Gender Equality Norms in Regional Governance

Transnational Dynamics in Europe, South America and Southern Africa

Kenneth A. Loparo, Kenneth A. Loparo, C. Roggeband, Anna van der Vleuten, Anouka van Eerdewijk, C. Roggeband

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137301451
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book analyses the diffusion of norms concerning gender-based violence and gender mainstreaming of aid and trade between the EU, South America and Southern Africa. Norm diffusion is conceptualized as a truly multidirectional and polycentric process, shaped by regional governance and resulting in new geometries of transnational activism.

Part I

1

Regional Governance, Gender and Transnationalism: A First Exploration

Anna van der Vleuten and Anouka van Eerdewijk

1.1 Introduction

Gender equality norms can be found throughout the world as a result of interweaving processes of norm production and norm diffusion. The literature on norm diffusion mainly focuses on the dynamics between the global level and the so-called ‘local’ level, which refers to everything below the global level, whereas no particular attention is paid to the patterns of interactions at the level of world regions¹ or the relations between regional organizations, called interregionalism. (Inter)regional relations may enhance or hamper gender norm travelling between the different levels and merit attention for that reason. Differentiating between the global and the regional level allows, therefore, for further unpacking of the nature of norm diffusion dynamics. In this chapter, the specific characteristics of regional organizations and interregional relations as well as regional advocacy networks (RANs) are discussed. Furthermore, we argue for the relevance of the regional level for the study of gender equality norms. We situate ourselves in the debate concerning the EU as a ‘normative power’ before turning to the more general issue of how to understand the relations between regional organizations and how these relations might shape the diffusion of gender equality norms.

1.2 Regionalism: key concepts

Regional governance, regionalization and regionalism

Since the 1950s, a new layer of governance has developed between the global and the state level, that of regional governance. In order to understand what regional governance is, it is useful to consider James Rosenau’s definition of governance, which he conceives in a very abstract way as ‘spheres of authority at all levels of human activity ... that amount to systems of rule in which goals are pursued through the exercise of control’ (1997: 145). The notion of governing is, therefore, extended beyond governments. Accordingly, regional governance refers to the system of rule at the regional level where authority is exercised by state and non-state actors in formal and informal ways, and where global, regional, national and subnational levels are linked. The notion of regional governance encompasses these dimensions of interconnectedness.

Regional governance started to develop in the 1950s and spread during the 1960s and 1970s due to the processes of regionalization and regionalism.² There are many contrasting definitions for these concepts, but for our framework, it is important to distinguish between regionalization and regionalism as follows. We define regionalization as a bottom-up economic and societal process which primarily involves economic actors. It describes the increase of cross-border interactions and transactions in a region. We see regionalism or regional cooperation as a political process whereby state actors belonging to a certain region negotiate agreements. As opposed to ‘bottom-up’ regionalization, regionalism is a top-down process, ‘a conscious policy of nation states for the management of regionalization and a broad array of security and economic challenges’ (Hänggi et al. 2006: 4). The development of regionalism has been characterized by ups and downs, or ‘waves’ as Mansfield and Milner (1999) call it. It is commonly argued that globalization, defined as a process characterized by the increasing volume and speed of flows of capital and goods, information and ideas, and people and forces that connect actors between countries (Tarrow 2005), was a major force in setting off the latest wave of regionalism in the 1990s. Regionalism became a shield against the consequences of globalization (Reinalda 2007) as well as an arena for regionalization.

Regionalism, region and identity

Regionalism, or regional cooperation between states, takes different institutional forms, ranging from security alliances and trade arrangements to full-fledged regional organizations. In this volume, our focus is on regional organizations which are more than mere policy coordination arrangements between states and which potentially bind governments in a wide number of domains.

The institutional set-up of regional organizations is not uniform and differs in the extent to which it is intergovernmental or supranational. They all have a central body where representatives of the member states’ governments deliberate and take decisions, but they differ as regards the decision rules: are decisions taken by unanimity or majority? They all have a secretariat with appointed officials, but the degree of its autonomy differs: does the secretariat mainly collect information, or is it entitled to submit legislative proposals? Most regional organizations have a court or some sort of dispute resolution mechanism. Most also have a parliamentary body and some forum for non-state actor involvement. All these institutions can be more or less intergovernmental or supranational, depending on the degree of control individual member states’ governments have over decision-making and enforcement.

In spite of such institutional differences, regional organizations are all similar in three respects: territoriality, identity and scope (Van der Vleuten and Ribeiro Hoffmann 2007: 6–7). As regards the aspect of territoriality, regional organizations have a restricted membership and require candidate members to be located in a region, which means an area with some geographical coherence. In order to label a geographical area as a region, there has to be some consensus about its self-definition as a region as well as some external recognition of the area as a region. The territorial demarcation is usually institutionalized in the conditions for membership, enabling a regional organization to exclude certain countries and include others. The territorial aspect distinguishes regional organizations from international organizations which have a potentially global membership. The Charter of the United Nations, for instance, stipulates that ‘Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states’ (UN 1945, Article 4.1) and accordingly does not exclude any state in advance.

Geographical coherence is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a group of states to constitute a region. In fact, regional organizations often refer to some shared identity. To be a member of a region, a state has to share this identity, which is usually based on a combination of cultural, economic, linguistic or political ties (Mansfield and Milner 1999). Regional identity is not fixed but malleable, as the members of a region define and redefine themselves and are defined by others. A regional identity may be more or less inclusive or exclusive, depending on the elements adopted from regional history and culture. It is the result of a predominately political choice. Identity is intersubjective, as it expresses not only the meaning which an actor attributes to the Self but also the meaning which the Other attributes to the Self.

Finally, regional organizations have a potentially broad mission which evolves from a limited set of tasks to a more encompassing role. This stands in contrast to international functional organizations which focus on a specific policy domain, such as health (World Health Organization), food (Food and Agriculture Organization) or labour relations (International Labour Organization). It also sets regional organizations apart from bilateral preferential trading arrangements and free trade areas, which aim to eliminate internal trade barriers (negative integration) but do not intend to take further steps towards positive integration and policy convergence (Van der Vleuten and Ribeiro Hoffmann 2007).

In the empirical chapters, we focus on regional cooperation in three different regions: Europe, South America and Southern Africa. In these regions, different regional organizations coexist with partially overlapping missions and memberships. This set of regions allows us to take a comparative perspective and to investigate the role of identity both within a single region and in the interactions between actors from different regions. The analyses in the empirical chapters will focus on specific organizations, depending on the issue at hand. As a result, the analyses of Europe will mainly focus on the EU, with occasional references being made to the Council of Europe. In South America, the Organization of American States (OAS) and Mercosur are the most relevant organizations, while in Southern Africa, we will primarily look at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and refer to the African Union (AU) where appropriate.

These organizations all fall under the definition of regional organizations that was formulated in the preceding section. The Treaty on European Union (TEU) states that ‘Any European State ... may apply to become a member of the Union’ (italics added; EU 2007; Article 49 of TEU). SADC defines the region tautologically as ‘the geographical area of the member states of SADC’ (SADC 1992, Article 1), but provides a geographical delimitation in its objective ‘to enhance the standard and quality of life of the people of Southern Africa’ (italics added; SADC 1992, Article 5). The Treaty of Asunción, establishing Mercosur in 1991, limits membership to ‘countries members of the Latin American Integration Association’ (italics added; Mercosur 1991, Article 20). Even if the borders of Europe, Latin America and Southern Africa are not unequivocal, they clearly limit the potential membership: Canada and Tunisia cannot realistically aspire to becoming members of any of these organizations. The OAS and the AU are continental regional organizations, as their names indicate. As such, no European state can become a member in these.

The organizations are similar in set-up but very dissimilar in terms of the degree of institutionalization and amount of resources available for each. Institutionally, the EU is the only organization that is not purely intergovernmental, as in many domains, decisions need the approval of a qualified majority of member state representatives as well as a majority in the supranational European Parliament. The EU is not a purely supranational organization because a single state still can block decision-making in some vital domains, and the European Parliament has only an advisory role in these domains. The EU, Mercosur and SADC are similar in their commitment to promoting economic integration as a tool for increasing peace and prosperity in their respective regions, while the OAS primarily stresses its political mission. All four organizations have revised their treaties at least once in order to extend the scope and depth of cooperation to new domains and institutions, thus broadening their mission beyond the initial objective. In the empirical chapters, we will present these organizations in more detail and assess their respective identities.

1.3 Introducing gender at the regional level

In 1994, Marianne Marchand wrote, ‘To feminists it should not come as a surprise that official public and academic discourses have thus far rarely addressed the connections between gender and regionalism’ (p. 65). Almost two decades later, most of the literature on regionalism still remains silent on gender. In fact, all major works on regionalism and comparative regionalism deal to a certain extent with aspects of norm promotion and implementation, but they do not refer to gender (Acharya and Johnston 2007; De Lombaerde and Schulz 2009; Doidge 2011; Hänggi et al. 2006; Söderbaum and West 2003). Even the very comprehensive research companion to regionalism does not mention the words ‘gender’ or ‘women’ (Shaw et al. 2011).

Conversely, literature on gender equality norms rarely addresses the regional level. It tends to focus on the global level and raises issues such as the development of transnational women’s activism (Joachim 2007; Ferree and Tripp 2006; Moghadam 2005), translation of international norms to ‘local’ settings (Merry 2006; Krook and True 2012) and globalization and its ‘local’ consequences (Marchand and Runyan 2011; Meyer and Prügl 1999). Interest in the EU and gender is an exception to the rule. Nevertheless, it is striking that academic interest in the EU and gender only started to develop at the end of the 1980s, which is some thirty years after the Equal Pay article was adopted (Treaty of Rome 1957). Furthermore, findings from research on EU and gender equality norms are discussed as if they are relevant for European settings only, instead of being ‘extrapolated’ to other regional organizations and allowing for a comparative take on gender equality norms in regional governance.

This mutual neglect is surprising because several reasons make the need to include gender in studies of regionalism, and regionalism in studies of international gender policies, seem obvious. First of all, the regional level simply constitutes a new arena for political contestation and mobilization, similar to the way in which international organizations have provided women’s organizations and other domestic groups with new entries. Adams and Kang observe that ‘rather than primarily operating at the global level, many feminist transnational advocacy networks (TANs) are mobilizing within world regions and are seeking to create, expand, and implement women’s rights norms through regional institutions’ (2007: 452). Keck and Sikkink (1998) have shown how adding a level ‘beyond the state’ makes it possible to put pressure on unwilling states from above and below simultaneously and to overcome the blockage at national level by a boomerang action. This same mechanism is applicable at the regional level, where a regional organization and domestic groups can put double pressure on a state (see also the idea of ‘pincers’; Van der Vleuten 2005, 2007).

However, in spite of its reference to regional organizations, such a perspective treats them as similar to their international counterparts and thereby ignores the intrinsic specificities of the regional level. In the previous section, we have distinguished regional organizations from international organizations on the grounds of their geographical coherence, their shared identity and their broad agendas. These three characteristics influence the dynamics in the regional arena, which therefore cannot be simply equated with the global arena. The potential influence of the geographic coherence and identity is introduced by Adams and Kang when they state that:

Distinct from global networks, RANs [regional advocacy networks] are more attuned to local constraints, such as lack of political will from domestic governments and accusations from local actors that women’s rights activists represent ‘foreign’ interests. (2007: 452)

As we will further elaborate in the next section, the identity of a region may exclude ‘the Other’ – and the norms of the Other – when the identity of the Other is considered to be incompatible with the Self. Regional identities may also enable the inclusion of the Other’s norms, if only by stretching and bending (Lombardo et al. 2009) or pruning and grafting (Acharya 2004). As a result, the (in)compatibility of regional identities will allow for specific dynamics to emerge.

Montoya also argues that regional organizations, in contrast to international organizations, are better equipped to engage in the capacity building of regional and domestic advocacy organizations and networks because they may provide more tailored monetary and informational resources to a tighter advocacy network (2009). The capacity building strategies of regional organizations allow for what Montoya calls ‘reversed boomerang strategies’, as a result of which regional organizations can contribute to norm diffusion and implementation not only by pressuring member state governments but also by simultaneously stimulating pressure from below, that is from civil society actors (2009: 327–331). Such assumptions about the positive effects of regional organizations on the diffusion and implementation of gender equality norms merit further scrutiny to determine the extent and manner of their manifestation. After all, regional organizations are not intrinsically gender-sensitive organizations, and the political project of regional economic integration may constitute a serious obstacle to gender equality norm diffusion.

Another aspect typical of regional organizations is their broad agenda, which contr...