Gendering EU-US Parliamentary Diplomacy in Turbulent Times

In the wake of the second Trump’s administration in January 2025, EU-US relations have suddenly (re-)entered a period of existential turbulence, rapidly affecting different policy areas, from security and defence to trade and global governance. The parliamentary dimension of these relations, exemplified by the biannual Transatlantic Legislators’ Dialogue between the US Congress and the European Parliament (EP), remains relatively underexplored, with some notable exceptions (Jancic 2015; 2023; Lazarou 2020). In an era of global anti-gender mobilization, parliamentary diplomacy (PD) might offer a flexible platform for sustained dialogue and exchange on gender equality, as parliaments often act as international moral tribunes (Stavridis, 2021). Feeding into an emerging research agenda connecting gender and PD, this paper examines how EU-US PD is gendered in its formal rules, informal practices, and symbolic tools and arenas across the 9th and 10th EP mandates (2019-2025). The theoretical tools of feminist discursive institutionalism are applied to seize how gendered institutional arrangements are discursively constructed by key EP actors in PD (Committees, Delegations, political groups, administration, and the Presidency). The analysis draws upon documentary research, a dataset of 15 semi-structured interviews with MEPs and EP officers, and ethnographic and observational data collected at the EP Secretariat in early 2025. The article makes two key contributions to feminist approaches to PD. Theoretically, it conceptualizes gendered PD while looking at intersections with other identity markers. Empirically, it provides ‘thick’ ethnographical insights into how gendered PD unfolds amid geopolitical uncertainty, thus capturing the development of institutional dynamics in real time.