Transformative Policy for Poor Women

'In the development policy literature, this arresting book will rank alongside Ferguson's classic The Anti-Politics Machine. At the empirical level, Transformative Policy for Poor Women explains the routine paradox of policy that fails to benefit its beneficiaries. At the theoretical level, Bina Fernandez has combined critical public administration with a feminist anti-reductionism in a novel and fertile approach. This well-written book is sure to inspire applications worldwide - and the world will be the better for them.' Barbara Harriss-White, Oxford University, UK 'Why and how do anti-poverty policies so often fail to benefit poor women? Fernandez interrogates these persistent failures with an engaging combination of scholarly precision and feminist focus. She provides a lucid explanation of her innovative framework for policy investigation: the relationship between constitutive contexts, policy representations, policy practices and consequences. Going beyond the original context prompting this analysis - policy for poor women in India - she applies her framework across several developing countries to demonstrate its relevance as an alternative policy approach for analyzing intersecting inequalities. An insightful book that clearly moves debates forward.' Caroline Dyer, University of Leeds, UK 'At a time when "poor women" have become a primary target of anti-poverty policies, this book provides a much-needed analytical framework for understanding why policy objectives are not often achieved and why there may be persistent policy failures. Moving beyond the "thin" prescription/evaluation mind-set that characterises the study of policy in developing countries, it provides us with a "thick" description of policy as simultaneously about the discursive production of meaning and as a regime of practices.' Shahra Razavi, UNRISD, Geneva, Switzerland 'Transformative Policy for Poor Women provides an insightful and practical framework for feminist policy analysis