Gendering European Integration Theory

Abstract

As integration in Europe advances, so too does our ability to theorize and conceptualize the events at hand. Despite 60 years of cooperation, we continue to struggle to understand the processes. Beginning in the early 1990s, a growing body of literature on gender studies in the European Union has been developing. Gender studies have revealed the hidden gender dimension of the European integration process. The main focus is on the linkage between the public and the private, the domestic and the international, and on the gendering of actors and institutions. Such findings have repercussion for theory-building. However, this literature, is largely policy-based and, for the most part, does not engage in abstract theorizing about the “nature of the EU”. Nor does it engage much with the existing theories of integration. This panel, which builds on an edited volume of the same title seeks to overcome the silence between gender studies and EU integration theories. Given the theoretical and methodological plurality within gender studies, it is evident that there is not a single gender theory of European integration. However, different integration theories are more or less receptive and useful for gender analysis. The papers presented discuss a range of European integration theories – from classical to newer approaches – through a gender lens. Together, they contribute to a ‘richer’ and more inclusive debate on integration theories, which are better grounded.