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.