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AbstractThis article examines the role of the European parliament (EP) in providing ideational alternatives to austerity in the context of the Eurozone crisis and the COVID-19 crisis. Despite the EP's limited formal role in EU economic governance, it is a key site for democratic debate and contestation. Analyzing EP debates about austerity allows us to understand the possibilities and limitations for ideational change at the EU level from the perspective of supranational party politics. Through a longitudinal analysis (2012–2021) of EP resolutions on the European Commission's Annual Growth Surveys, the article asks how ideational battles around austerity have unfolded between the EP's political groups and what factors have shaped the EP's positions. Theoretically, the article draws on the literature on ideational political economy and discoursive institutionalism. The article argues that instead of providing alternatives, the EP and its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs have contributed to the ideational hold of austerity due to the weakness of the alternatives of the center-left and their compatibility with austerity. Party-political and institutional factors, such as broad left/right compromises and a strict division of labor between the EP's committees, further constrain ideational change.

The European Union's (EU) economic governance is pivotal for gender equality in the EU, yet gender equality concerns have been sidelined in governance processes. This article analyzes the struggles involved in integrating a gender perspective into the EU's economic governance in the European Parliament (EP). It explores how the EP, often perceived as a champion of gender equality, constructs gender in relation to economic governance and how conflicts between the EP's political groups and committees influence the EP's ability to challenge gendered inequalities related to the governance regime. This article reveals that the EP's positions have been characterized by strategic silence about gender and understandings of gender equality as a productive factor that legitimized gendered policies. Party-political conflicts and compromises that have sidelined critical views, and a boundary between social and economic issues and actors, were key barriers for the integration of critical gender perspectives.

The European Union's (EU) economic governance is a pivotal question for gender equality in the EU, yet gender equality concerns have been sidelined in governance processes. This article analyzes the struggles involved in integrating a gender perspective into the EU's economic governance in the European Parliament (EP). It explores how the EP, often perceived as a champion of gender equality, constructs gender in relation to economic governance and how conflicts between the EP's political groups and committees influence the EP's ability to challenge gendered inequalities related to the governance regime. This article reveals that the EP's positions have been characterized by strategic silence about gender and understandings of gender equality as a productive factor that legitimized gendered policies. Party-political conflicts and compromises that have sidelined critical views and a boundary between social and economic issues and actors were key barriers for the integration of critical gender perspectives. ; publishedVersion ; Peer reviewed

Gender quotas for corporate boards can be seen as a way of drawing attention to gendered power within the economy as well as a way to democratize the economy, yet the debate about them has focused on the economic and business benefits of gender equality rather than on gender justice or democracy. This article examines how women's under-representation in economic decision-making was constituted as an economic problem in the European Union's gender-equality policies and how the economization of the debate on gender quotas for corporate boards affects understandings of gender equality and the economy. The article contributes to research on gender and neoliberalism through developing an approach for analysing the depoliticizing effects of economized gender-equality discourses. It argues that the depoliticized understandings of gender and the economy put forward in the debate water down the politicizing potential of the proposed EU gender-balance directive and that the debate about gender quotas has enhanced the neoliberalization and corporatization of EU gender-equality discourse. ; Peer reviewed

Scholarship on gender and the European Union (EU) has consistently pointed out that EU gender equality policies have always been embedded in the logic of the market and that the economic framing has had negative impacts on the content and concepts of these policies. This article provides novel insights into this discussion by combining a discursive approach focused on framings with insights of feminist economists and examining how the relationship between gender equality and the economy has been conceptualized in EU policy documents from the 1980s up until the present day. The article identifies the key actors and processes behind the escalation of economic arguments for gender equality and makes visible the economic assumptions that underpin EU gender equality policy. It argues that in recent years the European institutions have intentionally developed and propagated a market-oriented gender equality discourse, the economic case for gender equality, which highlights the macroeconomic benefits of gender equality. The economic case reaffirms the gender-biased assumptions of neoclassical economic theory and legitimizes the EU's current economic priorities and policies, many of which are detrimental to gender equality. The European Commission represents the argument that gender equality contributes to economic growth as an innovative way to promote gender equality. However, the economic case represents a risk for gender equality advocates, because it may tame the emerging feminist criticism of the EU's economic policies and governance. ; Peer reviewed

"Sittlichkeit" (siveellisyys) is one of the key concepts used by Finnish women's rights activists when they in the beginning of 20th century demanded the rights for political participation. But how is the term siveellisyys, the meaning of which a modern Finnish reader easily connects with prudish sexual morality, related to political participation and suffrage? I argue that in the Finnish suffragists' argumentation for the vote the term has a clear public and political dimension, which can be best understood through the concept of Sittlichkeit as it appears in Johan Vilhelm Snellman's political philosophy influenced by Hegel's system of concepts, referring to the political nature of action and getting a meaning close to "civic". I will focus on explicating the interplay of two of the meanings that the term siveellisyys gets in women's texts: that of the Snellmanian idea of the political nature of action, and that of pure sexual morality. I argue that on one hand suffragists use the term siveellisyys similarly to the Snellmanian concept of Sittlichkeit to enable women to be considered as political actors and to construct an idea of political action which they contrast to party politics. On the other hand, in its meaning related to sexual ethics, the term siveellisyys is used to indicate that not all women are capable for political action. ; Peer reviewed

Chapter 1- Introduction: Governing Gender Equality Policy in Changing State -- Chapter 2- Theorising Shifting Public Governance from a Feminist Perspective -- Chapter 3- Strategic Governance and Gender Equality Policy -- Chapter 4- Workfare Reform and Family Leave Policy -- Chapter 5 - Economic Governance and Gender Budgeting -- Chapter 6 - Evidence-Based Policy and Feminist Knowledge -- Chapter 7- Conclusions.

The European Semester, the foundation of postcrisis economic governance in the European Union (EU), has become the locus of struggle between the economic and social goals of the EU. The persistent hierarchy of social and economic goals and subsuming of social policies to market-making logic have been at the centre of scholarly and political discussions about the Semester since its inception. This article examines how the European Parliament (EP), the EU's representative institution, engages with the social/economic relationship within the technocratic and expert-led Semester and what political and ideological alternatives the EP proposes. We ask where and what are the key conflicts within the EP regarding the social dimension of economic governance and how they affect policy outcomes. By discursively exploring the EP reports on the European Semester for the 2014-19 term and analysing the conflicts between political groups and between the EP committees, the article argues that the EP takes an ambiguous and contradictory position on the relationship between economic and social governance and does not provide a real alternative to the status quo.

This article analyses the implementation of gender mainstreaming in the European Parliament and aims at deciphering the role of its committees and political groups in advancing or hindering the integration of gender perspectives. The article engages with feminist institutionalism and micro-political approaches, and is based on interview and documentary data. It examines how formal and informal institutions and micro-political strategies within committees and political groups affect the abilities of this representative European Union institution to ensure a gender perspective is present in European Union policies. We suggest that although the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (the gender-focused parliamentary body) oversees gender mainstreaming, committees and political groups, as the core actors of European Parliament policymaking, are the gatekeepers that determine the outcomes. Our findings advance understandings of the limits of gender mainstreaming in European Union policymaking and shed light on the specific challenges of gender mainstreaming and broader gender equality change in parliaments.