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In this meticulously documented study, Krizsán and Roggeband demonstrate how the Istanbul Convention mobilized conservative forces, fostered intricate ties between autocratic states and nonstate actors, refigured civil society to advantage anti-equality activists, defunded feminist organizations providing services to abused women and shifted resources to conservative organizations favoring "family values" over women's empowerment. Their insightful analysis has vital lessons for those concerned with social justice in the 21st century. --Mary Hawkesworth, Rutgers University This incisive analysis of the politics of violence against women in Central and Eastern Europe highlights how some determined governments are blocking or reversing important gains on the international legal front through concerted political and civic action. A cautionary story with important implications for the broader fight to advance women's rights globally. --Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace This important study compares and challenges Central and Eastern European pushback movements against the Istanbul Convention. The Convention for the first time provides legally binding definitions of "gender" and "gender-based violence against women", misinterpreted by conservative forces opposing this progressive international instrument. This book shows how positive instruments like the Istanbul Convention can be judged as problematic and that much more is needed to make gender equality a reality. --Dubravka Šimonović, Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences This book examines opposition to the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention and its consequences for the politics of violence against women in four countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Krizsán and Roggeband discuss why and how successful anti-gender mobilizations managed to obstruct ratification of the Convention or push for withdrawal from it. They show how resistance to the Convention significantly redraws debates on violence against women and has consequences for policies, women's rights advocacy and gender-equal democracy. Andrea Krizsán is a professor at the Central European University, Austria. Conny Roggeband is an associate professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

"What are the factors that shape domestic violence policy change and how are variable gendered meanings produced in these policies? How and when can feminists influence policy making? What conditions and policy mechanisms lead to progressive change and which ones block it or lead to reversal? The Gender Politics of Domestic Violence analyzes the emergence of gender equality sensitive domestic violence policy reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Tracing policy developments in Eastern Europe from the beginning of 2000s, when domestic violence first emerged on policy agendas, until 2015, Andrea Krizsan and Conny Roggeband look into the contestation that takes place between women's movements, states and actors opposing gender equality to explain the differences in gender equality sensitive policy outputs across the region. They point to regionally specific patterns of feminist engagement with the state in which coalition-building between women's organizations and establishing alliances with different state actors were critical for achieving gendered policy progress. In addition, they demonstrate how discursive contexts shaped by democratization frames and opposition to gender equality, led to differences in the politicization of gender equality, making gender friendly reforms more feasible in some countries than others."--Provided by publisher

This paper focuses on campaigns against the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). These campaigns not only obstructed ratification processes in a number of countries, but also that the openly hostile and highly gendered attacks had a direct impact on women's rights activists and their work, seriously hindering their work, but also affecting their well-being and safety. In this paper we explore the violent implications of the campaigns against the Istanbul Convention which are part of wider anti-gender campaigns. We argue that the violence of the campaigns and the violent implications should be considered gendered political violence, which effectively marginalizes women and other targeted groups and obstructs their participation in society and politics and as such is central to current autocratization tendencies and undermining of democracy.

AbstractScholars and NGOs have been raising alarms about the increasing political restraints that civil society organizations face globally. In this paper, we argue that closure is in fact a selective mechanism: governments attempt to reorganize civic space through a dual process of selective in‐ and exclusion of civil society organizations. Civil society organizations identified as critical of or even anti‐government face obstruction and restraints, whereas simultaneously the space and state support for organizations identified as pro‐government is expanded. Governments instrumentalize certain civil society organizations to their own benefit: they are sponsored and used to influence the realm of civil society in ways that directly legitimize state power and maintain an appearance of democracy. We illustrate our claims by discussing the reorganization of civic space in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe through the case of women's rights activism.

Gender and politics literature has a strong focus on policy progress and the conditions that facilitate progressive change. Yet, increased opposition to gender equality makes it urgent to examine if and how current attacks affect existing gender-equality policies and institutions. We develop a conceptual framework to map patterns of backsliding of gender-equality policies. Empirically, we focus on Central and Eastern Europe as a notable example of backsliding. We find that rather than the direct dismantling of gender-equality policies, the core dimensions challenged by processes of backsliding are implementation and accountability. We argue that backsliding affects the legitimacy and effectiveness of existing laws and undermines democracy.

"An exploration of the ways that multiple inequalities are being addressed in Europe. Using country-based and region-specific case studies it provides an innovative comparative analysis of the multidimensional equality regimes that are emerging in Europe, and reveals the potential that these have for institutionalizing intersectionality"--

Reframing Citizenship and Gender Justice – transnational and intersectional perspectivesMarshall's classical formulation of citizenship was associated with equal rights and duties of citizens within the nation state (Marshall 1950). It was at the same time based upon inequality within the category citizen, i.e. based on gender and ethnicity, as well between citizens and non-citizens. During the last 20 years processes of globalization, European integration and immigration have increased inequalities within the nation state as well as inequalities between nationals for example between European citizens and third country nationals. These developments have contributed to challenge the classical understanding and have inspired scholarly debates about reframing of the classical model. The notion of citizenship is contextual depending on national histories and the particularity of places and spaces. This presentation will explore the theoretical and normative problems and potentials to reframe the concept of citizenship to include visions of gender equality and gender justice within and beyond the nation states (Siim 2013). One crucial issue is how to expand the understanding of citizenship to include cultural diversity within the nation state. Scholars have proposed a multicultural citizenship (Kymlicka 1995), which recognizes the diversity and accommodate the cultural difference of minority groups within the nation states. Another crucial issue is how to expand citizenship to the transnational/global level. Scholars have proposed a notion of rooted cosmopolitan citizenship (Benhabib 2006) beyond the national state. The recent political and economic crisis has inspired debates about gender equality and gender justice within and beyond the nation state. Feminist scholarship has started to explore intersections of gender, class and diversity at local, national and transnational levels (Lombardo, Meier & Verloo 2009; Siim & Mokre 2013) and to reframe theoretical approaches to citizenship from intersectional and transnational perspectives (Yuval-Davis 2011; Fraser 2013). References:Benhabib, S. (2006). Another Cosmopolitanism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Fraser, N. (2013). Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis, London: VersoKymlicka, Will (1995). Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Lombardo, E., P. Meier & M. Verloo (eds.) (2009). The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality, London: Routledge.Marshall, T.H. (1950). Citizenship and Social Class and other essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Siim, B. (2013). "Citizenship", essay 30. In: K. Celis, V. Waylen (eds.). Handbook on Gender and Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Siim, B. & M. Mokre (eds.) (2013) Negotiation Gender and Diversity in an Emergent European Public Sphere, Basingstoke: Palgrave.Yuval-Davis, N. (2011). The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations, London: Sage Publications.

Cover -- Endorsement -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations and acronyms -- 1 Whose story is it anyway? Studying European integration with a gender lens -- Some remarks on mainstream history -- European integration as 'her- story' - some missing bits and pieces -- Structure and idea of this Handbook -- Note -- References -- Part I Gendering the EU -- 2 The EU as a gender equality regime: A core research concept -- A short overview of gender equality in the EU -- Origins of the "gender regime" approach -- Conceptualizing the EU as a gender equality regime -- The EU gender equality regime since the Great Recession -- Achievements, gaps and future directions -- Conclusion: dismantling, disintegration or defiance -- References -- 3 Europeanization -- "When Europe hits home" -- Europeanization through a gender lens: "going soft" vs. meaning contestation -- De-Europeanization? Gendering Europe in troubled times -- Europeanization "beyond Europe", as conflict or "De-Europeanization" -- Reflecting new trends in the Gender and EU scholarship -- Towards a common research agenda: gender, the new cleavage of Europe? -- References -- 4 Social constructivism -- Mainstream approaches to social constructivism in European Integration theory -- Gendering European Integration theory from social constructivist approaches -- Conclusions -- Note -- References -- 5 Feminist institutionalism -- From new institutionalism to feminist institutionalism -- Feminist institutionalism as a response to new institutionalism -- Central concepts -- Feminist institutionalism in EU studies -- Seeing gender when others are blind -- Agents of change and resistance -- Formal and informal rules and values -- Conceptual openness -- Moving forward -- Where does this take us? -- References.

This important book offers a comprehensive guide to the international policies developed to stop rape , together with case study examples on how they work. The book describes how law and criminal justice system, health services, specialised services for victim-survivors, educational and cultural interventions can best be coordinated.

Epdf available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book offers a comprehensive guide to the international policies developed to stop rape, together with case studies on their effectiveness in practice. Engaging with the legal and criminal justice systems, health services, specialised services for victim-survivors, educational and cultural outreach, and more, it brings together both theory and real-world evidence to build a thorough picture of worldwide efforts to fight rape in all its contexts.

This book aims to map the diversity of meanings of gender equality across Europe and reflects on the contested concept of gender equality. In its exploration of the diverse meanings of gender equality it not only takes into account the existence of different visions of gender equality, and the way in which different political and theoretical debates crosscut these visions, but also reflects upon the geographical contexts in which visions and debates over gender equality are located. The contextual locations where these visions and debates take place include the European Union and member states such as Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovenia, Greece, and Spain. In all of these settings, the different meanings of gender equality are explored comparatively in relation to the issues of family policies, domestic violence, and gender inequality in politics, while specific national contexts discuss the issues of prostitution (Austria, Slovenia), migration (the Netherlands), homosexual rights (Spain), and antidiscrimination (Hungary). The multiple meanings of gender equality are studied through Critical Frame Analysis, a methodology that builds on social movement theory and that was refined further with elements of gender and political theory within the context of the MAGEEQ research project