ABSTRACT 'This innovative study brings together insights from regional institutionalism and norm diffusion to illuminate the compley geometry of global gender equality norms. Employing a unique comparative empirical examiniation... more
ABSTRACT 'This innovative study brings together insights from regional institutionalism and norm diffusion to illuminate the compley geometry of global gender equality norms. Employing a unique comparative empirical examiniation of four regional institutions, the collection reveals the multi-level, multi-actor, and multi-directional processes of gendered norm diffusion.' Elisabeth Jay Friedman (University of San Francisco)
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Research Interests: African Studies, Gender Studies, Development Studies, International Development, Gender, and 11 moreEuropean Foreign Policy, European Union, Gender and Development, External Relations of the EU, European Union external relations, Women and Development, Gender Mainstreaming, gender mainstreaming in sub-Sahara Africa, Effectiveness of Foreign Aid in Sub Saharan Africa, Civil Society Organizations, and Public Policy
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France is considered a strong state, but French governments have always fiercely defended the interests of French farmers in European and global negotiations. Why would a ‘strong state’ be unable to resist farm lobby pressure? Is... more
France is considered a strong state, but French governments have always fiercely defended the interests of French farmers in European and global negotiations. Why would a ‘strong state’ be unable to resist farm lobby pressure? Is agriculture an exception to the French ‘strong state’ rule? This article offers a structural model of varying state sensitivity to interest group pressure, and argues that farm lobby pressure cannot fully explain French foreign policy on agriculture, as governments often go against farmers' preferences and as the level of pressure varies more than the continuity of governmental preferences. From an analysis of the negotiations on the CAP and the GATT in the 1960s and in the 1990s it emerges that ideational constraints played a major role in French obstinacy. The defence of French identity as La Grande Nation, necessitating a presence in world agricultural markets, and the defence of a strong Europe under French leadership as a counterweight to the United States, have guided French preferences without regard to the farmers' positions.
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Regional organizations sometimes intervene to preserve democracy in one of their Member States. When a regional organization has developed a democratic identity, non-intervention in case of violation of democratic principles would damage... more
Regional organizations sometimes intervene to preserve democracy in one of their Member States. When a regional organization has developed a democratic identity, non-intervention in case of violation of democratic principles would damage its credibility domestically and internationally. Nonetheless, violations of democratic principles sometimes go unsanctioned. Building on case studies of (non-)interventions by the EU, Mercosur and SADC, we show that the ideational costs of pressure by third parties and the interests of the regional leading powers can explain the enforcement of democracy by regional organizations. Third party pressure remains ineffective, however, when there is a clash between regional identities.
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The European Union has faced several crises in the past decades, including the economic and financial crisis, Brexit, a migration, climate change and security crisis, and the latest COVID-19 crisis. In this context, feminist scholars have... more
The European Union has faced several crises in the past decades, including the economic and financial crisis, Brexit, a migration, climate change and security crisis, and the latest COVID-19 crisis. In this context, feminist scholars have shown how the causes and effects of the economic and financial crisis are strongly gendered. Generally, this literature suggests that crises can open a window of opportunity for gender considerations but may also promote policies which exacerbate gendered inequalities. Yet, the impact of crises on the attention to gender equality in European Union’s external relations is still unknown. This is surprising, as the European Union has promised to mainstream gender in all external policies, and understands itself to be a normative power and gender actor in world politics. This Special Issue analyses how the European Union’s identification of crisis and its policy responses to crisis in different external policy fields are gendered. The introduction situates the Special Issue within existing scholarship, theorises the central concepts of this Special Issue – crisis, gender (equality) and the European Union identities – and highlights how the different contributions advance our understanding of how gender figures in European Union’s external relations in past, current and future times of crisis.