Gender and Leadership:
The Politics of Citizenship and Economic
Development
PREPARED FOR PRESENTATION AT THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING
HONOLULU, HAWAII 2005
KRISTA M. BRUMLEY
TEC DE MONTERREY
AV. EUGENIO GARZA SADA 2501 SUR
COL. TECNOLOGICO
MONTERREY, NUEVO LEÓN
MÉXICO 64849
(52) 81-8359-9243
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DO NOT CITE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR’S PERMISSION
A
BSTRACT
The level of economic development of a country affects the power that it has in the international global
economy and political system as well as its ability to manage internal social and political crises. These dynamics
have become particularly visible with regard to the dual track of economic and political restructuring that
developing countries in Latin America have undertaken since in the late 1980s. This paper seeks to take a
unique perspective by giving voice to the everyday lives of individuals from Mexico in their struggle to obtain
social and economic rights while the country struggles to maintain economic development. By focusing on the
individual level of analysis, this study shows how women are challenging the concepts of national development,
citizenship, and importantly leadership. I use data derived from in-depth interviews with leaders and members
of non-governmental organizations from Monterrey, Mexico. Monterrey is Mexico’s leading city in the world of
global capitalism and has an idiosyncratic socio-political context within which this study is situated. This paper
demonstrates how women through their leadership in NGOs strive to change the distribution of resources not
only at the community level, but the national level as well. These women played an instrumental role in the
struggle for changes in the national banking system of Mexico that is lead by social actors outside the country,
such as the IMF and the World Bank. I conclude by arguing that such a change in the distribution of
resources within a country will influence that country’s capacity to navigate the increasingly complex nature of
international relations. Moreover, in light of my findings, I suggest that scholars need to rethink how we
conceptualize leadership and citizenship.