Do Frames and Ideas Matter in Gender Equality: A Comparative Approach

Abstract

Since the turn towards ideas and discourse in the 1990s, the analysis of gender equality policy issues has placed the question of how issues are framed and defined by policy actors at the center of analysing how gender equality policy can be pursued, promoted and undermined (Lombardo and Kantola 2017). While the particular concept used has varied – e.g., “problem definition (Bacchi 1999 )”; “frames (Verloo 2007)”; “discourse (Sauer 2010)”; “referentielles (Muller 1990)”, “ paradigms (Jenson 1989)” -- a range of gender and politics scholars from different epistemological approaches and disciplinary vantage points have agreed “ ideas matter”. Indeed, a host of international research groups funded by top level scientific bodies brought together over 100 researchers in the 1990s and 2000s to study the dynamics and determinants of framing and discourse in gender equality policy (Mazur 2009). This panel aims to contribute to this rich tradition by bringing together emerging and senior scholars to examine policy ideas in action in Western Europe – Spain, Germany, France the Netherlands, the UK -- and at the international level. The five analyses together cut across a wide range of policy issues that have only just been placed on policy agendas very recently: feminicide; worklessness, criminal justice, street harassment and corruption. Moreover, all of the authors explore the complex intersections between gender, sexual identity, class, race, ethnicity and other vectors of inequality in each policy area; an important imperative for gender and politics scholarship (e.g.,Mügge and Montoya 2018). Each policy case also focusses on the complex post adoption phases of the policy process, including implementation, evaluation and impact; therefore, this issue responds to calls by many to “take implementation seriously (Engeli and Mazur 2018).” It also directly speaks to the focus of section S08. The link between enhanced gender equality policy and democratic performance is quite important, particularly in the area of ideas and narratives on policy implementation given they serve as conduits for both substantive and descriptive representation of gender interests in their complex intersectional reality. References Bacchi, Carol. 1999. Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Engeli, Isabelle and Amy G. Mazur. 2018 “Taking implementation seriously in sssessing success: The politics of gender policy in practice” with Isabelle Engeli. EJPG. 1(1). 2018. 11-29. Jenson, Jane. 1989. “Paradigms and political discourse: Protective legislation in France and the United States before 1914”. Canadian Journal of Political Science. 22(2)235-258. Kantola, Johanna and Emanuela Lombardo. 2017. Gender and political analysis. Palgrave/Macmillan. Mazur, Amy G. 2009. “Comparative gender and policy projects in Europe: Current trends in theory, method and Research “Comparative European Politics.” 9 (1). 12-36. Mügge. Liza and Celeste Montoya. 2018.” Intersectionality and the politics of knowledge production.” EJPG. 1(1) 17-36. Muller, Pierre. 1990. Les Politiques Publiques. Paris: PUF. Sauer, Sauer. 2010. “Framing and gendering” In McBride and Mazur, eds. The politics of state feminism: innovation in comparative research.” Pittsburgh PA: Temple University Press.193-216.

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