Introduction : Why Gender and the EU?

Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, R. and Cin, F.M. (2021) Introduction : Why Gender and the EU? In: Feminist Framing of Europeanisation : Gender Equality Policies in Turkey and the EU. Gender and Politics . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 3-18. ISBN 9783030527693

Abstract

This chapter introduces the debates surrounding the Europeanisation of non-members and identifies existing knowledge gaps of Europeanisation. It then introduces the EU’s gender policies and the Turkish context, briefly addresses the shortcomings of Europeanisation framework and offers a rationale on how feminist approaches strengthen its explanatory value when applied to gender policies. Europeanisation offers a well-equipped toolbox to analyse how EU membership has impacted the gender equality policies of different clusters of countries such as old and new member states, candidates and third countries. Turkey is an illustrative case with which to study the EU’s impact due to the length of its relations with the EU, which makes it possible to trace several independent variables within the EU’s influence mechanisms of conditionality and social learning, whilst its quest for a European identity makes it relevant to generalise the insights of the Turkish case to candidates, non-members and third countries. Through the case of Turkey, this chapter introduces how the book will make the case for why Europeanisation needs a feminist rationale to be able to move forward. © 2021, The Author(s).