The project “Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament’s party groups” (EUGenDem) provided a systematic analysis of the gendered policies and practices of European party politics. The research comprised a comparative study of the European Parliament’s (EP) party groups and generated empirical and theoretical findings about the significance of gender in the current party political transformations in Europe.
EUGenDem as a collaborative research project addressed crucial questions about the gendered and gendering policies and practices of European party politics:
• How does gender create lines of contestation and consensus between and within the EP’s party groups and what effects does it have on the democratic functioning of the European Union?
• How does analysing affects and emotions deepen our understanding of the interplay between formal and informal institutions, and discourses in explaining the change and continuity in gendered norms, practices and policies of the party groups?
• How are the EP party groups’ gendered policies and practices shaped by prevailing political projects of populism, neoliberalism, conservatism, authoritarianism, and nationalism?
EUGenDem undertook an empirical analysis of party group policies and formal and informal practices in relation to gender. Focusing on selected party groups’ policies generated knowledge about political contestation about gender equality in relation to economy, social rights, and moral politics. The three selected policy areas covered explicitly gendered issues (gender violence); an issue where the centrality of gender is recognized but easily eclipsed (European Pillar of Social Rights), and an issue where gendered consequences are severe, but linkages to gender are omitted (economic governance).
The key methodological and theoretical innovations of the project linked informal institutions, everyday practices, and discourses to affects and emotions, generating research designs like parliamentary ethnography with which the persistence of gender inequalities can be analysed more thoroughly than current gender and politics research allows. More nuanced conceptualizations, and theories of inclusive representation, gender justice, and democracy at the transnational level, were a consequence of adopting an innovative methodological approach where empirical findings informed the theoretical level. The key outcome of this research project are novel methodologies, concepts and theories about inclusive representation, gender justice and democracy based on a thorough empirical understanding of gender and party politics at the European Parliament.
The project has had a high societal impact as it spoke directly to the current political crises in Europe, and provided an understanding of their gendered underpinnings.
