Gendering interpretations of EU27-UK Parliamentary Diplomacy

Gender makes parliamentary worlds - they're 'working worlds' (Miller 2021), as well as parliamentarians’ connections to broader geographic and political worlds, through inter-parliamentary institutions. This paper looks specifically at the newly institutionalising EU27-UK relationship, in particular, through the lens of gendered parliamentary diplomacy. EU27-UK executive negotiations were described as masculinised (Achilleous-Sarll and Martill 2019) and took place in global democracy characterised by ‘strongmen’ (Rachman 2022) executives. The parliamentary negotiations (2016- 2020) had not been the inverse of executive masculinised practices (Miller, 2023). Since 2022 a new body, the EU27-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly (PPA), composed of EU and UK parliamentarians has met five times to oversee the implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and has been cited as a fora for rebuilding relationships. This body and its members form the basis of this paper. Individual parliamentarians play an important role in parliamentary diplomacy (Stavridis 2017, p.383-386; Redei 2019). On the functional level, involved parliamentarians may know more about the negotiating space; highlight institutional and political blindspots for scrutiny; and ‘can raise public awareness about alternative policies and coalitions’ (Lipps, 2021, 505) for outputs. Parliamentarians may benefit from increased information, socialisation and cooperation. Furthermore, on an interpretative level, because parliamentary diplomacy is a rich concept, how parliamentarians interpret it, their role evaluations of parliamentary bodies (Delputte, 2012) and their agency within them, is important for the practice of parliamentary diplomacy. The paper looks inside the PPA and asks: how do EU27-UK actors interpret parliamentary diplomacy; their agency within it; and the institutional structure and its powers to support it? Are any of these interpretations shaped by gender or other demographic characteristics? Do members of the UK and EU delegations - both from different gendered parliaments, differ in their priorities, expectations, experiences and practices for/within this new institution? In answering these questions, through interviews and analysis of debates, the paper contributes to understanding of gendered parliamentary diplomacy - that constitutes both a nascent analytical framework (Jancic et al, 2021; Miller 2023) in feminist parliamentary studies and an overlooked activity of parliamentarians.