THE PARADOXICAL IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION ON WOMEN’S POLITICAL REPRESENTATION: A REVIEW OF SITUATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Abstract
The representation of women in a political system is
a good test of its claims to democracy. Although
there are some progress, the level of women political
representation in Southeast Asian countries is
still low. Women activists propose the adoption of
gender quotas as a fast track to address this issue,
but the implementation find many obstacles. This
article base of my research which want to examine
the impact of globalisation for women’s political representation
in Southeast Asian countries. The discussion
begin with the overview of women’s political
representation issue and some theoretical framewoks
for adressing that issue. It identified that globalisation
has positive and negative impacts on women’s representation.
On the one hand, it encourages the
emergence of a global gender equality regime which
influences pattern of women’s political representation
among Southeast Asian countries. Yet, on the
otherhand, itpromotes neo-liberalism ideology which
is “inherently oppose to pol,icy interventionism”and
it also promotes liberal democratic practices, which
oppose affirmative policy for women, included gender
quota in parliament.We concludes that the paradoxical
impact of globalisation causes progress for
increasing women’s representation in Southeast Asian
countries move slowly. The efforts for increasing
women’s representation in some Southeast Asian
countries have not been supported by governments’
“intervention” policies such as gender quota and
social welfare policies. Southeast Asian countries are
also trapped in a liberal democracy practice which
promotes ‘one person one vote’ (equality of opportunity).
Thus, the opposition to affirmative action (equality of result) is so high. Although some Southeast Asian countries
have women quota articles, the implementation has been undermined
so far.