Introduction : on EU democracy promotion, the question of depoliticisation, and the case of Turkey -- (De)politicisation, (neo-)liberal governmentality, and hegemonic struggles -- The (neo-)liberal governmentality of EU civil society programs -- The (de)politicisation of women's rights organisations in a complex context -- (De)politicising LGBT rights organisations and the effects of visibility -- The (de)politicisisation of the securitised Kurdish rights issue -- Conclusions.
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The European Union (EU) praises itself for being a promoter of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the world. It supports LGBT organisations abroad with the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR). Yet, the EIDHR has come under scrutiny by scholars arguing that it is based on neoliberal rationalities and depoliticises civil society. The literature analyses the EU's documents but does not study funding in practice. Moreover, it has a narrow understanding of politicisation failing to include insights from feminist and queer literature. To problematize the EU's policy, we need to analyse it in the sites it intervenes in. It is unclear whether and how the EIDHR depoliticises LGBT organisations and issues. Studying the case of Turkey, I argue that the EU's support of LGBT organisations had ambiguous effects which are not necessarily the ones intended by the EU nor the ones expected by the governmentality literature. The EU's funding depoliticised the organisations in the sense that they looked less political and more transparent. Yet, this helped making LGBT rights' claims more legitimate within Turkey's political struggles. At the same time, EU funding created conflicts within the LGBT movement about the question of Western external funding and neoliberal co-optation.
Traditional definitions of power assume a unidirectional and coercive relationship between two actors. The debate about power in International Relations has questioned such a compulsive unidirectionality by pointing to the multidimensionality of power, as well as to the power of those who are traditionally seen at the receiving end. It is especially the latter aspect that has not been taken up seriously by empirical analyses. Moreover, research has ignored the complex power struggles the 'receiving' actors are engaged in and their possibility of resistance. If taken into account, these Foucauldian revisions of the concept of power allow us to analyse the development of the relationship between Turkey and the European Union (EU) since the turn of the millennium in a much more nuanced way than is often done in the existing Europeanisation literature. This case is particularly interesting, firstly because of the change in relations between the EU and Turkey, questioning the condition of a credible membership perspective under which the traditional form of power of the EU over its neighbourhood becomes effective. It secondly shows that the EU's power extends much beyond the imposition of policy changes and has restructuring effects on society as a whole, while domestic actors are by no means passive recipients in this process.
Against the background of a sense of crisis in the European Union and in international politics, European Union Member States have since 2016 increased their cooperation within the Common Security and Defence Policy, for example, establishing the European Defence Fund. Scholars have long pointed out that the European Union lacks the necessary 'hard' military power to influence international politics, subscribing to and constituting an image of the European Union as not masculine enough. We are critical of these accounts and develop a different argument. First, building on insights from feminist security and critical military studies, we argue that the European Union is a military power constituted by multiple masculinities. We consider the European Union to be a masculine military power, not only because it uses and aims to develop military instruments, but also because of how militarism and military masculinities permeate discourses, practices and policies within Common Security and Defence Policy and the European Union more broadly. We argue, second, that the crisis narrative allows the European Union to strengthen Common Security and Defence Policy and exhibit more aggressive military masculinities based on combat, which exist alongside entrepreneurial and protector masculinities. These developments do not indicate a clear militarisation of Common Security and Defence Policy, but, rather, an advancement and normalisation of militarism and the militarised masculinities associated with it.
The European Union has faced several crises in the past decades, including the economic and financial crisis, Brexit, a migration, climate change and security crisis, and the latest COVID-19 crisis. In this context, feminist scholars have shown how the causes and effects of the economic and financial crisis are strongly gendered. Generally, this literature suggests that crises can open a window of opportunity for gender considerations but may also promote policies which exacerbate gendered inequalities. Yet, the impact of crises on the attention to gender equality in European Union's external relations is still unknown. This is surprising, as the European Union has promised to mainstream gender in all external policies, and understands itself to be a normative power and gender actor in world politics. This Special Issue analyses how the European Union's identification of crisis and its policy responses to crisis in different external policy fields are gendered. The introduction situates the Special Issue within existing scholarship, theorises the central concepts of this Special Issue – crisis, gender (equality) and the European Union identities – and highlights how the different contributions advance our understanding of how gender figures in European Union's external relations in past, current and future times of crisis.
