Empowering governmentalities rather than women: The Arab Human Development Report 2005 and western development logics
Abstract
The researchers and writers of the Arab Human Development Report 2005 (AHDR 2005)
include activists, social critics, intellectuals, and feminists who aspire for izdihar
(flourishing) in the Arab world "based on a peaceful process of negotiation for redistributing
power and building good governance." This passage suggests that the aims the AHDR
2005 shares with the previous three volumes are to encourage state apparatuses and
officials to transform themselves by changing policies and surrendering some of the
power and resources they have fortified vis-à-vis their citizenries. This article
argues that rather than encouraging the rise of women or any group interested in political
or social transformation, the AHDR 2005 works within a U.N. development framework
that strengthens states and political elites in relation to their populations by constituting
the former as the causes of underdevelopment and thus the primary agents for economic,
social, and political improvement. © 2009 Cambridge University Press.
Type
Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/19492Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1017/S0020743808090120Publication Info
Hasso, FS (2009). Empowering governmentalities rather than women: The Arab Human Development Report
2005 and western development logics. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 41(1). pp. 63-82. 10.1017/S0020743808090120. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/19492.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
Collections
More Info
Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Frances Susan Hasso
Professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies
I am a Professor in the Program in Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke
University with secondary appointments in the Department of History and Department
of Sociology. I taught in and directed the International Comparative Studies Program
at Duke from 2010-2015 and was a member of the Oberlin College faculty from 2000-2010.
I am Editor Emerita (2015-2018) of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies

Articles written by Duke faculty are made available through the campus open access policy. For more information see: Duke Open Access Policy
Rights for Collection: Scholarly Articles
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info