Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society

"Post-neoliberalism" or "after neoliberalism"' is a term that is associated with forms of governance that emerged in the mid-late 1990s with the Third Way and social investment states in the UK, Canada, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The post-neoliberal state combines features of both neoliberal and social-democratic welfare policies; significantly, it has introduced changes in areas conventionally noted by feminist scholars as having bearing on the lives of women, such as, in public-funded childcare, and women-centered approaches to governance. The core question posed in this paper is: is the post-neoliberal state also a feminist one? Based on a critical review of recent literature, the analysis focuses on the gender implications of post-neoliberal policies in four domains of society and polity: production-reproduction, the public-private, political participation, and the machinery of the state. The paper argues that whilst gains made by some women in these domains are noteworthy, the more fundamental ramifications of the post-neoliberal state are in the changing landscape of gender relations in these countries.