Negotiating Gender and Diversity in an Emergent European Public Sphere

B. Siim, M. Mokre, B. Siim, M. Mokre

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780230359680
• eBook ISBN: 9781137291295
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

The book analyses intersections between gender and diversity through cross-national studies of European public spheres. The approach confronts research on European democracy and the public sphere with gender and diversity research and reflections about European equality and diversity issues are based on new research from a large-scale EU project.

Part I
Theoretical Approaches

1

Intersections of Gender and Diversity – A European Perspective

Birte Siim

The objective of the book is to investigate how major social and political actors and opinion leaders across Europe understand the interrelations between gender, ethno-national diversity and European democracy. It addresses fundamental themes in contemporary European politics and research: how does gender diversity influence national democracies across Europe; how does gender diversity influence expectations for the democratisation of the European Union (EU)? In what ways are women and minorities included or excluded in an (emerging) European Public Sphere (EPS) or in multiple EPSs? To what extent have the political activities of women and ethnic minorities contributed towards diminishing the ‘democratic deficit’ in the EU? This book is thus a contribution to the theoretical and comparative literature on the perceptions of dominant social and political actors on gender diversity in the EPS.

The book builds upon, expands and deepens the findings and analytical concerns and issues raised in the comprehensive European research project: EUROSPHERE: Diversity and the European Public Sphere: Towards a Citizens’ Europe? The Eurosphere project has explored the interrelations between two main concepts: diversity and the EPS. Its empirical part includes the opinions of political elites within political parties, social movements (SMO/NGOs), think tanks and the media, across 16 European states as well as at the transnational European level.¹ In addition, the various chapters draw on findings and reflections on gender/gender equality from comparable European research projects.²

The research questions link gender and diversity across Europe by integrating two different bodies of literature: gender research and diversity/minority research:

• The inclusion/exclusion of women (groups) and ethnic minorities as social and political actors in national and EPSs
• The impact of gender and minority groups on national democracies and public spheres as well as on the European democracy and public sphere
• Co-operations and mutual influences between gender and minority groups in national and EPSs
• Articulations of gender- and minority-related concerns and issues in national and EPSs and intersections between them
• Articulations of dominant and counter-discourses on gender and minority in national and EPSs and intersections between them

These questions illuminate three transversal themes: the agency of women as individual and collective actors in EU Member States and in EU organisations; gendering as a process and the perceptions of ‘women’ issues and gender by political elites and in the national discourses across Europe and intersectionality focusing on interactions of gender and ethno-national diversity.

The book is divided in three main parts: the first theoretical part gives an overview of the state of the art in research about gender, ethnicity and the EPS. The second part focuses on collective actors of the Public Sphere (PS), including social movements, political parties and media actors. The third part discusses the emergence of Transnational EU spaces, focusing on the EU’s gender and diversity policies, transnational social movements and the European Parliament.

The overall analytical framework for studying the public sphere is divided into different dimensions (Ferree et al. 2002), also providing the linkages between the various chapters:

• Who should participate and on what occasions? (Participation)
• What should the form and content of their contributions to the public discourse be? (Process)
• How should the actors communicate with one another? (Communication)
• What are the desired outcomes of the process? (Outcome)

The main emphasis is on the barriers to and potential for inclusive deliberation in the European demos; that is, on inclusion of all concerned civil society actors in democracy, on all relevant issues and on a broad understanding of communication, recognising potential conflicts, contestations, competition and negotiations between civil society actors (Rolandsen Augustín 2011; Rolandsen Augustín and Siim forthcoming). This public sphere model will be further elaborated on in Chapter 2, which discusses selected approaches to public sphere and to EPS.

The next two sections provide a brief overview of the state of the art in approaches to gender and diversity, and of the intersectionality approach.

Academic debates about gender and diversity

This section begins by addressing the academic debates about gender and diversity in democratic theory, first examining the meaning of politics of complex diversity (Kraus 2012) and ‘the turn to diversity’ (Squires 2007) in Europe, focusing on the intersections of ethno-cultural diversity with gender. The selected approaches and models to diversity/multiculturalism and gender include contributions from influential scholars: Will Kymlicka, Tareq Modood, Susan Moller Okin and Anne Phillips. The section discusses to what extent and how the models selected link the concerns and issues of gender equality with the concerns and issues of diversity. Diversity is an ambiguous concept, which may refer to the protection of individual rights against legal discrimination as well as to accommodation of group differences. Complex diversity, as proposed by Peter Kraus (2011), refers to the double meaning of diversity: as something positive to be enjoyed and protected, for example language differences, and something negative, related to discrimination and inequality, to be avoided and abolished. From a European perspective, diversity can refer to protection of the individual’s right to diversity; to equal treatment of national minorities within the EU and to the accommodation of minority groups’ culture and religion (see Chapter 8).

Secondly, the chapter gives an overview of the key issues in the feminist debate about intersectionality from the perspective of demos and the public sphere. The intersectionality approach has evolved as a means to analyse the intersection of gender and different kinds of diversities and inequalities. Feminist theory has proposed intersectionality as an analytical approach to address multiple inequalities, and the concept has become central in recent debates about EU (gender) equality policies (see Lombardo, Meier and Verloo 2009).

We find the intersectionality approach to be an attractive analytical strategy for integrating gender and diversity in comparative studies, since it has the potential to overcome the existing gap between two competing paradigms: one with gender as its primary category; the other with ethnic diversity as its primary category. The final section returns to the double challenge of transnationalism and diversity, and it discusses models aiming to include gender and diversity in the public sphere through a democratic model which is both multilayered/multilevel and intersectional.

The turn to diversity: competing models

Over the last fifteen years, diversity and multiculturalism have been recurring items on the academic as well as political agendas. The debate about multicultural citizenship was sparked off by Will Kymlicka’s analysis. The analyses was inspired by Canadian institutions and politics (Kymlicka 1995), and his multicultural model focused on ethno-national diversity. Feminist scholars have criticised this model for neglecting gender inequalities (Okin 1999) as well as religious diversity (Modood 2007). A general observation made is that the academic debate about gender/diversity and the EP/EPS tends to be divided into two separate approaches addressing different issues: one group of scholars focusing primarily on the challenge that diversity and multiculturalism pose to democracy and the welfare state, from this perspective proposing ‘diversity’ models that are usually linked to the nation state (Kymlicka 1995; Modood 2007; Phillips 2007). The other group of scholars focus primarily on the challenges presented by globalism and transnationalism, and from this perspective they propose transnational and multidimensional models that deal only marginally with diversity within the nation states (Beck 2002; Soysal 1994). In the following, we will discuss to what extent the models selected possess the ability to transcend the gap between the concerns and issues of gender equality and the concerns and issues related to ethno-cultural and religious inequalities.

Judith Squires (2007) has recently discussed the challenge that the ‘turn to diversity’ poses to gender theory and research. Together with other feminist scholars, she has proposed strategies to address multidimensional (in)equality and overcome the unitary bias of social and political theories. One such influential model is the one proposed by Ange-Marie Hancock (2007), making a fruitful distinction between unitary, multiple and intersectionality approaches to difference and diversity. This distinction is a useful means to evaluate the different models. Unitary approaches address one primary category, for example gender, race/ethnicity or class, but tend to neglect other kinds of diversities and inequalities. Multiple and intersectional approaches both address more than one category and the categories matter equally; but in the multiple approach, the categories have a predetermined relationship to each other, whereas in the intersectional approach, the relationship between categories is an open empirical question (Hancock 2007: 64).

The debate about whether multiculturalism has won the day (Kymlicka) or whether there is a retreat from multiculturalism (Joppke 2004) depends largely on how the concept is defined. The political retreat from multiculturalism in Britain and the Netherlands has been followed by a growing academic and political interest in issues connected with diversity and in relation between cultural diversity and gender equality in Europe. One example is the debate in political theory about ‘minorities within minorities’ (Eisenberg and Spinner-Halev 2005; Phillips 2007), which raises questions about the power and representation of women and vulnerable persons within minorities. This is a serious concern, and it has contributed towards making the models of democracy, public sphere and democratic communication more sensitive, not only to the representation of minorities but also to the power relations between the majority and minorities, and it has inspired civil society actors to propose strategies explicitly aiming to give voice and influence to minorities within minorities.

One of the most comprehensive models addressing the diversity of cultural and national groups is the multicultural paradigm; for example, the Canadian political theorist Will Kymlicka’s influential theory of Multicultural Citizenship (1995). Kymlicka’s theoretical approach aims to integrate liberalism with communitarianism. His approach transcends liberalism because it is based on a combination of individual rights, and it transcends the communitarian approach by emphasising state protection of the collective rights of minority groups. The original concept of multicultural citizenship (1995) distinguishes between two aspects of cultural diversity: one is cultural diversity linked to ‘national minorities’, and the other the cultural diversity which follows from ‘individual and familial migration’. This model presents a strong defence for ethno-cultural group rights for indigenous peoples, for example Aboriginals and Native Americans, and a weak defence for the poly-ethnic rights of new immigrant groups to be protected by the state. The later notion of citizenship in diverse societies (Kymlicka and Norman 2000) expands this approach and presents a more comprehensive frame which distinguishes between different kinds of minority groups and forms of minority rights. The strength of Kymlicka’s model is his multiple approach to diversity, which, however, neglects issues related to gender and religion.

Tariq Modood’s (2007) model presents another example of a multiple approach to difference and diversity, focusing on religious differences. Modood emphasises the novelty of the ethno-religious mix in Western democracies, focusing on the inclusion of Muslims in contemporary conceptions of democratic citizenship and criticising Kymlicka’s liberal bias and his lack of attention to the role of religion and religious groups in the public space. Modood has introduced an alternative conception of political multiculturalism based on the ideas of ‘difference’, ‘multi’, equal dignity and equal respect. His main argument is that the accommodation of minorities must recognise groups, not just individuals, at the level of ‘identities, associations, belonging, including diasporic connections; behaviour, culture, religious practice etc.; and political mobilization’ (Modood 2007: 50). The strength of this proposal is its focus on the role of religion and on the inclusion of Muslims in Western democracies; but it neglects the relation between religion and gender.

Rainer Bauböck (2008) has proposed a defence of diversity within a framework of rights that includes cultural groups, focusing on the role of public policies rather than on political ideas. This approach distinguishes between multiculturalism as a set of political ideas and public policies addressing social facts. It is presented as a constructivist approach, which emphasises that the facts of cultural diversity are themselves socially constructed rather than naturally given. One of the main points in Bauböck’s approach is that cultural diversity should not be regarded as normative ideals or political goals, but should instead be seen ‘as a background condition to which a differentiated system of citizenship rights responds and … as the outcome of collective actions and societal processes that are enabled by a framework of such rights’ (pp. 19–28). Bauböck’s multiculturalist and egalitarian model within the framework of rights is institutional, contextual as well as transnational. Its focus is primarily on accommodation of the cultural diversity of minorities; however, claims for equality, including exemptions, protection against discrimination, public support of recognition and special political representation, may, in principle, be extended to other kinds of inequalities. The strength of Bauböck’s approach is its focus on diversity and inequalities based on culture, religion and nationality; but it is debatable whether the model can be extended to address inequalities based on gender and sexuality. The first conclusion is therefore that although the above models all address multiple inequalities, they fail to examine the intersections of gender and diversity.

The debate about multiculturalism and gender equality

The multicultural paradigm is contested since it fails to address gender inequality. In an article with the provocative title: ‘Is multiculturalism bad for women?’ (1999), the American feminist scholar Susan Moller Okin presented her strong criticism. The article’s main claim is that there exists a basic contradiction between multiculturalism – defined as protection of the cultural rights of minorities – and women’s rights. Her articl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables, Figures and Maps
• Notes on Contributors
• Part I Theoretical Approaches
• Part II Collective Actors of the Public Sphere
• Part III EU Policies and Transnational Mobilisation Discourses and Practices
• Conclusion: Intersectionality and the European Public Sphere
• Index