The contest to shape global governance is increasingly being conducted on a number of levels and among a diverse set of actors. This book argues that increasing engagement between international institutions and sectors of civil society is producing a new form of international organization. The authors study the relationship between the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organisation, and environmental, labor, and women's movements, providing a rich analysis of the institutional response to social movement pressure.

"Gender and Development or Women in Development" policies have been promoted in development organizations for almost three decades now. Although they have helped improve the immediate material condition of women, by and large such policies have involved organizations in reproducing the ideological and material conditions for women's subordination in the family and the economy.
This book offers a gendered analysis of development organizations in a range of different institutional arenas. It builds a conceptual framework for exploring the politics and procedures internal to the institutions...

Though the proportion of women in national assemblies still barely scrapes 16% on average, the striking outliers - Rwanda with 49% of its assembly female, Argentina with 35%, Liberia and Chile with new women presidents this year - have raised expectations that there is an upward trend in women's representation from which we may expect big changes in the quality of governance. But getting women into public office is just the first step in the challenge of creating governance and accountability systems that respond to women's needs and protect their rights.

Using case studies...