Implementing Gender Equality in Belgium: Just a Matter of Adopting Laws?

This paper presents a comparative analysis of law implementation in Belgium in three policy areas: political representation, gender based violence, and immigration policy. More precisely, and related to these three domains, the analysis focuses on: electoral gender quotas; intimate partner violence and forced marriage; asylum and migrant integration. The paper addresses the question of whether official decisions taken in these matters, laws in most cases, have been successful in establishing gender equality. Success is measured on two dimensions: (i) Policy Empowerment – we analyze whether the descriptive and substantive representation of women has been enhanced, thereby paying due attention to diversity and intersectionality ; (ii) Gender Transformation – we investigate change in the construction, organization, and perception of gender roles. We do so by studying the concrete implementation of the laws adopted, the process of their putting into practice, and the struggles, constraints, and opportunities this implementation generated. The research team is composed of experts in the three policy fields and will base its analysis on systematic literature reviews, document analysis, and interviews with key policy actors. Comparative analysis across the three quite distinct policy areas will shed light on various factors that account for success and failure in the Belgian case. In its endeavor to contribute to cross-country comparative research in this domain, the final section of the paper discusses the generalizability of the findings to other countries and policy areas.