Global Financial Governance and Progressive Feminist Agendas

Feminists and other progressives have long argued that global macroeconomic governance is deeply deficient. The deficiencies have been revealed and amplified by the COVID-19 crisis. The need to radically reconstruct the global economic governance architecture is therefore pressing. Albert Hirschman’s conception of “possibilism” is particularly relevant for navigating these challenges. In the spirit of Hirschmanian possibilism, I make a case for what I refer to as “enabling global financial governance.” I use this term to refer to reforms of global financial governance that could provide a supporting environment for feminist and other progressive plans for sustainability and social justice. I advance the provocative claim that feminists and other social justice advocates should embrace what I term “permissive multilateralisms” rather than “harmonized multilateralism.” I also highlight a number of directions for global financial governance reform that could provide policy space for progressive initiatives, including those advanced by feminists. I offer this paper as a small way of honoring my friend, Eugenia Correa, whose intellectual legacy and commitment to engaged scholarship has influenced me profoundly.