Unintended gender consequences: EU politics and politics in practice

This project will build a research partnership between leading scholars in EU gender politics at a number of European and North American institutions. It will bring together individual researchers and centres of excellence on the study of gender and politics, such as the Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics at Queen's University Belfast. Part of the funding is also targeted at early career researchers, particularly postgraduate students, to enable them to contribute to the work of the international partnership and introducing them to key figures in their field of research.

The aim of the network is to support critical work in the field of gender and EU politics. The funding will enable us to build on the initial findings in a forthcoming special issue of Women's Studies International Forum, thus evaluating the unintended gender consequences of European policies traditionally portrayed as "gender neutral" or "gender free". Several recent studies have examined how, and to what extent EU policy contributes to shifts in national gender regimes, gender policy and gender relations. These studies consider the changes in national policy and the manner in which these may have been precipitated by European policy shifts and/or activism in other member states or at the EU level. This network will contribute to ongoing discussions about the value and impact of gender mainstreaming as a policy tool. It will establish contact with key practitioners and seek to raise awareness of institutional drivers that limit the impact of gender policies at the European and national level.

The network will engage both in a theoretical exploration of intended and unintended consequences, therefore establishing an analytical framework for the comparison of different policy areas. Increasing attention is being paid to unintended consequences or outcomes of key policies. An example of this new focus is the Fawcett Society's case against the UK Coalition Government in 2010. The work conducted in this area highlights the need for a paradigm shift in policy analysis looking at the constraints and opportunities available to practitioners to explore and take account of all the possible repercussion of a particular policy approach. Equally the work to be undertaken by the network will draw attention to the measures that can be utilised in order to minimise the gendered impact of key policy areas such as economic and fiscal policy as well as external relations. The work to be undertaken by our network is a critical assessment of the 'unintended' or indirect consequences of European policy on domestic gender regimes and gender relations. We examine this in policy areas which are generally believed to fall outside 'women's policy'. This critical evaluation will thus enable knowledge transfer in the area of gender mainstreaming and the development of empirical projects exploring the implementation of these principles in a variety of other policy areas.

The research network will include one workshop, two network management meetings to evaluate progress of individual research projects (UACES 2012 and 2013), an application for a workshop at ECPR joint sessions (2013), and an end of project Conference in 2014. The ultimate objective of the consortium is to facilitate, through the promotion of inter-disciplinary knowledge exchange, the development of original large grant applications evaluating recent EU policy developments post-Lisbon.

The work carried out by the network provides a unique opportunity to change the way that policy markers and activists think about the relative position of gender norms, as well as equality between men and women in the policy cycle.

In relation to the impact of the work to be carried out by the network we expect the following:

Academic Impact: It will lead to a shift in the current approaches and debates on gender, and equality of opportunities. It will also help to mainstream gender approaches within the disciplines included in the network, such as law, political studies and international relation. The application of gender lenses to the analysis of mainstream policies - traditionally seen as gender neutral or gender free - will enable the members of the network to publish in high impact mainstream journals.

Policy Impact: The network is a great opportunity for leading scholars in the field to engage with practitioners. Of particular relevance to the work conducted here are the following: the European Gender Institute; the Equality and Human Rights Commission; European Commission; Fawcett Society; the European Policy Centre. In order to maximise the impact of the Network, we propose to set up a website attached to the School of Politics (University of Surrey) which will include policy briefings and working papers. Practitioners will also be involved in the workshops as delegates and keynote speakers.