The idea of a social contract as the source of legitimate political authority has played a key role in the development of liberal political thought since the seventeenth century. This chapter provides a brief overview of the social contract tradition and of feminist critiques, and explores the ambiguity of this tradition for feminist theory. In particular, it discusses how feminist theory might take the social contract seriously by analysing it in the multiple contexts of unequal power that derive not from an initial baseline of equality but from historical relations based on force and fraud. After a brief overview of social contract theory, the chapter focuses on Carole Pateman's influential feminist work The Sexual Contract and the debates which it has generated. It then considers the relationship between the sexual and racial contracts.

This chapter discusses recent feminist work on time, and finds that this represents an important contribution to political analysis which has had a significant, although limited, impact on mainstream political theory and practice. It briefly surveys self-conscious reflections by mainstream political theorists on the political significance of time, along with that of some sociologists, anthropologists and historians. The chapter discusses feminist ideas on the relevance of history and temporal location. It considers in more detail about feminist contributions that are concerned with time cultures and the distribution of work and leisure time. What feminism can bring to the concept of time is the double insistence that it is a central political concept and that its analysis has particular relevance for women. Feminism sees that time is politically important as a scarce resource alongside and interacting with status, money and power.

This chapter examines the concept of empowerment, in development/political discourse and practice, from the conventional 'malestream' conceptualisation to a feminist perspective on the term. Using Nigeria as a case study, it assesses some of the strategies that have been used to empower women. The chapter explores feminist contributions to the empowerment debate and the implementation of associated practices, and argues that the conventional approaches are inadequate because they often are too mechanistic and too focused on goals and not on the dynamics of the process. It takes as its starting point the conceptualisation of empowerment as a process of providing women with the tools and resources needed to live independent, productive and dignified lives. However, the chapter questions the notion of power as something to be given and it argues that the feminist perspective provides a more dynamic and effective approach to the understanding of empowerment.

Development is a contested concept and is subject to multiple uses and definition in both academic and practitioner communities. This chapter explores the main feminist contributions to the study of development and assesses their impact on contemporary mainstream development practice and discourse. It begins by providing a brief review of the concept of development and some of the key themes that are considered within the field of development studies. The chapter then reviews the mainstream of development theory in the 1950s and 1960s, demonstrating that these were, by and large, focused primarily on the male experience of development. It considers the emergence of feminist development theory in the 1970s and 1980s, focusing in particular on the contribution of the 'Women in Development' (WID), Women and Development' (WAD) and 'Gender and Development' (GAD) approaches. The extent of feminist interventions' impact on the mainstream of development theory and practice has been uneven.

Until quite recently, Western political theory almost completely ignored women and gender issues; this neglect was largely unremarked, and there were few feminist academics in the discipline. This book aims to examine a range of concepts in the light of feminist critiques, to consider whether they may need to be reconstituted in the light of these critiques and to assess the impact of feminist debates on mainstream thought. It provides a balance between 'classic' political concepts and those that are being currently developed by feminist theorists, and to reflect the interconnections between the various sub-fields of politics as a discipline. Rationality, social contract and sovereignty were obvious choices as the starting point for much Western political thought since the Enlightenment. Citizenship, representation, democracy and democratisation and development were chosen not just for their centrality to political theorising and analysis but also for their centrality to the practice of politics today.

Sovereignty involves the self-government of the individual. The concept of sovereignty is often linked to male violence and domination. This chapter makes the case for reconstructing the concept in a feminist manner. The author tries to reconstruct sovereignty so that it becomes a momentum concept, a concept with an egalitarian potential that is infinite in character. Feminists have generally been critical of the state, and particularly those aspects of the state linked to force and repression. It is the association between state and sovereignty that causes many feminists to see sovereignty as an idea of domination and repression. Feminists have rightly challenged the abstract character of liberalism, and its notion of the abstract individual. Feminists have often been unwilling to extend their critical approach to the state and to the question of sovereignty, but the reconstruction of the concept of sovereignty flows from the logic of feminist analysis.

This chapter outlines the feminist contribution to an important part of the reconceptualisation of rationality. It describes the feminist critique of the mainstream conception of rationality. The chapter focuses on rethinking rationality in the context of the process and practice of theorising and what counts as philosophical knowledge, by challenging the malestream denial of a constructive link between reason and emotion, and by analysing the relation between them. It examines the range of meanings of the terms 'reason' and 'emotion' and demonstrates the wide and traditionally unacknowledged scope of the connections between them. The chapter also shows, on the basis of the feminist critique and perspective, three of the key ways in which emotions play an important role in the operation of the idea of rationality in knowledge and theorising.

From a feminist perspective, traditional conceptions of representation seem insufficient and unsatisfactory. This chapter begins with a discussion of Hanna Pitkin's The Concept of Representation (1967). This seminal book discusses and draws on the contributions of some of the 'great men' of political theory. Pitkin's work has structured subsequent mainstream and feminist discussions. In this chapter, Pitkin's ideas are subjected to the following question: what do her differing conceptions of representation, and especially her preferred definition, offer to discussions of women's political presence? The chapter then turns to feminist engagements with the concept of representation, with Anne Phillips's work without doubt the most influential contribution. It closes with a discussion of feminist political scientists' empirical research into the complicated relationship between women's descriptive and substantive representation in practice. The chapter advocates a shift away from a focus on when, to a focus on how, the substantive representation of women occurs.