as gendered

Gender, violence and Brexit

How will the UK exit from the EU affect gender-based violence against women? Four issues are addressed to answer this question. First, the importance of theorising the interconnections with a gender regime, including between gendered economic inequality and gendered violence. Second, the significance of the difference between hard and soft security strategies for the level of gendered violence. Third, the significance of the emerging competence of the EU in the governance of violence/security relative to the member states and international bodies. Fourth, the specific nature of Brexit and the form of the future relationship between the UK and EU. The paper concludes that Brexit is likely to increase gender-based violence against women in the UK, partly as a result of the differences in the regulation of violence/security between the UK and the EU and partly as a result of increases in gender inequality in the economy that has effects across the whole gender regime

Indicators to Measure Violence Against Women

1. This paper is prepared for the UN Expert Group Meeting on indicators to measure violence against women. The Expert Group Meeting is intended to support the work of the Statistical Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women in developing ‘a set of possible indicators on violence against women in order to assist States in assessing the scope, prevalence and incidence of violence against women’. 2. The paper includes: (i) an overview of existing major initiatives on indicators to measure violence against women; (ii) an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of those initiatives; (iii) proposes criteria for the identification of a possible set of indicators on violence against women; (iv) summarises options and provides recommendations for a possible set of indicators to support countries to measure the scope, prevalence and incidence of violence against women; and (v) addresses the related data collection requirements and constraints and opportunities for overcoming these

Gender in the crisis and remaking of Europe: re-gendering subsidiarity

This article analyses the gender dimension of the European Commission’s proposals to revise the governance of the European Union in response to the crisis by increasing the powers of the European Union level. The proposed change in the location of the subsidiarity boundary has significant gender implications: subsidiarity is gendered. The alternative strategies for economic growth and security have implications for democracy and gender equality. The concepts of ’gender regime’ (and its social-democratic and neoliberal varieties) and ’project’ are developed and applied. The possibility of the embedding of the gender-equality project in the new institutions proposed by the Commission is discussed

The cost of domestic violence: Up-date 2009

This report up-dates4the costs of domestic violence first published in The Cost of Domestic Violencein 2004 by the Women and Equality Unit of the Department of Trade and Industry. The estimates in this report are centred on 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, while those in the original report were centred on 2001. While domestic violence is terrible enough in its own right to justify policy interventions, the scale of the costs adds to these arguments. By demonstrating that the cost of domestic violence is borne by the wider economy and society, not only the victims, it is hoped to make a contribution to policy development to reduce and eliminate this violence

The European Added Value of a Directive on Combatting Violence Against Women: Annex 2 Economic Aspects and Legal Perspectives for Action at the European Level

The paper investigates the economic cost of violence against women for the EU and compares the costs of action and inaction. Violence against women is estimated to cost the EU EUR 226 billion each year, including EUR 45 billion for services and EUR 24 billion in lost economic output. The costs of preventive measures are substantially less than the cost of the violence

Untangling the concept of coercive control: Theorizing domestic violent crime

The paper assesses three approaches to domestic violence: two that use the concept of ‘coercive control’ and one that uses ‘domestic violent crime’. These are: Stark’s concept of coercive control; Johnson’s distinction between situational couple violence and intimate terrorism, in which coercive control is confined to the latter; and that of domestic violent crime, in which all physical violence is conceptualised as coercive and controlling. The paper assesses these three approaches on seven issues. It offers original analysis of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales concerning variations in repetition and seriousness in domestic violent crime. It links escalation in domestic violent crime to variations in the economic resources of the victim. It concludes that the concept of domestic violent crime is preferable to that of coercive control when seeking to explain variations in domestic violence

Measuring violence to end violence: mainstreaming gender

Mainstreaming gender into the measurement of violence, in order to assist the development of the theory of change needed to support actions to end violence, is the aim of this paper. It addresses the division between gender-neutral and women-only strategies of data collection that is failing to deliver the quality evidence needed to address the extent and distribution of violence. It develops a better operationalisation of the concepts of gender and violence for purposes of statistical analysis. It produces a check list of criteria to assess the quality of statistics on gendered violence. It assesses the strengths and weakness of surveys linked to two contrasting theoretical perspectives: the Fundamental Rights Agency Survey of Violence against Women; and the Crime Survey for England and Wales. It shows how FRA fails. It shows how the ONS has limited the potential of the CSEW. It offers a solution in: a short questionnaire that is fit for purpose; and ways of analysing data that escape the current polarisation

Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking: findings from the British Crime Survey

Inter-personal violence comprises crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. These are important forms of crime and the government is engaged in a major series of policy initiatives in order to deal with them. However, only a small fraction of these cases are reported to the police and recorded by them, and even interview based surveys have difficulty in getting people to disclose such events. This report presents the findings of an innovative computerised self-completion questionnaire included in the British Crime Survey (BCS) which encourages wider reporting of experiences than the main face-to-face part of the BCS. It builds on previous use of this methodology in the BCS, and provides the most reliable findings to date on the extent and nature of inter-personal violence in England and Wales