Liberalization: How Economic Reforms Consolidated a Bait-and-Switch Male Dominance

Abstract

Examining the processes of economic liberalization in Russia and Iceland, Johnson explains how the bait-and-switch male dominance came about. In both countries, liberalization in the 1990s created a wheeling-and-dealing economy in which male-dominated elites rewarded those inside their networks with spoils of money and power. This chapter shows how hegemonic masculinity (the masculine ideal for elites) and homosociality (same-sex bonds between men) were essential to the process, even as the formal institutions offered opportunities for women elites. The 2008-2010 global economic crisis, which at first seemed like a critical juncture testing this neoliberal male dominance, especially in Iceland, has consolidated the bait and switch.