Andrea Krizsan

Studies of EU integration mostly focus their attention on developing models to explain the level of compliance with the EU norms, where compliance is understood to cover transposition and application much more than implementation (Schimmelfennig, Trauner ed. 2009). Relatively limited attention is paid to conceptualizing compliance, going beyond the formal transposition and application, to include also implementation of norms. This becomes particularly noticeable in fields such as gender equality, where EU legislation and compliance with it can hardly be meaningfully interpreted in isolation from soft policies. In the context of a definition of EU gender equality policy as a three-legs stool including anti-discrimination, special programs and gender mainstreaming (Booth and Bennet 2002), looking at formal compliance with EU hard law (which mainly stands for the equal treatment approach) is problematic. This paper starts off from a conceptualization of compliance with EU norms in the field of gender equality that is wider than formal compliance with the EU hard law at legal and institutional level.  It proposes an understanding of compliance that includes beyond formal compliance also compliance at the level of special programs and gender mainstreaming (the other two legs of the stool), particularly conveyed through soft policy tools including gender equality strategies, European Employment Strategy, Social Inclusion Strategy, and EU structural funds programming and spending (Krizsan 2009). The paper aims to propose a research agenda for comparative measuring of compliance with the EU in gender equality in this wider sense and argues for the use of qualitative methods of policy analysis, and particularly discursive analysis methods in pursuing such analysis.  A Hungarian case study and additional data from Czech Republic will support and pilot the research agenda proposed. 

Očenasová, Zuzana

The proposed paper investigates the Europeanization of Gender Equality Policies in three EU new member States: The Czech republic, Lithuania and Slovakia. It aims to contribute to the research on the Europeanization of gender equality policies and more specifically to sociological and historical institutionalist approaches focusing on the dynamics of Europeanization and domestic structures and processes. The EU accession process significantly facilitated the development of gender equality policies in post-socialist member states as it was part of conditionality criteria. As a result, main legislative, institutional and strategic changes in the realm of gender equality policies took place during this period. Nevertheless, the effect of Europeanization process can be assess only in the post-accession period. This article will therefore focus on whether conditionality that has generated change leads to sustainable compliance of gender equality policies and how the change in the incentive structure from external to internal has affected gender equality policies adoption.

The paper uses the concept of “needle’ eye” developed by Ostner and Lewis (1995) who argued that the adoption of gender equality policies is hampered by the domestic level needle’s eye – the welfare regime of each member state and the gender order underlying it. The paper analyses the dynamics between Europeanization and national needle’s eyes that was present also during the accession process and has resulted in different ways of adoption of EU gender equality policies (gender equality Act and machinery in Lithuania, general antidiscrimination Act and machinery in Slovakia and Labour code modification and consultative gender equality body in the Czech republic) at the moment of the accession. This has become even more apparent in the post-accession period and has influenced more significantly further development of gender equality policies. The paper also uses discursive frame analysis developed within the QUING Project in order to compare framing of gender equality policies in the three countries with focus on comparison with EU frames, frames presenting national needle’s eyes and their impact on national gender equality policies development., PhD

zuzana.ocenasova@gmail.com

Faculty of Social and Economic Science, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia

The Europeanization of gender equality policies through the needle's eyes of the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovakia: a cognitive approach

The proposed paper investigates the Europeanization of Gender Equality Policies in three EU new member States: The Czech republic, Lithuania and Slovakia. It aims to contribute to the research on the Europeanization of gender equality policies and more specifically to sociological and historical institutionalist approaches focusing on the dynamics of Europeanization and domestic structures and processes. The EU accession process significantly facilitated the development of gender equality policies in post-socialist member states as it was part of conditionality criteria. As a result, main legislative, institutional and strategic changes in the realm of gender equality policies took place during this period. Nevertheless, the effect of Europeanization process can be assess only in the post-accession period. This article will therefore focus on whether conditionality that has generated change leads to sustainable compliance of gender equality policies and how the change in the incentive structure from external to internal has affected gender equality policies adoption.

The paper uses the concept of "needle' eye" developed by Ostner and Lewis (1995) who argued that the adoption of gender equality policies is hampered by the domestic level needle's eye - the welfare regime of each member state and the gender order underlying it. The paper analyses the dynamics between Europeanization and national needle's eyes that was present also during the accession process and has resulted in different ways of adoption of EU gender equality policies (gender equality Act and machinery in Lithuania, general antidiscrimination Act and machinery in Slovakia and Labour code modification and consultative gender equality body in the Czech republic) at the moment of the accession. This has become even more apparent in the post-accession period and has influenced more significantly further development of gender equality policies. The paper also uses discursive frame analysis developed within the QUING Project in order to compare framing of gender equality policies in the three countries with focus on comparison with EU frames, frames presenting national needle's eyes and their impact on national gender equality policies development.

Réjane Sénac-Slawinski

In a context of promotion of global antidiscrimination policies by the European Union,  the integration - if not the dilution - of gender mainstreaming into diversity mainstreaming is increasingly questioned. The inclusion of "sex" in article 13th of the Amsterdam Treaty ( 2006 ) and the choice of the European Commission to make of 2007 " the European Year of the equality of opportunity for all " have thus been analyzed as embodying the shift to an additional conception of anti-discrimination policies (Shaw, 2004 ; Verloo, Lombardo, 2006). Various strands of inequalities are indeed considered separately through the register of the identity, which clearly distinguishes from an intersectional perspective (Crenshaw, 1991; Makkonen, 2002) and treated through the register of the transversality/mainstreaming (Squires, 2008; Smith,  2005). 

Our purpose is to analyze the link between gender equality and diversity by concentrating on the French case (Bereni, Jaunait, 2009; Laufer, Silvera, 2009). In a cognitive approach, we examine how the diffusion of the notion of diversity participates to the tension between equality and identity policies. On the one hand, we examine the location and the role of various actors (individual and collective) in the emergence of diversity as a political problem, in the sense at once of justifiable and problematic political subject. On the other hand, we place under consideration their interpretation of different principles of Justice which are also at stake within this frame. For this, we crossed the analysis of reports, works and declaration on diversity with a qualitative survey drawing upon personal interviews with 150 actors, male and female, primarily concerned by the emergence of diversity as a social and political problem: party officials, public officers in charge of equality and anti-discrimination policies, NGO representatives, trade union leaders, head of private companies, and academics.

Our hypothesis is that episteme and public policy - following the example of parity - illustrate and embody the institutionalization of an equality in the difference conditioned by an assignment to difference performed as an added value.

Alba Alonso

The Europeanization of regional governance has long been addressed through the sole lens of the regional policy of the European Union, that is, in a top-down perspective. Yet, limited attention has been paid to the different types of regions considered, especially as regarding the emergence of regions with a legislative capacity which are integral to domestic political systems (Pasquier, 2006). Meanwhile, studies trying to capture the complexity of domestic change as consequence of Europeanization processes have mainly focused on the State-level. However, if we adopt a more inclusive definition to Europeanization, as suggested here, we might consider the impact of Europe on the regional level also in terms of policy practices and paradigms, 'ways of doing things' and social learning. This led us to engage the regional dimension of Europeanization through the politics of Gender Equality, a field of public action where the pressure for adaptation is clearly put on the national level of governance, but where hard-law instruments coexist with a number of soft Europeanization channels.

In so doing, this paper addresses Spain, one of the most affected countries in Europe by a process of regionalization. Despite the fact that Spanish constitution ascribes to the State the responsibility for ensuring citizen's equality, Spanish regions (Comunidades Autonómicas) have developed comprehensive legislation and policy instruments to tackle gender inequalities. Moreover, whereas it can be assumed that the EU policy framework until recently had relatively little impact on the making of equality State policies in Spain (Lombardo, 2004), there are some evidences that Europe hits the regions to a relevant extent.

This paper tentatively explores the Europeanization of Gender equality policies in Spain through four case-studies, corresponding to the historic communities that have been the driving force of Spanish regionalization process since early 1980's. The Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Andalusia thus reveal highly differentiated polities, shaped by the role of ruling parties, civil society and, alternatively, by nationalism, regionalism or autonomism as the principle upon which centre-periphery dynamics have developed during the two past decades. The contribution briefly discusses the relevance of such basic features in the making of gender equality policies. Then, it attempts to capture different patterns of Europeanization at the regional level, emphasizing the level of good practices and policy transfers (Marsh, Dolowitz, 1996), as well as the discursive usage of references to the EU by regional actors as an integral part of contentious centre-periphery politics. Therefore, it intends to contribute to the sociological-institutionalist approach of Europeanization within the frame of a multi-level polity.

Konstantia Kosetzi

The focus of this paper is the Europeanisation of gender in Greece (cf. Liebert, 2003; Walby, 2004). I  specifically embark on an analysis of National Action Programmes (NAP) of Greece from 1998 to date, focusing in particular on NAPs for employment. In this endeavour, I make use of the notion of re-scaling (see e.g. Jessop, 2002; Fairclough, 2006, 2007; MacRae, 2006) and employ Faircloughian Critical Discourse Analysis (mainly the 2006 version). Such a framework links discursive changes with social changes, see both the discourses on Europeanisation of gender and their material constitutions (through operationalization and implementation of such discourses). The findings point towards a nodal EU discourse with discourses of social agenda, the market, positive action, education, and immigrants clustering under the nodal discourse. Further - national - discourses on the importance of the Greek family and society also contribute to this interdiscursive hybridity (Fairclough, 2006). 

Emanuela Lombardo

The proposed paper will address the following three questions: to what extent does the European Union influence the framing of national gender+ equality policies? What does the framing of equality policies tell us about the quality of policies? And why do some countries show a greater quality in the framing of their gender+ equality policies? 

The paper, which draws on research conducted within the QUING European project (www.quing.eu), will compare policy frames on gender and other equality in the European Union and three Southern European countries (Italy, Portugal and Spain) in the area of 'general gender equality and machinery' in the period from 1995 to 2007.  The expression 'general gender equality and machinery' is employed to refer to comprehensive state policies on gender equality legislation that plan broader action in different equality fields with the use of different policy strategies (for instance, equality plans such as the EU Roadmap) and that establish the structure and responsibilities of state agencies promoting gender equality (for example, regulations on the creation of new equality bodies). Policy documents analysed in this area (which include laws, plans, parliamentary debates and civil society documents) will be compared on the basis of a set of criteria to assess the quality of policies. Context-specific institutional, political, and cultural factors of the case studies will be taken into account to understand the variations in the policy frames found, to grasp the reasons why some cases show a greater quality in the framing of their gender and other equality policies, and to detect the extent to which policy framing on equality in Southern Europe is related to the European Union discourse.