820 106th Annual 829 Meeting 830 Congressional 823 New APSA Of- Fellowship Association News ficers Elected 837 Attending Grad- 824 Briefs uate Students 826 Center Page 839 Goodnow Award 828 Washington 840 Organized Sec- Insider tion Awards

profile The Political Theory of Carole Pateman Anne Phillips, London School of Economics John Medearis, University of California, Riverside Daniel I. O’Neill, University of Florida

arole Pateman is, by any mea- Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy sure, an extraordinary politi- of Social Sciences (U.K.), and the Academy cal thinker. She has written of Social Sciences in Australia. Long before modern classics of both demo- she assumed the presidency of the APSA, she cratic and feminist theory, but served as the first woman president of the Cthe scope of her work is even wider than International Political Science Association this dual accomplishment suggests, since from 1991 to 1994, and her tenure in that it includes contributions to the study of position is still remembered and admired. early modern political thought, early femi- Guillermo O’Donnell, the noted compara- nist thought, and, recently, the history of tivist, told us that he “was delighted that colonialism. The reach of her influence is she was [his] successor as president of the proportionately wide, touching all of the International Political Science Association, social sciences and humanities and extend- where she left the important mark of her ing to scholars around the globe. She is open-minded and progressive spirit.” perhaps best known for writing Participa- Such scholarly acclaim would probably tion and Democratic Theory (1970) and The have seemed an unlikely future for a girl born Sexual Contract (1988). Each is in its own 2010−11 APSA PRESIDENT in Maresfield, a village about 40 miles south way an exemplary analytical accomplish- of London—a child of parents who had fin- ment as well as a crystalline expression Carole Pateman ished their own educations by the age of 14. of a historical tendency in its time. In its Distinguished Professor of Political Pateman herself originally left school at 16 call for a renewed sense of the importance Science, University of California, Los to take a series of clerical jobs before enroll- of participation in democracy, the former Angeles ing in Ruskin College, an adult education expressed something of the 1960s’ revolt D.Phil, Oxford University school in Oxford. Although she did not have against postwar political complacency. The the usual qualifications that would allow a latter, in its insistence that Western politi- graphs—and a great number of her articles person to attend university, she won a place cal theory must be rebuilt from the ground have also been deeply influential. at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, on the basis up to accommodate the emancipation of Pateman has followed her career across of a distinction in the Oxford University Post- women can surely be seen as an intellectual three continents. She received her D.Phil Graduate Diploma in Political Science and peak of second-wave feminism. The endur- from Oxford University. Currently a Distin- Economics, an exam taken by many Ruskin ing influence of this book was recognized guished Professor of Political Science at the students. After obtaining her BA, she studied when it received the APSA’s Benjamin Lip- University of California, Los Angeles, she with and completed Participation pincott Award in 2005. But Pateman’s other joined the faculty there in 1990 after teach- and Democratic Theory with the intention of books—discussed in the following para- ing at the and hold- submitting it for a B.Litt. Barry suggested ing a number of visiting appointments at that she instead send the manuscript to Cam- Anne Phillips is a professor of political and institutions including Stanford and Princ- bridge University Press, which accepted it for gender theory at the London School of Eco- eton. Pateman has frequently been invited publication. Upon seeing the book for the nomics and Political Science. to deliver prestigious public lectures, such first time at Blackwell’s bookstore in Oxford, John Medearis is an associate professor of as the Gunnar Myrdal Lecture at Stockholm she says, she was overcome and “fled from political science at the University of Califor- University, Sweden. In 2004, she received a the store” (2008, 231). She explained nearly nia, Riverside. Lifetime Achievement Award from the U.K. forty years later: “Being an author was so Daniel I. O’Neill is an associate professor of Political Studies Association, and she is a remote from my experience that it had no political science at the University of Florida. fellow of the British Academy, the American reality until I saw the material object” (2008,

PS • October 2010 813 Association News

231, n. 1). democracy, Pateman’s first book captured Held. At the time, however, Pateman was Pateman’s work is characterized by real an ideal that was pervasive in the 1960s and among the first to show how the rejection breadth, both in terms of topical scope and swept aside facile generalizations about the of old, homogenizing assumptions about approach. Substantively, she has written meaning of democracy in the history of politi- the history of democratic thought can be about marriage, sex, the economy, the state, cal thought. In doing these things, Partici- illuminating. and citizenship. She has made contributions pation and Democratic Theory helped to give Pateman was not content, however, to let both to contemporary political theory and shape to the field of democratic theory as we the argument of Participation and Democratic to the history of political thought. Pateman now know it. In the two postwar decades Theory rest on textual reinterpretation. She has never been content simply to approach prior to the book’s publication, a particular ends her discussion of the history of partici- political theory as philosophical analysis. “I view of democracy had gained a strong grip patory theory by setting herself an empiri- resisted becoming a philosopher (a path I on scholarship. With roots extending at least cal challenge: “The theory of participatory was urged to follow) because I realized that as deep as Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, democracy stands or falls on two hypotheses: my interests did not lie in purely philosophi- Socialism and Democracy (1942), this view, the educative function of participation, and cal problems,” she has written, adding: “I which Pateman dubs “the contemporary the crucial role of industry” (1970, 44). Her have always been keen on bringing together theory of democracy,” devalued participa- route into these subjects explores the concept empirical evidence and theoretical argument” tion, criticized so-called “classical” theory, of “efficacy” and its role in the political sci- (Pateman and Mills 2007, 16). Thus, the raw and emphasized a “realistic” assessment of ence and political sociology of the 1960s. In materials of her work are crucial, and they the facts of modern politics. Proponents of those literatures, she notes, “efficacy” referred vary enormously, from legal documents and this dominant theory of the 1950s and 1960s to a feeling of political competence, confi- other historical sources that reveal the devel- defined democracy as a political method or dence in one’s ability to affect politics, and opment of colonialism to sociological stud- institutional arrangement in which elite assurance of the value of doing so. There ies of workplace participation, statutory and leaders gained the power to make decisions is much evidence that individuals who feel common law defining the status of women, through competition for the popular vote. more efficacious tend to participate more and canonical (though problematic) texts But the elite character of democracy and the deeply in politics. Many proponents of the of . One motivation for minimal role for mass participation were not “contemporary theory” argued that both def- this range of sources is Pateman’s conviction to be regretted, these scholars said. Many erence to elites and low participation (linked that “democratic theory needs to begin from scholars actually valued low participation to low efficacy) were necessary for the health where we are at present” and not just from and apathy for their claimed contributions of Western democracies, even though such abstract ideals (2008, 234). Another motiva- to political stability. attitudes stemmed from a misunderstanding tion stems from the insight that when proper- Pateman’s response in Participation and of the openness of these polities. One version ly elucidated, the work of figures like Thomas Democratic Theory to this prevalent approach of this argument was and Hobbes can reveal assumptions and ideas is multipronged. First, she takes its propo- ’s claim that a “civic culture”—a that have long structured everyday life. nents to task for creating a myth of “classical” political culture combining “involvement” The breadth of Pateman’s work is matched democracy. Pateman points out that some of with “passivity” and “traditionality”—was by the range of her influence. A 2007 study the supposed purveyors of the “classical” the- best suited to a healthy democracy (Almond found her to be among the four hundred ory actually defended a participatory theory and Verba 1963). Pateman does note that most-cited political scientists of all time—and of democracy. In this argument, she had in scholars favoring the “contemporary the- of these, she ranked among political scientists mind J. J. Rousseau and , as ory” also acknowledged (but often did not earning Ph.D.s from 1970 to 1974 and third well as the twentieth century guild socialist, emphasize) findings that supported some among political theorists (Masuoka, Grof- G. D. H. Cole. Cole epitomized the partici- claims of participatory theory, especially the man, and Feld 2007). One does not, of course, patory approach in many ways through his claim that efficacy is strongly influenced by attain this level of influence by appealing emphasis on participation as educative to opportunities to participate in the workplace. along narrow subfield lines. Pateman is read participants, his conjecture that democratic Thus, Pateman contends, individuals’ ori- and drawn upon by scholars of Latin Ameri- capacities developed in one sphere can foster entations toward politics rest substantially can democratization, feminists interested in effective participation in wider forums, and on “the authority structure” of their work both marriage and prostitution, and sociolo- his principled insistence that no one should environment (1970, 53), as Cole and other gists of the workplace—as well as, of course, be another’s master. But Cole also went fur- participatory theorists had anticipated. by political theorists focused on an extraor- ther than other scholars, Pateman argues, Nevertheless, Pateman is cautious in dinary variety of subjects. As for the global in stressing the case for self-government in making empirical claims about workplace reach of her influence,The Sexual Contract has every authority structure, especially work- participation, resting them on a careful been translated into nine languages, includ- places. Thus, Cole decisively challenged ordi- sifting of scholarship on democratic prac- ing Croatian, Chinese, and Portuguese, and nary assumptions about the proper extent tices in industry. She reviews reports both Participation and Democratic Theory has been of democratic politics. Pateman’s interpreta- about English firms that had experimented translated into three languages, including tions brought to light a participatory tradi- in workplace democracy and about the his- Japanese and Chinese. tion that had been long neglected, but they tory and structure of industrial democracy also did something more. By now, distin- in the former Yugoslavia. In many of these Democracy, Participation, and guishing different “models” of democracy in cases, she concludes that the extent of par- Obligation the history of political thought is a familiar ticipation involved does not qualify as work- In exploring and providing the intellec- exercise, especially because of the work of place democracy, as she defines it. Howev- tual framework for a participatory vision of such scholars as C. B. Macpherson and David er, she does find that the evidence confirms

814 PS • October 2010 Association News the expectations of Cole and Mill in several to political arrangements that predate them. a form of consent has similar problems to ways: workers were interested in participat- By focusing on the latter, ongoing problem that inherent in two types of modern con- ing at work, even low levels of participation of consent, Pateman arrives at her critique tract: the employment contract and the improved the sense of efficacy, and such par- of voting and her challenging conclusions traditional marriage contract, which would ticipation in industry proved feasible. about participatory democracy. She stresses become central foci of her landmark work, It is important to note that throughout the difference between vertical and horizontal The Sexual Contract (1988a). In The Problem her first book, Pateman also contends that obligation—the obligation, on the one hand, of Political Obligation, Pateman contends that there is a principled argument in favor of of citizens to the state, and on the other, of the difficulty with all three of these is that workplace democracy that rests on the analy- citizens to each other. Pateman argues that they are instances of promising obedience sis of subordination and freedom—two prob- too many discussions conflate these kinds of in which “the person making the promise lems that have remained at the center of her obligation. Ultimately, she contends that a is no longer free to exercise her capacities work ever since. As she writes in Participa- more democratic, participatory politics would and decide upon her own actions, and is no tion and Democratic Theory: “Industry, with focus more on the egalitarian, horizontal longer equal, but subordinate” (1985, 19). its relationships of superiority and subordi- sort of obligation. The starkest example of this agreement is nation, is the most ‘political’ of all areas in While most contemporary political theo- the voluntary slave contract, discussed at which ordinary individuals interact,” and this rists take the state and its power, and hence length in The Sexual Contract. supports the participatory view that industry political obligation, for granted, Pateman In any case, Pateman points out that should be “democratized” (1970, 83). argues that the classic theorists of an original often, the conceptual devices on which politi- It is difficult to overestimate the impor- contract were painfully aware of the general cal theorists rely do not defend political obli- tance that these ideas had for the develop- problem of justifying political obligation. gation on the basis of voting and universal ment of political inquiry. Thus, she begins by showing how obliga- suffrage, but instead rely on “hypothetical notes that “Pateman’s book had a great tion became a political problem only with voluntarism,” as in Rawlsian speculation impact on an entire generation of theorists the advent of modernity. The revolutionary about the sorts of institutions that abstract and practitioners in many fields of the social idea that human beings are born free and human agents would choose in an imaginary sciences” (2008, 20). Or, as Alan Ryan puts equal emerged in the seventeenth century “original position” behind a putative “veil it, Participation and Dem- of ignorance” (1971). Like ocratic Theory “has over arguments about voting, more than three decades Voting is often treated as the act that signifies the these devices all work in earned a permanent place the same way, as mecha- ongoing consent of the governed. But Pateman argues in the history of our disci- nisms designed to portray pline while retaining the that empirically, it is doubtful that voting holds this preexisting institutional youthful freshness that significance for citizens. frameworks of domina- marked its first appear- tion and subordination ance” (2008, 165). as consensual. Pateman’s next book, The Problem of Polit- to replace notions of natural hierarchy and If we really take self-assumed obliga- ical Obligation: A Critique of Liberal Theory inequality, but it raised a novel dilemma. tion seriously, Pateman argues, then politi- (1979; 1985) exemplifies her willingness to Given this premise, which delegitimizes all cal obligation is incapable of emerging in tackle the biggest theoretical questions and forms of natural subordination, the only a context in which individuals do not play her fearless pursuit of arguments to their remaining justification for government, a direct role in governance. Unlike voting, logical conclusions—even if such a journey in any sphere, is the agreement of the gov- Pateman maintains, participatory democratic forces a rethinking of the most basic insti- erned. Political obligation, then, must be self- practices are capable of serving as political tutions and practices of the contemporary assumed. Of course, this conclusion leads to counterparts to the social practice of mak- political world. In its critique of the often- a disconcerting question: what if people do ing meaningful promises, or promises that discussed social contract, The Problem of not agree? According to Pateman, this hidden are not reducible to the agreement to obey. Political Obligation constitutes the first of query is the reason that there are so many Participatory democracy allows citizens to her three explorations of the main compo- arguments in political theory that purport decide directly when they will assume obli- nents of the conjectural and (in Pateman’s to show, in one way or another, that people gations by enabling them to exercise their view) multi-part original contract, with her always do agree. own judgment, rather than being subject to next two explorations being her examination While early modern theorists focused on judgment of their representatives. Through of the “sexual contract” in her book of the the social contract, in more contemporary this exercise, they freely create new relation- same name and her unearthing of the “settler political theory, voting is often treated as ships and determine the specific content of contract” in her most recent book. the act that signifies the ongoing consent their obligations. Ultimately, for Pateman, Her particular aim in The Problem of of the governed. But Pateman argues that real democracy is a collective, intersubjec- Political Obligation is to show why there is a empirically, it is doubtful that voting holds tive enterprise that requires universal direct problem of justifying political obligation to this significance for citizens. Moreover, if participation and lively deliberation, and the modern liberal democratic state. Pate- voting does signify consent, then it takes is not reducible to the mere aggregation of man draws a crucial distinction between the an odd form: as consent to suspend collec- individual preferences. conjectural social contract that purportedly tive self-government until the next election, This belief does not mean that Pateman creates a political community and the con- which is also consent to suspend such self- thinks voting and representation can be dis- sent that later generations are said to give government itself. Viewed in this light, such carded. As early as Participation and Demo-

PS • October 2010 815 Association News cratic Theory, she argues that representation equality while continuing to view women as its creation of new political relations—of the will always be required in large-scale modern “naturally” incapable of participating in the modern state itself. Meanwhile, by contrast, states. But representation acquires a differ- social contract? How can they make consent the marriage contract and employment con- ent meaning when it exists in the context the key legitimation for hierarchies of power, tract are actual contracts, but they are pecu- of a participatory system. In such a system, rejecting arguments that presume a basis liar in their presupposition of “property in horizontal obligations between fellow citi- in nature, yet overlook the asymmetry and the person”—the concept that a person can zens gain a new importance, while the ver- subordination that characterize the marriage treat her obedience or other crucial aspects of tical obligation of citizens to obey the state contract? The answer, she argues, lies in the herself as pieces of property that can tempo- becomes less of a factor, although it does “sexual contract” that binds women as sub- rarily or even permanently be yielded up or not disappear. ordinates while denying them the capacity alienated. Pateman questions the idea that for participation in the social contract. narratives that view social relations of perma- Patriarchy, Contract, and The Sexual Contract, Pateman’s second nent subordination as arising through con- Property in the Person exploration of the dimensions of the origi- tract can ever provide legitimation for those Among Pateman’s many achievements nal contract, works on many different lev- relations. Thus, the contract, she writes, is is her role in establishing feminist political els. It simultaneously probes the nature of nothing other than the “specifically modern theory as a major field within the study of the patriarchal ideas that structured early means of creating relations of subordination” politics and political ideas. Feminist work has modern contract theory; provides a radical while presenting those relations “as freedom” long been characterized by its interdiscipli- critique of the idea that contract theory nar- (1988a, 118). This mechanism turns an eman- narity and willingness to draw on a variety ratives can legitimate relations of subordina- cipatory premise—the natural freedom and of sources. Pateman’s own writing has been tion; and uses these insights to shed light on equality of all potential contractors—into a no exception to this tendency, as evidenced contemporary debates, especially concerning defense of subjection. by the way she weaves material from social marriage and employment. For Pateman, the Pateman’s work on these issues opened up and economic history into her philosophical term “sexual contract” refers to one aspect of new avenues of scholarship for many subse- arguments, or her innovative deployment of the conjectural original contract that, accord- quent theorists and, as the essays collected in Freud and Levi-Strauss in her account of the ing to early modern theorists, established Feminist Interpretations testify, helped create social contract. Over the last 30 years, howev- civil society. The sexual contract, she says, a climate for innovative re-interpretations er, a thriving field of feminist political theory is the mechanism by which men transform of a wide range of canonical theory. Writing has developed, a body of work that takes as their supposed natural right over women in 1989, Pateman observed that “contempo- its focus questions of democracy, equality, into a form of subordination that is part of rary political theorists are able to admit the justice, and freedom; engages with canoni- a political order characterized by juridical relevance or significance of feminist ques- cal texts of mainstream political theory; and freedom and equality. Women are subjects tions and criticisms only with great diffi- contributes to feminist debates. The Sexu- of this contract, not parties to it. Nor are culty” (1989, 3), largely because of their own al Contract (1988a), The Disorder of Women they parties to the social contract (discussed addiction to a public/private divide. Change (1989), and Feminist Interpretations and Politi- previously), which is only another aspect of since then has not been overwhelming, for cal Theory (1991, co-edited with Mary Lyndon the original contract that scholars often take although feminist theorists now engage Shanley) have served as foundational texts as the whole thing. For example, in Hobbes, extensively with the full range of nonfeminist for this development. Pateman writes, husbands are “civil masters, political theory, less movement has occurred The Disorder of Women brings together because men (‘fathers’) have made the origi- from the other side. We can say, however, that essays from the mid- a rich and substan- 1970s to the late 1980s in The marriage contract and employment contract are tial body of work in which Pateman explores feminist political actual contracts, but they are peculiar in their presupposi- both the centrality and theory now exists, the denial of sexual dif- tion of “property in the person”—the concept that a per- with numerous ference in the construc- son can treat her obedience or other crucial aspects of university courses tion of modern political herself as pieces of property that can temporarily or even specifically devot- thought through the ed to writings in perception of women permanently be yielded up or alienated. this field. It is not as a threatening source much of an over- of political disorder, the statement to say articulation of a seemingly disembodied cat- nal social contract that brings civil law into that this process began with the publica- egory of “individual” that simultaneously being” (1988a, 48). tion of The Sexual Contract. conceals and enforces the differentiation of Part of the novelty and force of The Sexual Two general themes articulated in these women from men, and the construction of a Contract is that Pateman does not simply works have since become defining features new basis for the public/private divide. In her draw the conclusion that the sexual contract of feminist political theory. The first is Pate- most important work from this period, The and the social contract—as reconstructed from man’s rejection of the “feudal relics” or “patri- Sexual Contract, she employs close readings of Hobbes, Pufendorf, Locke, and Rousseau— archal remnants” view that leading theorists Hobbes, Pufendorf, Locke, and Rousseau to are illegitimate because the circumstances of an earlier period were too constrained by address the previously under-treated conun- surrounding them violate the premises of prevailing assumptions to imagine the appli- drums of the social contract tradition. How an ideal contract. She points out that the cation of their ideas to women, but that the can theorists place such stress on “natural” original (hypothetical) contract is unusual in more enlightened theorists of our own time

816 PS • October 2010 Association News can now effortlessly ensure women’s inclu- misleading to think of these agreements as her body, that is to say, herself as a woman” sion. In this reading, the failure of the clas- being concluded between sexually indiffer- (1988a, 215). Such a contracting of the self sical social contract theorists to recognize ent individuals, or to imagine that the fail- into someone else’s power is still an agree- that their idea that “men” are born free and ings of existing versions can be remedied by ment to subordination. For this reason, the equal must also apply to women is ascribed making them more neutral. The trick of the contract can be seen as the modern face of to prejudice, limited imagination, or a loss contract, in these examples, is the pretence subordination. of nerve—a failure to see the logical implica- of neutrality that is contradicted by the very Pateman’s thinking on this subject is tions of their own arguments. In Pateman’s nature of the deal. The justification of sur- shaped by her knowledge of writings from view, such an interpretation rests on igno- rogacy, for example, relies on an attempt to the socialist tradition, including Marx and rance of the fact that feminists had raised distinguish the action from baby selling by twentieth-century theorists like Cole, and it objections to this logical failure as early as designating it as a kind of service. As Pateman long predates the division in contemporary 1700. Even J. S. Mill’s more robust interpre- notes, “A mother can be a ‘surrogate’ moth- egalitarian philosophy between those who tation, which attributes such inconsistency er only because her womanhood is deemed focus on failures of distribution and those to the benefits that men derived from keep- irrelevant and she is declared an ‘individual’ who focus on relations of power. The con- ing women out of the sphere of power, still performing a service. At the same time, she trast she makes between exploitation and assumes that the principles of the classic can be a ‘surrogate’ mother only because she subordination and her criticism of those social contract are basically sound and can is a woman” (1988a, 217). scholars who see an unequal distribution simply be extended to women. In Pateman’s Pateman has always stressed that her of resources as the only or main problem argument, by contrast, the subordination work is best understood as a whole, with the anticipates many of today’s debates. Her cri- of women is built into the very foundation critique of the sexual contract placed along- tique of property in the person also serves of liberal-democratic politics through the side her other work on political obligation as a powerful resource in an era that has to sexual contract, which makes it impossible and participatory democracy. Certainly, her grapple with many complex issues regard- for women to figure as the “individuals” of central preoccupation in these keys works ing the ownership of bodies, body tissues, liberal contract theory. Arguing that women of feminist political theory is with the delu- and body parts. As Pateman remarked in were not so much excluded from the origi- sions of modeling the concept of freedom on 2002, “Where lines are to be drawn about nal social contract (as if in some moment the contract, and the ways that the fiction property and commodification, what should of forgetfulness), but were rather included of property in the person obscure the subor- be alienable and inalienable, and where the under terms very different from those that dination attached to wage labor in general balance should be between the two, are some applied to men, she challenges the notion and body contracts in particular. We have of the most pressing issues of the new cen- that one can strip out the earlier bias while already seen that she views the classic story tury” (2002, 51). leaving the fundamental ideas intact. The of the social contract as ideological. In her problems lie far deeper. words, this story is “a brilliant piece of politi- Recent Forays: From the Set- A second theme of Pateman’s work that cal inventiveness that has given the name of tler Contract to Basic Income also significantly shapes contemporary femi- freedom to civil subordination and repressed In her most recent book, Contract and nist thought is the emphasis on embodied dif- the interdependence of civil freedom and Domination (2007), co-authored with Charles ference and the critique of gender neutrality. patriarchal right” (1988a, 231). When we turn Mills, Pateman explores the closely entwined During recent decades, liberalism has been from that hypothetical social contract to the modern histories of race and gender and con- much criticized for its socially disembedded specificities of the employment, marriage, or siders how their legacy has fundamentally notion of the individual to the extent that it prostitution contracts, the repression comes shaped the contemporary global political is hard to locate a liberal now who admits into even sharper view. Contract obscures landscape. As in The Sexual Contract, two to holding this view. Pateman’s more chal- the bodies that are the whole point of the beliefs underpin her approach. The first is lenging (and more widely resisted) claim is deal in surrogacy or prostitution and the that even consciously intersectional works that it is problematic to think of “the indi- necessary accompaniment of any form of that deal with questions at the juncture of vidual” as a disembodied entity. It is cer- employment, and it encourages us to think race, gender, and class must make general- tainly a mistake to view the individual of that the only thing that matters is whether izations about the social relations in which seventeenth-century contract theory as dis- we have given our free and informed con- particular people find themselves: “Without embodied, because that individual did have sent. The usual understanding is that in paid generalization, structures of power tend to a body, and the body was male. However, a employment, a person sells not himself, but disappear into a sea of differences” (2007, 13). move from this outlook toward a gender-free an abstract capacity to labor: labor power. The second belief is that we cannot “under- understanding is no solution, particularly if This concept is one face of property in the stand present-day patterns of global inequal- this shift encourages us to think that whether person. But Pateman argues that “the con- ity, sexual and racial subordination, and indif- we refer to women or men makes no differ- tract in which the worker allegedly sells his ference to distress” without understanding ence to the structure or implications of an labor power is a contract in which, since he how these patterns developed and were jus- argument. In some contexts, a claim to the cannot be separated from his capacities, he tified historically (2007, 163). rights and freedoms of the individual may sells command over the use of his body and The book’s second chapter launches Pate- well represent an advance for women. But if himself” (1988a, 151). Contracts for surro- man’s third exploration of the dimensions we consider the “body-contracts” that form gate motherhood, Pateman writes, involve of original contract—an analysis of the “set- much of the subject matter of The Sexual Con- “a greater fiction”: “The ‘surrogate’ mother tler contract,” which she understands as a tract—marriage contracts, prostitution con- contracts out right over the unique physi- specific example of the broader racial con- tracts, surrogacy contracts—it is profoundly ological, emotional and creative capacity of tract. Pateman investigates the theoretical

PS • October 2010 817 Association News logic that enabled the British colonists to the mark when applied to Pateman. As she tract, which thinkers from Immanuel Kant justify the dispossession of and rule over says, the settlers in America and Australia forward have attempted to provide with a indigenous peoples in North America and were “the natural figures of the thought patina of theoretical credibility. Drawing Australia. She argues that the doctrine of experiment in the texts of political theory on Norman Geras’s idea of the “contract of terra nullius, or “empty lands,” was crucial come to life” (2007, 55). In fact, the power of mutual indifference,” Pateman concludes to this endeavor, but had two very different such devices as the “state of nature” and the this essay with a harsh indictment of the meanings. One view of the concept, which “original contract” come from the undeni- willful ignorance that most people in the she calls the “right of husbandry,” interpreted able fact that they “have helped create the West exhibit to the horrific globalized con- lands as empty and unowned if they were modern world. The colonization of the New sequences wrought by the history of these populated but uncultivated. Both Locke and Worlds took a long time; in a sense it can be two contracts today, including racialized and the Dutch theorist Hugo Grotius used this seen as a series of origins, of settler contracts” gendered poverty and violence on a massive argument. However, unlike earlier scholars, (Pateman and Mills 2007, 55). But if this per- scale. Pateman holds that people’s ability to Pateman shows the presence of a very know these truths but turn a blind eye different understanding of terra nul- to them is related to the creation of “a lius in the second New World locale of Ever since the colony of Virginia hierarchy of worth at home and abroad” Australia. There, until Mabo v. the State (2007, 162). Ultimately, widespread apa- first created a “modern racial struc- of Queensland in 1992, the continent thy and indifference to the suffering of was legally seen as originally devoid ture of white supremacy . . . within a women and nonwhites are partly the of native inhabitants and therefore lit- (patriarchal) state,” the sexual con- product of the overlapping sexual and erally empty. Pateman explicates for tract has shaped the racial contract racial contracts. the first time how these two separate In recent years, Pateman has made senses of terra nullius were incorpo- and vice versa. creative contributions to debates about rated into the framework of the social welfare focusing on proposals for basic contract tradition, the guiding theory income, the regular provision by a gov- of Western political modernity. spective is true, we are left with some critical ernment of a sum of money to every adult Pateman defines a “settler contract” as an unanswered questions that too many politi- citizen. She first called attention to such a agreement among the colonizers themselves cal theorists and political scientists choose policy more than 20 years ago in her article, to simultaneously end a terra nullius, a state to ignore. As Pateman points out, especially “The Patriarchal Welfare State” (1988b, 259), of nature, and create a civil or political soci- in the wake of the rejection of the legal doc- some years before the current explosion of ety and sovereignty for the first time. Native trine of terra nullius, “an unacknowledged interest in basic income. But the roots of peoples do not take part in the contract, “but question mark ultimately hangs over the her interest in welfare provision are even they are henceforth subject to it, and their legitimacy of the states created on what were deeper. The relevant issues that she identi- lives, lands, and nations are reordered by it” claimed to be empty territories” (2007, 8). fies are really the creation of a truly demo- (2007, 56). In North America, the “right of That query ultimately concerns the ques- cratic society, the triumph over subordina- husbandry” was central to the dispossession tion of sovereignty itself and constitutes a tion, the achievement of freedom, and the and subordination of the Native Americans. problem that cannot be reduced to issues of democratic transformation of three interre- In this case, the existence of other peoples “multiculturalism” and “recognition” (see lated and mutually-reinforcing institutions was registered, but their differences were 2007, 73–78). in modern societies: marriage, employment, read in an increasingly “racial” way, espe- In her chapter, “Race, Sex, and Indiffer- and citizenship, the central subjects of her cially after the late eighteenth century. This ence,” Pateman argues that the sexual and first three books. understanding ultimately deprived Native racial contracts have been tightly interwoven Her 1988 analysis of patriarchalism in Americans of the right of nationhood. They since the early modern period in complex and the welfare state set the stage for her more were seen as lacking the marks of civil society: sometimes problematic ways. She sketches recent work. Pateman begins this article by tilling the land and the existence of private some of the most salient developments in exploring some classic arguments and the property, money, and limited constitutional the making of “race,” which she refers to as a underpinnings of welfare provision, particu- government with written laws and represen- thoroughly “political construct,” even “more larly conceptualizations of individuals, citi- tation. In Australia, however, the aborigines completely so than alleged sexual difference” zens, and independence. Hegel, she notes, has were deprived of legal recognition, so that, (Pateman and Mills 2007, 140). Nevertheless, been justly credited for his astute recognition unlike in North America, no treaties of even as she shows, notions of race and sexual dif- that although paid employment is crucial to a nominal nature had to be entered into with ference not only emerged simultaneously, citizen standing in modern societies, mod- them. On the other hand, however, the set- but, together, the racial and sexual contracts ern economies deprive some people of the tlers governed the aborigines in the most have shaped both state institutions and indi- opportunity for employment, placing them minute details of their lives. In many eyes, vidual lives in America and Britain. Ever since undeservedly in the position of social and the natives were uncivilized, and they were the colony of Virginia first created a “mod- political “exiles” (1988b, 235). This situation dismissed as the “lowest in the hierarchy of ern racial structure of white supremacy . . . has come to be known as “Hegel’s dilemma.” races” and utterly incapable of exercising sov- within a (patriarchal) state” (2007, 3), the But Hegel, Pateman observes, also thought ereignty and self-government (2007, 65). sexual contract has shaped the racial con- of women not as undeserved, but as natu- Political theorists are sometimes chided tract and vice versa. Tragically, many women ral exiles. Because he thought that women for the supposedly abstract nature of their fighting to defeat the sexual contract have lacked the requisite qualities for indepen- endeavor, but such criticisms clearly miss also historically buttressed the racial con- dence, Hegel contended that women could

818 PS • October 2010 Association News only be incorporated into the state as depen- are of equal worth for everyone” (2004, 90)? state. They question the idea that contract dents of men. Modern welfare states, in Pate- A basic income, set at a level adequate to narratives can justify the current forms of man’s view, were founded on similar assump- provide “a modest but decent standard of employment, citizenship, marriage, or sov- tions. Citizenship in such states rests on the life” (2003, 131), would, she argues, enable ereignty. And they force us to think deeply concept of independence, but by assumption, “individuals more easily to refuse to enter or about what democracy really ought to mean, law, and social practice, women have not his- to leave relationships that violate individual and what sort of social restructuring could torically been able to fulfill the conditions self-government” (2004, 96). In particular, in overturn institutions formed during modern of independence. Perhaps most tellingly for sharp contrast to welfare policies and employ- patriarchy’s prime and truly enable women Pateman, women have often been treated as ment practices suited to the historical con- to be self-governing. n incapable of self-governance. Such ideas, she struction of marriage and employment, this argues, undergirded the twentieth-century basic income would “provide all women with R e f e r e n c e s development of what a number of feminist life-long economic independence” (2004, Almond, Gabriel A., and Sidney Verba. 1963. The Civic scholars have described as the “two-tier” 100). Nor would the liberating potential Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five welfare state, in which men receive benefits for basic income only concern marriage. “A Nations. Princeton: Princeton University Press. as independent citizens and breadwinners basic income,” she writes, would also “give Mansbridge, Jane. 2008. “Carole Pateman: Radical Liberal?” In Illusion of Consent: Engaging with Car- making a social contribution through paid citizens the freedom not to be employed” ole Pateman, ed. D. I. O’Neill, M. L. Shanley, and I. employment, while most women receive ben- (2003, 132). M. Young, 17–30. University Park, PA: Pennsylva- efits as wives, dependents of their husbands. Pateman recognizes that such an idea nia State University Press. Under such conditions, women’s care-giving “runs counter to the direction of recent Masuoka, Natalie, Bernard Grofman, and Scott L. Feld. 2007. “The Political Science 400: A 20-Year in families is presumed while the status of public policy and much political rhetoric” Update.” PS: Political Science & Politics 40 (1): care-giving as work is denied. Moreover, (2003, 142), so a few observations are in order. 133–45. those trying to steer a way out of this situ- First, Pateman points out that not all work Pateman, Carole. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ation have confronted what Pateman calls is employment. Freeing people from the ———. 1979. The Problem of Political Obligation: A Cri- “Wollstonecraft’s dilemma”: Women cannot need to constantly remain in paid employ- tique of Liberal Theory. New York: Wiley. seek full citizenship as it has been tradition- ment is intended to recognize and enable ———. 1985. The Problem of Political Obligation: A Cri- ally conceived, because such citizenship is the conduct of many kinds of uncompen- tique of Liberal Theory. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University a male category. However, seeking citizen- sated and underappreciated work, such as of California Press. ship recognition on the grounds of the tra- volunteering and care-giving for children ———. 1988a. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ditional care-giving contributions of women or the elderly (2003, 141–42). Second, she ———. 1988b. “The Patriarchal Welfare State.” In risks rigidifying the sexual division of labor. doubts that enough jobs will ever exist for Democracy and the Welfare State, ed. A. Gutmann, Given the troubling origins of welfare provi- all adults in the current or future economy. 231–60. Princeton: Princeton University Press. sion, it is not difficult to see why Pateman Third, she argues that there are good rea- ———. 1989. The Disorder of Women. Stanford, CA: would take an interest in welfare policies that sons to doubt the consensus view that paid Stanford University Press. might help in “advancing women’s freedom” employment promotes or develops abilities ———. 2002. “Self-Ownership and Property in the Per- son: Democratization and a Tale of Two Concepts.” (Pateman 2004, 90). needed for democratic citizenship. Drawing Journal of Political Philosophy 10 (1): 20–53. Phillipe Van Parijs’s 1995 book, Real Free- on arguments about workplace democracy ———. 2003. “Freedom and Democratization: Why dom for All, reignited global debate about a that date to the beginning of her career, she Basic Income is to be Preferred to Basic Capital.” In The Ethics of Stakeholding, ed. K. Dowding, J. basic income 15 years ago with a provocative questions whether capacities developed in de Wispelaere, and S. White. New York: Palgrave argument that viewed the universal income the undemocratic, subordinating structures Macmillan. as a foundation for individual freedom and that characterize most contemporary employ- ———. 2004. “Democratizing Citizenship: Some Advantages of a Basic Income.” Politics and Society choice. At the core of Pateman’s analysis of ment can contribute to democratic citizen- 32 (1): 89–105. basic income is a theory of democratic free- ship (2005, 43). Friedrich von Hayek himself, ———. 2005. “Another Way Forward: Welfare, Social dom that is quite different from Van Parijs’s she points out, thought of employment as Reproduction, and a Basic Income.” In Welfare libertarian approach and, indeed, often quite deleterious to freedom, arguing that a free Reform and Political Theory, ed. L. M. Mead and C. Breem. New York: Russell Sage. critical of it. In much democratic theory, free- society needs a class of gentlemen of pri- ———. 2008. “Afterword.” In Illusion of Consent: Engag- dom is seen mainly, if not exclusively, as col- vate means. “One way of looking at a basic ing with Carole Pateman, ed. D. I. O’Neill, M. L. lective self-government. “But an alternative income,” she notes drily, “is as a democra- Shanley, and I. M. Young, 231–44. University Park: conception,” Pateman writes, “looks further tization of [Hayek’s] argument at a lower Pennsylvania State University Press. Pateman, Carole, and Charles Mills. 2007. Contract and to individual self-government,” or autono- standard of living” (2005, 51). Domination. Cambridge, MA: Polity. my (2005, 38). A key facet of this conception This modest provocation is a minor exam- Pateman, Carole, and M. L. Shanley, eds. 1991. Femi- is that “to maintain and enjoy individual ple of one of the greatest powers of Pate- nist Interpretations and Political Theory. Cambridge, autonomy requires that individuals interact man’s work: the power to unsettle. We cannot MA: Polity. with each other within authority structures escape the challenges that her arguments, Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Har- vard University Press. that enhance rather than diminish their self- even those from the beginning of her career, Ryan, Alan. 2008. “Participation Revisited: Carole government” (2005, 38). Pateman thus asks: pose for us today. These arguments upset Pateman vs. Joseph Schumpeter.” In Illusion of Con- what sort of welfare provision could con- some of the basic conceptions of liberalism sent: Engaging with Carole Pateman, ed. D. I. O’Neill, M. L. Shanley, and I. M. Young, 165–84. University tribute to the creation of such autonomy- and early modern political theory. They ask Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. enhancing authority structures—broadly, to whether liberal democratic practices of vot- “the creation of a more democratic society ing are enough to legitimate the power of in which individual freedom and citizenship the state and citizens’ obligation to obey the

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