Women Talking Politics
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Women Talking Politics A research magazine of the NZPSA New Zealand Political Studies Association Te Kāhui Tātai Tōrangapū o Aotearoa November 2019 ISSN: 1175-1542 Contents From the editor .................................................................................................................................. 4 Contributors ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Local Government Elections 2019 ....................................................................... 9 Jean Drage - Women’s Electoral Success in the 2019 Local Elections: A Womenquake? ........ 9 Articles ..................................................................................................................................... 15 Raven Cretney & Sylvia Nissen - Climate politics ten years from Copenhagen: activism, emergencies, and possibilities ............................................................................................................. 15 Peyton Bond - Decriminalised Sex Work in New Zealand/Aotearoa: the ‘Dunedin Model’ ..... 20 Sarah Roth Shank - ‘Crisis’ of Incarceration: Responding with a Restorative Reorientation of the Criminal Justice System ................................................................................................................. 23 Laura MacDonald & Ayca Arkilic - The European Union’s Disintegration over Refugee Responsibility-Sharing .......................................................................................................................... 26 Bethan Greener - Pursuing the WPS Agenda? A Focus on Participation .................................. 29 Reflections ............................................................................................................................ 32 Maria Bargh & Lydia Wevers - Land is never just land ................................................................. 32 Emily Beausoleil - Transforming Unjust ‘Structures of Feeling’: Insights from Four Unlikely Sectors ..................................................................................................................................................... 35 Research briefs ................................................................................................................. 37 Lara Greaves - LGBT+ Politics in Aotearoa ..................................................................................... 37 Nadine Kreitmeyr - “Despot Housewives” or Politically Relevant Actors? First Ladies, Authoritarian Rule & Neoliberal Policy-Making in the Middle East & North Africa ...................... 38 Francesca Dodd - Why do we continue to get sub-optimum outcomes in the New Zealand housing sector? An analysis of a complex governance network. .................................................. 39 2 wtp Trang Thu Autumn Nguyen - Leadership, Public Values and Organizational Commitment in a developing country context: A mixed-method approach ................................................................. 40 Book reviews ....................................................................................................................... 41 Rae Nicholls - Harvey, J. & Edwards, B. (2019) Annette King: The Authorised Biography. Upstart Press, Auckland, New Zealand. ............................................................................................ 41 Margaret Hayward - Waring, M. (2019) Marilyn Waring the political years. Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, New Zealand. ....................................................................................................... 43 Cover image: The 2019 Climate Strike protest in Wellington, part of youth-led protests across the globe against inaction on climate change, used with permission, credit, and thanks to Kieran Meredith. The editor would like to acknowledge the generous support and help of the New Zealand Political Studies Association (NZPSA) Te Kāhui Tātai Tōrangapū o Aotearoa, NZPSA President Dr Kate McMillan, Dr Jean Drage, and especially Dr Sylvia Nissen. 3 wtp From the editor Sarah Hendrica Bickerton Tēnā koutou. As I have thought on ‘Women Talking Politics’ this year, as a sociologist that studies politics and teChnology, and particularly as a soCiologist that tends to Centre gender as a ConCern in her scholarly work and civic involvement, it occurs to me how much we are, in 2019, at a crucial developing moment in our understandings around gender. Some of you will have noticed that in the call for papers I put out this year, I inCluded non-binary persons alongside women, both in terms of research on politics around them, but also scholarship done by them. This is not to somehow devalue the unique position of women, but rather as an acknowledgement that gender as a system, and how we understand it as we move into the middle part of the 21st Century, is a lot more Complex than historical Western constructions have maintained. Particularly, that the inequalities of our gender system manifest not just for women, but also for other genders, and as suCh if we are to address the root of those inequalities, then raising up all those devalued and disempowered by that gender system is crucial. I say this particularly in light of the delay that has been put on the amending legislation around the Births, Deaths, Marriage, and Relationships Act, whiCh would have brought (amongst other things) the ability to amend the gender on one’s birth certificate in alignment with how it is also done for the likes of the passport; by simple declaration. This simple change, to bring birth certificates to the same method of gender amendment as other identification documents, would make lives immeasurably better for those who are not Cis-gender, by allowing them to functionally operate in our society as the gender they identify with without gatekeeping by mediCal professionals. The power of this simple change is reflected in another piece of legislation, colloquially known as Abortion Law Reform, where the country is moving abortion out of the Crimes Act and into the purview of health, where of course it should be. As part of the legislation the proposal is to remove gatekeeping of people who get pregnant, so that they have control over their bodies and their own reproduction. To give people the power of choice. Moreover, with abortion law reform, there is a push to ensure the language therein acknowledges that it is not just women who get pregnant, that trans men and non-binary people also do too, and we should not have legislation that excludes them. Both of these pieCes of legislation are intertwined with the wider projeCt of bodily autonomy and inClusion in a truly pluralistic society, as well as a political effort to ensure we are operating within a gender system that funCtions without inequity. This is a Continuation of feminist efforts and gender scholarship of deCades, as well as the enfranchisement of gender as a system aCross multiple axes of enaCtment, inCluding of Course such things as anti-raCist, anti-colonialist, and queer intersections. Unfortunately, despite this arc of progress of inClusion and ever more Complex understandings, there are inevitably set-backs. We see this in the above delay that the amendment to the Births, Deaths, Marriage, and Relationships ACt has suffered despite all the evidenCe in support of it. Not to mention resistanCe to inClusively-gendered language use in Abortion Law Reform legislation. However, despite these, we really have an amazing opportunity as researchers to contribute to understanding gender as a system, and the ways in which women and non-binary researchers are participating in the academy but also outside the academy, doing independent research. This is reflected in the range of contributors we 4 wtp have this year; PhD students, independent researchers, university lecturers and professors, as well as the range of topics. This year’s issue begins with Jean Drage and her piece on the ‘womenquake’ that was the 2019 local government elections, with an overall increase of 4% in the number of seats held by women. Raven Cretney and Sylvia Nissen look at Climate politics ten years out from the Copenhagen Climate negotiations, refleCting on the latest wave of global climate activism with that history as a Context. Given the Climate Strike aCtivism of 2019, and the symbolism of the work of Greta Thunberg, it is no surprise that an image taken of the Climate Strike over parliament grounds is the cover for this year’s issue. The artiCles Continue with Peyton Bond’s work on determining what the deCriminalisation of sex work in New Zealand looks like under the Prostitution Reform Act (2003) and establishes practical lessons. Sarah Roth Shank’s pieCe follows this, presenting the tensions in the New Zealand Criminal justiCe system, and how restorative justice approaCh might fit with suCh a baCkdrop. We then shift to Laura MacDonald and Ayca Arkilic’s argument that despite there being a Common approaCh to asylum law in the European Union, it is fairly minimalist, and that EU immigration poliCy is a poliCy area that is amongst the most resistant to Europeanisation and harmonisation. Bethan Greener looks at the United Nations’ Women, PeaCe, and Security agenda, and how this fits with increasing the number of women in NZ Police and NZDF. In Reflections, Maria Bargh and Lydia Wevers look to how landscapes are never neutral of Culture, and moreover Can be sites of Cultural ConfliCt as well as allowing us to ask questions