Gendering Parliamentary Diplomacy in EU27-UK Relations: Findings towards an emerging research agenda

European Parliament President, David Sassoli recently committed to strengthening the European Parliament’s parliamentary diplomacy (2021). Parliamentary diplomacy consists of activities, such as: routinised contact, trust-building, exchanges of information, and problem–solving. Parliamentary diplomacy is a widespread phenomenon and takes many forms, uses many tools and is directed towards many ends. Diplomacy structures relationships and ‘mediates estrangement’ (Der Derian, 1987) between (non) state actors. To date, there is a significant research gap on the role that gender plays in parliamentary diplomacy, though one seminal in depth study has explored the promotion of gender equality through parliamentary diplomacy (Jancic et al 2021). Gender and diplomacy literatures (Aggestam and Towns 2019) are not yet theoretically conversant with parliamentary diplomacy literatures. To date, academic treatments have framed gendered parliamentary diplomacy alongside practitioner-based definitions, such as the gender-sensitive parliaments and feminist foreign policy agendas. Gender equality is conceived of as ‘policy objectives’ and ‘sectoral policy areas’ (Jancic et al, 2021, p.19). This paper uses a theoretical framework of gendered parliamentary diplomacy, whereby gender is treated as an analytical category to explore the performance of parliamentary diplomacy through masculinities and femininities. The paper constitutes the first empirical study of gendered parliamentary diplomacy vis-a-vis Brexit and asks: how was gendered parliamentary diplomacy conceived of and performed by MEPs during the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union? It is based on a unique qualitative dataset of 140 interviews and ethnographic research conducted at the time of the UK’s withdrawal at the end of EP8 and the beginning of EP9. The analysis considers the performance of gendered parliamentary diplomacy in three institutional levels: the European Parliament level, the political group level, and the MEP level and contributes rich findings and reflections towards an exciting and emerging research agenda of gendering parliamentary diplomacy.