Gender power institute conceptas a trend to develop methods of gender economics: theoretical background of the issue

Currently the supporters of the feminist economics, who apply the tools of conventional economics, study a wide range of gender inequality issues. At the same time the Marxist and neoclassical branches of economics are considered to be the most developed. According to Irene van Staveren it is the result of the first stage of the development of the feminist economics. The aim of the first stage was to “to criticize the main branch of economics

(neoclassical economics) and its neoliberal political consequences” [1].

Recently this branch of scientific knowledge has applied the tools of different branches of institutional economics that has revealed that gender patterns of behaviour may be considered as an institute [2; 3]. These patterns are approved to act indirectly by means of other institutes (state, labour market, property rights, public services, education, social environment, family) providing “institutionalized advantages and disadvantages” depending on a gender [2; 4] and to reproduce gender inequality in different spheres of society [2; 4; 5; 6; 7]. However in different studies scientists usually pay attention to the influence of particular institutes on gender inequality. At the same time, Mona Lena Krook and Fiona Mackay have pointed out that institutional theory tools are used to study only formal institutes [7]. Currently the most common objects of study are 1) the election system that limits the representativeness of women in politics [7; 8]; 2) labour market institutes as the main field of gender inequality reproduction [2; 9]; 3) different gender regimes of welfare states [10; 11]. The above distinguished institutes are analyzed first of all as atomic units despite the patters of their interaction [4; 12]. Moreover, the institutes providing the internal determination of economic agent behaviour are excluded from this institutional system. This determination, as it will be demonstrated further, explains the origin of power. Among Russian scientists who apply the synthesis of institutional economic theory and gender economy, we should mention M. B. Budaeva [13]. Her works are devoted to the specificity of gender power manifestation in the condition of planned and market economy. But the disadvantages of these studies are the lack of methodology for institutional economic theory.

Methodology (research tools)

To remove the above mentioned restrictions, the study of the feminist economics as an object of institutional analysis should be specified in two aspects.

The first aspect is to specify the categorical apparatus (an object) of the study using the tools of one of the branches of institutional theory – power economics. The relevance to apply the power economics tools is determined, on the one hand, by the peculiarities of the development of the feminist economics as a branch of science and, on the other hand, by the need to clarify the coordinate system of scientific thinking because the hermeneutics ambiguity of the categorical apparatus is still typical for scientists working in this field.

The category of power is known to have always been important in feminist studies as power is the main tool of gender relationships structuring where a man is a subject of power and a woman is an object. Systematization of feminist studies, that became a basis to form the methodology of feminist economics has concluded that power was considered as an external impact without any internal forms of demonstration. In its turn, the external features and forms of demonstration need to be explained and are rather the starting point of the study than the basis for the theoretical concept of power relations research. The questions that need to be explained are: how can one agent influence the behaviour of another agent? Why can a power subject subordinate counteragent’s behaviour to achieve goals? How can the object’s resistance be overcome?

To answer these questions the behaviour model of the power theory developed by Vyacheslav Dement’ev will be used. He is reminded to have added costs connected with power elements in transactions between them in the neo-institutional model of economic agent behaviour. These costs were added to transformation and trans-sanction costs in the neo-institutional model of economic agent behaviour. And they include the subordinate costs and refusal costs. The first ones refer to costs by a managed agent when their recourses are subordinated in favour of a subject of power as a result the utilities for another agent are created. The refusal costs are created as additional for an object of power. An object will have to bare the costs when refuses to subordinate their recourses or when a managed agent uses own resources to the detriment of a managing agent. As a consequence, the content and the results of economic agent behaviour change. These can be expressed as 1) the change of costs and benefits of alternative models of economic behaviour; 2) the change of motivation of an economic agent to alternative models of behaviour because some models of economic behaviour become more “profitable” for an object or subject of power and others stop being profitable from the point of view of maximization of utility function; 3) the change in the resources distribution between parties of power relations i.e. resources controlled by an object of power pass under the control of a subject of power, in its turn an object of power may access to the resources of a subject of power; 4) the change of aims that the activity of economic agents is aimed at; 5) the imbalanced production of goods, overproduction of some and underproduction of others [14, р. 74–88]. As a result a subject of power receives in exchange of their resources more than they “cost” in the absence of power effects, i.e. less than marginal costs on their creation (power rent). In its turn, an object of power receives less than their resources “cost” under the terms of perfect competition. i.e. less than the cost (price) of a marginal product created by these resources.

The second aspect suggests the transition from the presentation of the system of institutes that provides permanent reproduction of gender inequality as a part of external area to the presentation of the system as an aggregate of internal elements and their connections by the methods of interlevel approach based on the system analysis. This analysis is characterised by the addition of horizontal and vertical, feed forward and feedback, direct and indirect connections between the system elements and their study. The changes that occur in the system as a whole are the consequences of aggregate and slight changes of its individual parts, though it is impossible to trace the impact of any particular part. We would like to stress that the use of the interlevel approach suggests the transformation of the simplest management schemes in a hierarchic economy because the problem of the balanced development of all levels of hierarchy arises [15, р. 27–33].

The use of methodology of the interlevel approach accomplishes structuring of the investigated system of institutes. To our mind, this analytical operation is necessary to give a precise idea of the functioning active system of institutes and on this basis to determine possible strategic imperatives of its development. In this case we want to revise that the structuring of any system “refers us to a mixed spatial-functional task of a system because elements are often specified by spatial system forming features and connections – by functional ones (or vice versa). In their turn, spatial features identify objects using their location in space and time and functional space is formed by means of objects and phenomena. Under the function of the object we mean a systematically realized method of its interaction with other objects of the system forming space or environment in this space [16, р. 26, 30].

Results

The application of the postulates of the behaviour theory of power by Vyacheslav Dement’ev towards the study of nature and mechanism of power relation between men and women specifies, to our mind, one of the key categories of the feminist economics – the category of power. From this point of view it is necessary to introduce the category of “gender power”, it means a potential opportunity of a subject of power to affect the behaviour of an object of power by a specific mechanism of influence that is one of the gender power attributes, the mechanism of sanctions in order to maximize the own function of utility (appropriation of power rent) under the condition of asymmetry of economic resources distribution.

The essential characteristic of possible types and forms of gender power is presented in Table 1. We would like to stress that, first, the indicated forms of power complement each other, are, to some extent, the complements and according to historical or economic conditions each form has its own comparative advantages.

Secondly, despite the form and type (explicit and implicit) of refusal costs, they are all aimed to limit freedom and dependence of an economic agent, who is an object of power, from its subject. Thus, both types of gender power are, on the one hand, exact antithesis of freedom as a factor restricting the independence of the choice of an object of power.

Thirdly, externalities of power are bipolar: a subject of power has their positive external effect but an object of power has their negative ones, that is expressed in sanction to them in case of refusal to subordinate. Hence, when choosing models of behaviour an object of gender power should consider and compare the costs associated with subordination of own resources to the interests of an external economic agent (i.e. a subject) and alternative costs arising in case of “insubordination” [for more details see: 17].

Table 1

Essential characteristic of types and forms of gender power

Types of gender power	Nature of gender power	Forms of restraint of freedom in choosing	Priority forms of power manifestation	Sanctions for an object of power (refusal costs) when power dispositions are broken	Externalities of gender power for its subject
Power based on violence	Forced redistribution of resources	Externalphysical violence	Control over resources use	Resources (goods) alienation. Loss of a part of income or property in the result of requisitioning by a subject of power	Intentional in a form of receiving direct power rent – the difference between the costs of a subject of power to the violence use against its object and the “price” of its consequences for an object of power and the amount of subordination costs that this object is ready to pay to avoid violence
		Internal-psychological compulsion	Control       of behaviour    (of making decisions)	Execution of actions or compliance of behaviour norms by an object of power when these actions or norms are of interest of its subject. Suppress of motivation for actions, that are alternative to subordination to a subject of power	Unintentional getting additional benefits (dominant) effect in a form of modification of the activity results of an object of power
Power based on exchange	Externalvoluntary exchange of resources	Externaladdress instructions	Control       of economic processes when resources    are particularly used by    economic agents	Restrict the access to goods. Use of own resources to make benefits that are of interest of a subject of power	Intentional in a form of power rent acquisition, opportunities to exceed the limits of own resources, of transformation of the composition and structure of real aims that a subject is aimed at maximizing the own advantages
		Internalpresence of costs	Control of interests and motivation	Modification of choice conditions (the costs value of alternative behaviour models)	Unintentional getting additional benefits (dominant) effect in a form of modification of the aims structure and motivation of an object of power

Genesis of reasons, that determine permanent reproduction of gender power at stages of civilization development, has revealed that social division of labour and unequal society assessment of the work results of men and women, that strengthened in the process of civilization development, were objective prerequisites for the formation of gender power.

On this basis the gender asymmetrical distribution of labour products and economic resources in whole was possible. This distribution is the main reason of power relations between economic agents. Permanent reproduction of these foundations to set gender power became possible in the result of appropriate gender roles consolidation in

“collective actions” through the rules system that regulate the relations between economic system agents. Analysis of different approaches to the definition of institutional environment content has revealed that the institutional environment creates the opportunity to implement one or the other type of activity in the framework specified by the particular system of restriction rules. These rules were formed under the impact of objective conditions of material production. In its turn, the institutional environment may also determine and specify a trend of development of material conditions of social life. This idea was stressed by the author of the “concept of orders” by Walter Eucken [18]. The distinguished feature of different economic orders is the correlation between power and freedom, i.e. economic reality is determined, first of all, by the extension how each individual is free to implement own economic plans. The category of “order” is also worked out by modern scientists in the frameworks of the feminist researches [19]. It includes the aggregation of different gender regimes (way of life) that are created by people’s actions and strategies implemented in the frameworks of specified institutional conditions that form a range of objective obstacles and opportunities to implement actions and vital projects by particular men and women.

To our mind, the correlation between economic and gender orders and institutional environment where a subject and an object of gender power will play adequate economic roles specified in the economic scheme, may be expressed in the following scheme (Fig.) [for more details see: 20].

Interconnection between economic and gender order and institutional environment

Notes: direct relations of influence are marked by an unbroken line, inverse – by a dotted one; done by the author.

The analysis of the adequacy of economic and gender order changes, that we have conducted, has revealed that in fact the gender power concentration level and amount of subjects that regulate it change against the economic order type. Therefore, on the one hand the institutional environment determines what features of economic and gender orders may be realized at this particular time period since it creates the possibility to realize one or the other activity type in the restriction frameworks specified by a particular rules system. On the other hand, an institutional environment can not be formed “in isolation from” economic conditions and social structure since this imbalance will lead to an institutional conflict in the present institute system, and as a result, to the decrease of efficiency of social-economic system operation in whole1.

Moreover, we have revealed that gender power exists in all types of economic and gender orders, even in competitive one, where a market is a subject of power. According to Vyacheslav Dement’ev “this type of power is characterized as ....quasi-power because in this case, unlike the direct power, some power features are absent. There is no economic agent (a subject of power), that is aimed at maximization of their utility and for this purpose overrides another economic agent (an object of power). But for all that, some essential features of power remain: submission is the result of a counteragent attempts to maximize their utility; there are (refusal) costs when an economic agent refuses to submit and also there are subordination costs that they have to incur in favour of external third parties” [14, р. 155–156]. As we can see the gender power phenomenon does not disappear. Never the less, elitist gender power is the most efficient type of its organization, it suggests the restriction of gender power by other economic agent’ freedom, and so its concentration level is not significant. This type of power is characterized by: 1) equal access of both men and women to manufacturing and income resources, including the state management; 2) the extension of public benefits related to child care to both parents; 3) the elimination of gender stereotypes effects in society and family economy; 4) similar returns to human capital from both men and women; 5) gender expertise of normative-legal programtarget documents and decision management.

Currently, contrary to the statements of the Government of the Russian Federation, we observe the removal from competitive economic order corresponding to market economy postulates, towards the development of “barter economy” order that is characterized by a maximum level of economic and gender power concentration. Not by chance, international experts state the increase of gap between declared, desired and implemented freedom, including gender one, in Russia2. This conclusion is supported by Freedom House researches “About the state of freedom in the world”. According to these studies Russia has passed from the group of “partly free” to the group of “restricted” according to the level of political and civil liberties of citizens since 20043. The UN experts also noted the strengthening of gender power in modern economy of Russia4.

The distinguished trends are also the results of power distribution between several subjects of power: family (in its head), social surroundings, organizations and the state. Within the given institutional environment restrictions and opportunities, each of them can form their own disposition of gender power that regulates interaction between an object of power and each of its subject. Therefore, each of them makes their own system of “rules of a game” with enforcement mechanisms to implement them (sanctions). Thus, each subject of power is an institute that is included in the whole system of gender power institutes.

Based on the analysis of essential features of an institute that are used by modern economic science and the study of the genesis of the system of factors of the reproduction of gender power, in our opinion, the gender power institute can be defined as a special kind of socio-economic institute that has been formed under the influence of objective conditions of material production (social division of labour) in the form of relatively stable power relations, secured through the system of legislative acts, contracts and informal rules, that organize forms of interaction of a subject and an object of power and define the objectives and model scenarios of their life.

In the suggested definition we distinguish the following key issues that give structural and functional characteristic of its content [for more details see: 21].

First – the content of a gender power institute is gradually changing as a result of changing of material conditions of production, that ensures its sustainability over a long period of time and the possibility to adapt to the system of rules and regulations of economic subjects incoming in this type of interaction, enhancing their expertise and allowing more rational behaviour adequately to the disposition of gender power (information function).

Second – the rules regulating power relations must be admitted by all interactive agents and must be implemented. (function of agreement and interests coordination). Only in this condition it is possible “to forecast the counteragents actions and so coordinate and submit the beforehand in accordance with the stereotypes of economic behaviour adopted within the frameworks of a particular institute” [22, р. 51].

Third – the regulating of interaction forms between a subject and an object of power is implemented on the basis of the subordination of their behaviour adequately to the degree and size of power potentials (subordination function). Moreover, the resources, benefits and costs will be distributed adequately to power potentials. Thus, the gender power institute implements the distribution function.

Fourth – the system of preferences and the needs of institutional subjects, as well as incentives to economic activity are formed in the institutional environment and rely on social experience (accumulation function). And it is quite known that when accumulating experience to follow a given model of behaviour, costs are reduced when using this particular rule. However the transition to other activities or decision-making process becomes unprofitable and difficult. These activities and process may be more effective in comparison to traditional. In the result of this blocking effect the inefficient forms of gender-based interaction regulated by adequate institutional environment may exist for quite a long time. At that, they currently seem to be non-alternative and natural for economic subjects, though we have revealed in many of the existing formal and informal norms are the result of a long revolution.

The above-mentioned essential features and functions are typical for each institute in the system of gender power institutes as they support its unity and integrity.

The spatial-functional description of the system of gender power institutes operating in the conditions of modern Russia are shown in table 2. To describe the system in space the classification by the levels of economy developed by Georgi Kleiner has been used. According to the classification we may distinguish 1) the level of macro-economics determining macroeconomic processes; 2) the level of meso-economics that defines the operation and interaction of the enterprises and their groups, financial and industrial entities, complexes, industries and markets; 3) the level of microeconomics that refers to the decisionmakings and activities of organizations and microagents in the face of the social environment of nanoagents; 4) the level of nanoeconomics that determine social-economic behaviour of individual agents-individuals [23, р. 6]. The institutes that establish the authority of a state are on the first level, the institutes reflecting the characteristics of the institutional environment of regions in the formation of gender power disposition are on the second level, the institutes reproducing the power of organizations, social surroundings and family in the person of its head are on the third level, the institutes of internal power are on the fourth level. The latter is expressed by the impact on social needs, values and internal rules of behaviour of men and women creating the internal need to act according to the gender power disposition [for further information see: 24; 25]. It should be noted that the system of gender power institutes described in the abovementioned spatial-functional classification is presented as a closed system, i.e. the analysis of the impact of international law regulating the human rights for the international legislation (the system of formal institutes) is excluded.

The features, that give a precise characteristic of each element (institute) of the system and determine the function of each element in the whole system, have been used to give a functional description of the system of gender power institutes. To our mined these features could be the following things: a subject and an object of power; power aims and functions that that it implements in the society; resources the power is based on; the content of power disposition (decision-making sphere, the field of activity or relationships that reinforce appropriate institutional roles5; the character of the imposed sanctions and the mechanism of control when the power disposition is broken; the power boarders of a given subject over a given object.

Table 2

The institutional structure of gender power in modern Russia

Institutes (subjects)	Object of power	Aims of power	Functions of power	Disposition of gender power		Control mechanisms
				Content	Institutional role
Macroeconomic and mesoeconomic institutes
State     and regional power	All economic agents     of national economy	Establishment of fundamental rules         of economic behavior Enforcement of economic and civil rights	Is the reason for the power of      private economic agents,   based on ownership or on the power rights, conferred   by the state	Fixation of formal gender equality Priority-driven state financing of “male” branches of economy Fixation of status for  women  as workers     with family obligations and   the   main receivers of social services Limit of access to resources     and goods	For  men  – workerprofessional For women – working mother	System of public and regional bodies and institutes
Microeconomic institutes
Power    of organization	Employees Other organizations interacting with it	Direct influence on behavior of other economic and state agents	Maximization of profits as a result of cheap and     more skilled women’s labor use	Loss of corporate saving as a result of attachment by the power subject (gender gap in payment) Dependence of vacancies from the presence of family obligations. With the aim of career development women can undergo sexual harassment from the male leaders, gap in salary, access restrictions to the system of raising the level of professional skills, making a career	For  men  – worker without family obligations For women – worker burdened with family obligations	Control system accepted in an organization
Power    of social environment	Participant and groups	Control     of group participants’ behavior	Formation  of gender stereotype model of vital behavior	Reproduction of vital behavior standard models	For men – principal earner and a person to rely on For women-housewife	Informal control of a social group

The end of table 2

Institutes (subjects)	Object of power	Aims of power	Functions of power	Disposition of gender power		Control mechanisms
				Content	Institutional role
Family power in its head	Women and men	Using     of power object’s resources with the aim of appropriation of power rent	Maximization of goods of power subject in acquisition of power rent, possibilities of     going beyond   the limits of own resources	Family    duties should be well-defined according to sex Choice of family type, spheres of professional activity, forms of spare time should correspond to the stereotype     of principal earner	For men – principal earner and a person to rely on For women-housewife	Corresponde nce of actions of an object of power to power disposition
Nanoeconomic institutes
Internal power	Women and men	Internal control     of own behavior	Modification of aims and motivation structure according to power subject demands	Effect of status stereotypes Family    duties should be well-defined according to sex Behavior of men and    women should correspond    to gender status Employment in public sector of economy should not affect   the quality        of households duties	For men – principal earner and a person to rely on For women-housewife	Self-control (fitted gender rules       of behaviour in self-identity of men and women)

The application of the interlevel analysis tools to the study of the institutional structure of gender power in modern Russia has revealed borders and nature of interaction between institutes belonging to different levels of hierarchy. Based on the study of a great number of correlations between the system elements the key parameters of the inefficiency of the existed system of gender power institutes in Russia have been distinguished. Among them are: formal evening-out of power borders in macrolevel institutes and strengthening of gender power concentration in microlevel institutes, unification of power disposition for subjects that are on the same level of power, non-coherence of aims and functions of institutes belonging to different levels of hierarchy, low degree of population awareness about forms and factors of gender power manifestation, absence of feedback and horizontal connections/ties between the system elements [for more precise data see: 20].

Then with quantitative and qualitative research methods it is possible to determine the costs of restriction of possibilities of human capital realization of both men and women outside the institutional roles given by the system of gender power institutes. For example, we have found that the costs of gender power reproduction in the modern economy of Russia have different forms of demonstration: for women-low profitability of human capital in the result of existing gender discrimination in social and reproductive sectors of the economy; for men – the under-exploitation of human capital in the result of low life expectancy and high mortality rate in working age. These gender disparities proved to reduce the effectiveness of the functioning of all economic subjects: individuals (women and men), businesses and institutes, as well as the national economy as a whole [26].

Conclusion

Everything  mentioned above stipulates for the modernization of the current system of gender power institutes in modern Russia. To our mind, it is necessary to use the analysis tools of institutional changes accumulated in economics to accurately determine possible trends of optimisation of the system of institutes. In the present paper we only indicate important stages to specify strategic imperatives of the development of gender power institutes of an elitist type.

The first stage to develop the methodology of an effective strategy to alter gender power institute system is to study peculiarities of possible strategies of institutional changes, that, as it is quite know, vary in: a subject and object of alterations; nature and time of their changes; unequal in the amount of their implementation costs. As our analysis has revealed, the use of institutional projection strategy in its extended meaning is the most effective to optimize the system of gender power institutes in Russia. The extended meaning of the strategy suggests the opportunity to apply all known strategies of institutional creation as its stages, except the strategy of shock therapy, in condition that the construction of a new institute is based on the adoption of other similar institutes (or their elements) from other social-economic systems.

On the second stage it is necessary to specify the quality determinants of the present institutional system that are important to determine its quality, to choose possible transplants of the most efficient institutes systems operating in different countries and to determine the vector and the content of the alteration of the current system of gender power institutes. For example, we have formulated the following quality criteria of the system of gender power institutes: objectivity, the type of connections between the system elements, coherence of aims and functions of the system elements, the size of the system extension, the degree of distribution, utility, the diversity level, sustainability, effectiveness and efficiency.

The third stage determines the nature and the importance to alter the operating system of gender power institutes from the direction of economic agents (men and women). We would like to stress that according to the logic of institutional alteration process suggested by Douglass North and that is currently being developed by the representatives of institutional economics it is precisely the degree of coincidence of reformers’ intentions to build new institutes and the economic agents’ convictions will determine the functioning efficiency of a projected institute [27, р. 80–93]. The analysis, we have made, has established, for example, that the demand for the application of the system of gender power institutes of elitist type in Russia is formed in families with elitist internal structure and in families with transitional type where the mechanisms of institutionalization of conventional gender power models of behaviour (sustainability, coordination, coupling, education and inertia) are not observed [for more details see: 28].

The final stage is to determine the trend and scenario of functioning of the system of gender power institutes of elitist type. For example, the algorithm of the formation of the development trend of the system of gender power institutes of elitist type has been developed for the economy of Russia. This algorithm provides: stage-by-stage creation of direct, inverse and horizontal connections between institutes belonging to different levels of hierarchy; the coupling mechanisms of introduced institutes with active ones; stabilization mechanisms of norms of elitist behaviour of economic agents [for more details see: 29].

Theoretical postulates and the methodological tools, developed by the author on their basis, may be used as a conceptual basis for further theoretical and empirical studies devoted to the issues of gender inequality reproduction in the retrospective of its formation, development and optimization. We believe that the use of such paradigm towards the study of gender phenomena and processes will systematize the achievements of Russian and foreign scientists in the field of analysis of different demonstration of gender asymmetry and the mechanisms of its reduction. Although it does not mean the unification of a research program used by the scientists since the use of regulations by different economics scientific schools is not excepted but, vice versa, will promote a further development of feminist economics methodology according to the logic of post-neoclassical stage of scientific knowledge development.