ABSTRACT

Introduction Globalization is contested as an economic, political and cultural phenomenon. All three aspects of the globalization process express a tendency for transnational transactions and networks to create a growing dependency across national borders, continents and regions. During the 1990s there was extensive academic and public debate about the meaning of globalization, Europeanization and migration for democracy, the welfare state and citizenship. Is globalization primarily about expanding the markets and about the tendency to economic harmonization and convergence, or does global governance and the increased political cooperation on the global level open possibilities to expand civil, political and social rights beyond the nation state and establish an effective human rights regime? Sceptics claim that it is neither possible nor desirable to expand democracy and citizenship beyond the nation state (Dahl 1999; Kymlicka 1999), whereas globalists and ‘anti-globalists’ approaches both claim that it has today become both possible and desirable to develop what Held (1999) calls a cosmopolitan model of democracy and Heater (2002) a ‘world citizenship’. Feminist scholarship has also started to analyse the effects of globalization, European integration and migration for gender equality and for women’s rights (Liebert 2003; Walby 2004). One approach focuses on economic globalization emphasizes the convergent trends and the negative effects of neo-liberal policies on gender equality and women’s rights stressing the marginalization of migrant women workers and feminization of poverty (see Kofman and Youngs 2003). Another approach focuses on political globalization and stresses the potentials of women’s transnational struggles to use the new transnational sites to strengthen gender equality and expand women’s rights across nation states, often illustrated by the EU gender regime and the human rights regime (Liebert 2003; Williams 2003). This chapter emphasizes the contradictory impact of globalization on gender equality and women’s rights (Squires 2007; Siim 2009). The globalization of rights and duties has been interpreted as a key to a postnational version of citizenship, and scholars have discussed how to link the human rights regime with the framework of citizenship rights (Turner 1993). There is a tension between the human rights discourse focusing on universal

rights connected to personhood and the rights discourse connected to citizens in the nation state. The debate about cosmopolitan democracy and post-national citizenship has contributed to illuminate this issue and has presented models which link the two frames. Globalization is contradictory and multidimensional and there is a discursive struggle about the theoretical frames for understanding globalization as well as about the normative understanding of feminism and gender equality. Globalization has been interpreted as a threat, a challenge or a source of potential for nation states. Arguably the meaning global change and European integration has on people’s lives needs to be contextualized and situated. Globalization has different implications in China and the Nordic countries and the study of the effects of globalization on women’s rights and gender equality must be sensitive to different national histories, institutions and perspectives, as well as to the diversity between and within social groups. Globalization and Europeanization have become key issues for the international women’s movement, and feminist scholarship have started to study global and transnational feminism (see Rolandsen 2007). One influential position has used the women’s rights campaign as a paradigmatic example of a successful international campaign to politicize a transnational issue, because it has both managed to influence the general public awareness and create new international institutions and regimes about human rights (Ackerly and Okin 1999; Williams 2003; Walby 2004). From this perspective the adoption of the human rights regime is an important step in the struggle for women’s rights at the global level. Feminists disagree, however, about the strategies to enforce women’s civil, social and political rights on the national and transnational levels. Globalization is also linked to immigration that has increased inequalities between and within countries. Feminist debates about globalization and women’s rights have raised critical questions about the tensions between gender equality and diversity in terms of nationality and ethnicity/race. One key issue refers to relations between cultural recognition and economic redistribution and the interconnection between gender inequality and other kinds of inequalities (Fraser 1997). Claims for recognition based upon respect and valuation of group difference, and claims for redistribution based on a fairer and a more equal division of resources, are supposed to belong to different frames of justice that are analytically distinct, although in democratic struggles the two are often intertwined (Hobson 2003). Another key issue concerns women’s agency and the relation between participation and representation, power and influence. This addresses questions about who has the power and authority to speak for women and the linkages between local, national and global struggles. A final question concerns the potentials and barriers for transnational feminism to expand demands for participation, rights and influence at the national and transnational levels. The objective of this chapter is to link debates about transnational democracy and post-national citizenship with debates about transnational feminism, gender equality and women’s rights. The first part discusses the globalization of rights and the potentials and barriers for transnational feminism to influence global

governance and global politics. It then explores the arguments for and against developing a transnational citizenship and discusses the tensions between universal principles on the one hand, and concerns for inequalities and diversity of social groups within and between particular national contexts on the other. I suggest that it is fruitful to redesign the concept of citizenship beyond the nation state and to link feminist frames about gender justice with frames for a multilayered transnational citizenship (Yuval-Davis 2006; Sarvasy and Longo 2004). The second part explores the challenges from globalization and immigration to the Nordic countries, focusing especially on the intersection of gender and diversity. Nordic state feminism characterized by women’s inclusion in politics is often perceived as a paradigmatic case of gender equality and ‘womenfriendly’ policies. The Nordic countries, however, all face new challenges to include immigrants in democracy and society, and today there are growing tensions in the welfare and gender regimes between equal rights and recognition of cultural diversity. This part illustrates the importance of studying the intersection of gender, ethnicity and other types of inequalities and also of integrating principles of equal treatment and representation with the recognition of ethnic diversity. The conclusion reflects upon the tensions between the universal principles of gender equality and women’s rights on the one hand, and the particularities of women within and between nation states on the other. Finally, it discusses strategies to link the local and global struggles for women’s rights, recognition and influence and models to integrate proposals for gender justice with proposals for a multi-layered transnational citizenship.