From Contested Issue to Fashion Topic – How LGBT(I) entered EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy

Institutional change can be seen as contested by definition. However in this paper I argue that there are certain issues which are contested on a wider cultural level to such a degree that makes it surprising institutional change is taking place at all. The question is how highly contested issues still end up becoming part of policy and I argue that for this to happen a combination of factors is necessary. I attempt to explain the phenomenon of contested change at the case of human rights for LGBT(I) persons entering EU foreign policy and even becoming a fashionable subject. This paper traces how an unwanted file within the EEAS to became binding Council Guidelines on the promotion of human rights for LGBTI persons. Based on Based on interviews, it transpires that this was possible through a combination of different translation processes as well as co-currence of events.