Women’s role and performance in EU foreign and security policy: data, patterns and trends

This paper focuses on the evolution of women representation in EU foreign and security policy since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty (December 2009). Despite the growing attention around this topic, scholarly research mainly focused on the individual performance of women in leadership positions, a comprehensive investigation of the evolution of women in foreign and defence ministerial positions in the EU is missing. The paper will present a detailed picture of the main trends, data and patterns of women holding the post of defence or foreign minister of the 27 EU member states. After providing an overview of the evolution of women’s representation in this field, the paper explores and discusses the positional leadership (how did they get there?) and the behavioural leadership (how did they perform in the position?) of women leaders in EU foreign and security policy (Müller and Tömmel 2021).