This book is co-edited by two scholars—Cin, in the feminist theory and gender studies, and Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, in the EU studies—and thus offers a thorough interdisciplinary consideration of how the EU (Europeanisation, to be more precise) and gender equality (or feminist theory) can conceptually co-exist to examine the domestic change occurring in gender equality policies, and addresses some of the challenges in the debates surrounding the domestic impact of the EU. By taking Turkey as a case study, it illustrates that Europeanisation needs a feminist agenda and perspective and illuminates the limitations of the Europeanisation pathways emanating from the problematic gender equality understanding of the EU, as well as the associated problems of coherence among the member states. Subsequently, the book develops a feminist framework of Europeanisation by drawing on the work of key feminist philosophers (Carole Pateman, Onora O’Neill, Nancy Fraser, Anne Phillips, Iris Marion Young, Martha Nussbaum) to offer a critique of the Europeanisation of gender policies in various areas.
Developing such a feminist framework for gender policies is an important determinant by which to assess the EU’s transformative power on member states and candidates. This is best exemplified by the report from the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, revealing a backlash in gender equality and women’s rights in six EU countries (Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) (European Parliament 2018). The report indicates that EU membership does not in itself ensure the adoption or the full application of EU norms. Indeed, as the report reveals, gender equality norms may be abandoned once membership has been granted. This report underscores how important and urgent it is for EU gender policies to incorporate a feminist agenda and framing that goes beyond merely ticking boxes to meet legislation. It also underlines the importance of the case of Turkey, a country involved in a long-term relationship with the EU, and its endeavours to obtain full membership, which was argued to be the most effective incentive for adopting the EU norms. Hence, through the case of Turkey, our aim here is to apply a critical lens to the EU’s approach to promote sustainable gender equality within the member states and beyond, and identify the crucial mechanisms underway.
Our analytical framework departs from a popular and oft-cited definition of Europeanisation. In this definition, Europeanisation is defined as ‘a process of (a) construction, (b) diffusion, (c) institutionalisation of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles and “ways of doing things” and shared beliefs which are first defined and consolidated in the making of EU decisions and then incorporated in the logic of domestic discourse, identities, political structures and public policies’ (Radaelli 2002: 11). This definition implicitly illustrates that what is to be Europeanised includes not only formal rules but also informal ones, and extends to procedures, political structures, public policies, identities and discourse, to summarise the main headings. Additionally, by focussing not only on the construction but also diffusion and institutionalisation, Radaelli (2002) implicitly incorporates the domestic change both at the level of harmonisation and implementation subsequently within his definition.
Scholars of Europeanisation popularly applied new institutionalist approaches, particularly its rationalist and constructivist/sociological variants, to study the EU’s influence on current and future EU member states (Cowles et al. 2001; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005). These theoretical approaches offer a well-equipped analytical toolbox with which to trace the processes, scope conditions and causal mechanisms for the democratic construction of EU norms; however, the units of analysis and the agencies studied leave us with a major question: ‘Can we talk about only one type of understanding of Europeanisation which works through the EU-driven strategic calculations or socialisation?’ Related to this question, the book questions the limits of Europeanisation with gender policies and builds a novel agenda based on an understanding of Europeanisation as informed by feminist debates to look into gender policies. In doing so, the book critically assesses the conceptual and theoretical framework of Europeanisation as studied by new institutionalist approaches and offers alternative explanations from feminist theory in order to contribute to building a feminist framing of Europeanisation . It is also an important contribution to the Europeanisation research agenda, which has grown significantly but has remained limited in its focus on gender issues and women’s development. However, gender policies represent a crucial case to study the EU’s impact as integration and enlargement of the EU also involves constructing gender relations by advancing the normative ideas of gender orders. It is a goal that has been in place since the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and indeed has intensified since then through law instruments, treaty provisions and directives as well as soft policy tools. Yet, how Europeanisation is conceptualised and understood in the establishment of gender equality policies in the absence of a strong acquis still remains marginal in EU studies.
The research focusses on Turkey—a candidate country for accession with prospects of full membership—for a number of reasons. As Europeanisation research has illustrated, the EU’s impact is greatest when the EU offers a membership perspective (Schimmelfennig 2007; Börzel and Risse 2012), and Turkey’s candidacy status since 1999 has made it a most-likely case for being influenced by the EU. Additionally, even though single-country case studies have been criticised on the basis of their limited capacity to generalise their findings (King et al. 1994), we have deliberately chosen the single-country case of Turkey as its economic, political, cultural and social relations with the EC/EU date back to 1959, which is longer than those of many current member states. The case of Turkey offers us significant variation in the independent variables (such as the clarity and legitimacy of EU demands, the size and credibility of EU incentives, domestic veto players, etc.) proposed under the rationalist and constructivist institutionalist approaches and allows us to identify the gaps in their explanatory value. Therefore, the findings will be relevant beyond Turkey, being of significance for a set of countries with which the EU establishes different types of associations. Additionally, as we are focussing not only on the adoption but also the application of the EU’s norms (see further information below), a single-country study provides us with opportunities for an in-depth analysis of the reasons for the gap between the adoption and application of EU norms. Such an in-depth analysis would not be possible by comparing different countries with different legal and cultural backgrounds, as this would risk threatening the validity of the findings for a wider set of cases. The report mentioned above also stresses the importance of why Turkey offers the best case study to problematise Europeanisation from a feminist lens.
Conceptualising the case of Turkey as a most likely case is also determined by Turkey’s liminal identity of being both Western and Eastern and its struggle to rely on women’s rights and status in order to have its European identity confirmed by Europeans (Rumelili and Suleymanoglu-Kurum 2017). Women’s position in society has always remained an emblem of Turkey’s modernity and Westernisation/Europeanisation. Thus, gender issues are of particular importance for Turkey and a comprehensive understanding and awareness of gender issues and women’s development is needed if Turkey wants to internalise the democratic values of the EU. Furthermore, Turkey offers a robust case to illustrate that gender should not be seen as a variable or a unit of analysis, but rather as an underpinning rationale in understanding various forms of the EU’s impact on target countries in various policy areas. The research on the EU and Turkey has neglected the debates and the relationship between gender equality and the EU, even though both Turkey and the EU stress gender equality as both an important goal and an issue to be addressed. This book aims to fill this gap whilst providing analytical tools to help contextualise EU strategies and policies within gender studies. In doing so, it argues and illustrates that Europeanisation process, without a feminist rationale and framing, is insufficient to create transformative changes in gender equality.
Why the EU and Gender Equality?
There is a growing body of work on the Europeanisation of gender equality policies or the EU and gender equality (see Chiva 2009; Sindbjerg Martinsen 2007; Forest and Lombardo 2012; Jacquot 2015; Bego 2015; Kantola 2010; Abels and MacRae 2016). For instance, Weiner and MacRae (2017) explored the dynamics of power and change within institutions where they looked at gender as a critical aspect of such. In doing so, the book brought a new perspective from which to study the EU’s gender equality agenda by highlighting the institutional challenges of redressing gender inequalities. Abels and MacRae (2016) opened a new avenue for debate and dialogue between European integration theory and gender studies. This debate has been followed up by Ahrens (2018), focussing on the internal processes in and between the EU-level institutions and which has helped us to understand how gender equality policies are developed and processed within the EU whilst paying attention to the role of actors, NGOs and institutions in forming the gender equality programmes within the EU. These books have enriched our understanding of the gendered nature of EU policymaking throughout the integration process and the gender problem in its institutional settings. We build on this literature but focus predominantly on the process of Europeanisation to reflect on how the gendered ...