Approaches to Gender and the Law: Research and Applications

Three paradigms for gender research are reviewed, illustrated by examples from employment discrimination law to highlight issues in research on gender and the law. Next, an agenda for research on gender, social science, and the law is outlined, and the five articles in this special issue are reviewed in terms of that agenda. Finally, research ideas for the future and practical applications of the research presented in the five articles are considered, specifically, the use of the reasonable woman standard and expert testimony in sexual harassment cases, and the influence of sex roles and sex stereotypes in producing gender effects.     

Officialising strategies: participatory processes and gender in Thailand's water resources sector

This paper examines participatory processes in an Asian Development Bank (ADB) technical assistance package in Thailand's water resource sector. The authors analyse various levels of social interaction in the local community, in meso‐level stakeholder consultations, and in opposition to ADB's environment programmes expressed by civil society organisations. While participatory approaches are employed to promote more bottom‐up management regimes in water resources, the authors find that local power and gender differences have been overlooked. Evolving institutions of resource governance are constituted by gender, reproducing gender inequalities such as regarding water intended for agricultural use as a ‘male’ resource. Finally, it is argued that understandings and practices of participation legitimise particular agendas in a politically polarised arena.     

A forecasting model for state expenditures

In this study, the median voter model is applied to the problem of predicting state public expenditures in four major categories: human services, elementary and secondary education, higher education, and health services. Demand functions for public services are derived within a formal utility-maximizing model. The resulting model is estimated using time-series data for a representative state and the model is used to predict state spending for fiscal year 1985. The results of the estimation are consistent with the predictions of the median voter model and the forecasts correspond closely to those made by the State Bureau of the Budget. In contrast, a naive autoregressive model of state spending performs poorly.