Privatization, Vulnerability, and Social Responsibility: A Comparative Perspective (Gender in Law, Culture, and Society)

Taking a cross-cultural perspective, this book explores how privatization and globalization impact contemporary feminist and social justice approaches to public responsibility. Feminist legal theorists have long problematized divisions between the private and the political, an issue with growing importance in a time when the welfare state is under threat in many parts of the world and private markets and corporations transcend national boundaries. Because vulnerability analysis emphasizes our interdependency within social institutions and the need for public responsibility for our shared vulnerability, it can highlight how neoliberal policies commodify human necessities, channeling unprofitable social relationships, such as caretaking, away from public responsibility and into the individual private family. This book uses comparative analyses to examine how these dynamics manifest across different legal cultures. By highlighting similarities and differences in legal responses to vulnerability, this book provides important insights and arguments against the privatization of social need and for a more responsive state.