Emanuela Lombardo

Complutense University of Madrid | UCM · Political Science and Administration

This article analyses the symbolic construction of the ‘people’ and the ‘homeland’ in Spain’s left populist party Podemos by exploring the gender and class meanings that Podemos leaders evoke in their representation of these two key elements of populist rhetoric. Distinguishing between the official sym- 10 bolic presentation of the constituency, th...

Spain developed a mixed approach to gender equality on corporate boards by combining measures in the corporate governance code from 2006 to a law regulating a minimum presence of 40% for the underrepresented sex on the corporate boards of publicly traded firms and state-owned companies in 2007. The lax oversight of the implementation of statutory q...

How can we understand differences in the gender regime of Southern European states? What explains the different trajectories of gender regimes? Spain and Italy are often lumped together as belonging to the domestic or conservative model because of their shared legacy of authoritarianism and the familialistic nature of their welfare state, which ent...

Gender and policy studies needs to face challenges and cross boundaries if the discipline is to develop. This article argues that gender and policy studies needs to explicitly foreground the centrality of politics – the analysis of power – in approaching policy. The discipline confronts boundaries in relation to inclusivity, diversity and relevance...

This article develops an analytical framework to study the power struggles between status quo and gender equality actors underpinning the implementation of gender equality policies. While resistance to gender equality policies in different institutions has received considerable scholarly attention, examining this struggle in light of a multifaceted...

The European Parliament is now host to a significant number of politicians from radical right populist parties, leaving the Parliament to deal with illiberal elements within its structures. At the heart of the European Union's democratic values is a commitment to gender equality, a commitment hotly contested by illiberal actors and radical right po...

Over the last decade, several European Union (EU) Member States have experienced unprecedented processes of de-democratization with negative consequences for equality and social justice. Democracy as an ideal and practice is connected to equality, openness, universality, rights, inclusion, participation, and contestation. De-democratization in turn...

Recomendaciones del proyecto UNIGUAL para implementar las políticas de igualdad y la interseccionalidad en las universidades https://www.unigual.es/publicaciones-y-recursos/

The legal mandate to mainstream gender equality in Spain’s universities has led to the establishment of gender equality units and the adoption of gender equality policy plans and protocols against sexual harassment. This research looks at how gender equality policies have been implemented within universities and what resisting and facilitating fact...

Over the past twenty years, the field of “gender and politics” has flourished in European political science. An example of this is the growing number of “gender and politics” scholars and the increased attention paid to gender perspectives in the study of the political. Against this backdrop, we take stock of how the “gender and politics” field has...

Social constructivism is well suited to address continuous changes in European integration. As political processes such as the 2008 economic crisis in Europe and Brexit show, theorising a polity in continuous transformation requires analytical approaches capable of grasping this social construction, its structures and agents. Despite such contribut...

Populism is everywhere in Europe today: in politics and in research. Most research on populism has neglected the relationship between gender equality and populism. The aim of this symposium is precisely to scrutinize the relationship between feminist politics and right-wing and left-wing populist parties in Europe. The contribution of the symposium...

An increasingly polarized European Parliament (EP) has become an important site of radical right populist opposition to gender equality. Through a qualitative analysis of populist interventions in EP plenary debates on gender equality in the 8th legislature (2014–2019), this article identifies the discursive strategies adopted by right populists to...

This article applies Walby’s systemic theory of gender regime to Spain’s decentralized state, to capture changes in the gender regime. Locating the “hegemon” at different levels of government for each domain (economy, polity, violence, and civil society) and considering interactions between governmental levels provided a clear understanding of chan...

The European integration process is facing unprecedented challenges. Beginning in 2008, the global financial crisis, which later turned into a eurocrisis, started a chain of events that shook the process of European integration. From Brexit to the rise of European populist parties and to attacks to democracy in member states such as Hungary and Pol...

This article puts public policy research in dialogue with gender and politics studies to enhance our understanding of the implementation of care policies. Care policies present interesting problems of implementation because of the multiplicity of aims, values, inequalities, actors and levels of governance involved. Nonetheless, previous research sh...

This article argues that many empirical studies in the field of gender and politics reduce symbolic representation to an effect of descriptive repre- sentation, which limits our understanding of the relevance of symbolic representation. We claim that we should understand symbolic represen- tation as a dimension in itself, not merely as an effect of...

Discursive factors have not figured prominently in implementation research. This article fills this gap by addressing the material and discursive conflicts articulated around equality at workplace between women and men in multilevel judicial contexts. It studies obstacles to and opportunities for the judicial implementation of EU equal employment p...

Drawing on the insights of studies examining opposition to gender equality policy, this article develops an actor-centric analytical framework of the contentious politics underpinning the entire policy process and suggests that resistance is a crucial meta factor explaining policy failure. Through a longitudinal study of corporate board gender quot...

While populism has been subject to growing scholarly interest, its relationship to feminist politics has remained conspicuously understudied. This article investigates this relationship by analysing two cases of European populism: left populism in Spain (Podemos), and right populism in Finland (the Finns Party). The questions asked, and the challen...

Democracy is an ally of the feminist project and a necessary condition for its success. The European post-crisis context shows evidence of de-democratization processes that represent a remarkable challenge. This article investigates gender equality and processes of de-democratization in Spain in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. It argues...

Democracy is an ally of the feminist project and a necessary condition for its success. The European post-crisis context shows evidence of de-democratization processes that represent a remarkable challenge. This article investigates gender equality and processes of de-democratization in Spain in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. It argues...

Good Symbolic Representation: The Relevance of Inclusion - Volume 51 Issue 2 - Emanuela Lombardo, Petra Meier

Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe. Edited by Michaela Köttig , Renate Bitzan , and Andrea Petö . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 386 pp. $119.00 (e-book), $159.00 (hardcover). - Emanuela Lombardo

Interpretive studies of EU gender equality policies show that gender equality is constructed and contested in the EU. Not only does the European Parliament or the European Commission put forward different framings of gender equality problems and solutions, but also within each institution different meanings are attributed to gender, equality, women...

Austerity politics, war in the Middle East and at other borders of the European Union, the rise of nationalisms, the emergence of populist parties and politicians, Islamophobia and the refugee crisis are amongst the recent developments suggesting the need for discussions about the theories and concepts that academic disciplines provide for making s...

Resumen: Las cuotas de género en la política y en los consejos de administración de las empresas presentan diferencias importantes en España respecto al grado de coerción, el periodo de implementación establecido y las sanciones por incumplimiento, indicando una regulación “fuerte” para las primeras y “débil” para las segundas. Para explicar por qu...

This article studies how processes of policy implementation and the impact of a multilevel European legal order shape social policies. By using an interdisciplinary approach to comparative policy analysis that investigates policy implementation through the critical study of judicial litigation, the article analyses the case of García Mateos on work...

Studying symbolic representation is not only relevant, but also challenging. Hanna Pitkin [1967. The Concept of Representation. CA: University of California Press, 97] already warned us that “[w]e can never exhaust, never quite capture in words, the totality of what a symbol symbolizes: suggests, evokes, implies.” We will discuss the opportunities...

This chapter introduces the theme of the book, that is, the ‘political’ implications of the current economic crisis in Europe from a gender and intersectional perspective. This means introducing the three main issues developed in the chapters: (i) European Union (EU) austerity politics and related institutional and policy changes, (ii) the European...

Austerity politics that the EU and the Spanish government have enacted from 2010 onwards in response to the economic crisis is changing the Spanish gender regime in more neoliberal and conservative directions. However, feminist and civil society’s struggles against austerity and anti-equality policies, women’s resistance to ‘go back home’, and new...

This concluding chapter draws implications for understanding gender politics and policy in Europe in times of crisis. The picture that emerges from the analysis shows patterns of political and institutional dismantlement of gender equality policies, perpetuation of old gendered dynamics that the crisis has revitalized in both new and old political...

This article discusses policymaking from a gender+ equality perspective. It connects the knowledge from various subfields ranging from development planning, to feminist policy studies, to works on gender mainstreaming. By connecting different but convergent feminist subdisciplines, it draws a picture of the field of gender+ and policymaking. Centra...

What does it mean to do political analysis from a gender perspective? This book provides an original analytical framework for doing political analysis that navigates readers through five different feminist approaches: ‘women’, ‘gender’, ‘deconstruction’, ‘intersectionality’, and ‘post-deconstruction’. Applying this framework to the analysis of the...

The unique contribution of this book is to explore the gendered politics of the economic crisis in Europe. It focuses, firstly, on the changes in the political and economic decision-making institutions and processes of the EU and their consequences for gender equality policy. Secondly, the book analyses the gendered impacts of austerity politics on...

While gender equality policies have been institutionalized and consolidated in Spain until 2008, the 2009-2016 period shows backlash provoked by austerity policies adopted in response to the economic crisis. Institutional dismantlement, budget cuts, legislative standstill, policy reforms with negative gender impacts, and problems of implementation...

This book is a unique exploration into the gendered politics of the economic crisis in Europe. It focuses, firstly, on the changes in the political and economic decision-making institutions and processes of the EU and their consequences for gender equality policy. Secondly, the book analyses the gendered impacts of austerity politics on member stat...

Austerity policies that the EU and the Spanish government have enacted in response to the economic crisis are changing the Spanish gender regime in neoliberal and conservative directions, threatening progress towards a more public rather than domestic gender regime. These changes are signaled by budget cuts in gender equality policies, restructurin...

Mainstreaming gender in political science education requires legislation, structures, instruments, and critical actors, not to mention a favourable political context for putting the issue on the agenda. This article examines these issues in the Spanish context with particular reference to the opportunities afforded to the mainstreaming of gender in...

In this chapter I argue that gender and intersectionality perspectives on the EU have much to contribute to social constructivism, not only because they draw on articulated theories of how gender –in intersection with other inequalities- is constructed through social and institutional practices, but also because of the specific attention they pay t...

Inclusiveness of different social groups and responsiveness to the needs of increasingly diverse societies are key criteria for policy analysts to assess the quality of public policies. We argue that an intersectional approach attentive to the interaction of gender with other inequalities is particularly apt to deal with equality and diversity in p...

A pesar de que en los últimos veinte años la Unión Europea (en adelante UE) ha promovido instituciones y políticas para que los esta-dos miembros aborden las desigualdades múltiples-tanto a través de la adopción de dos directivas y de un artículo en el tratado, como de la creación o reforma de las instituciones de igualdad-, la aplicación del enfoq...

Gender mainstreaming is the strategy that aims to incorporate a gender perspective into all policies so that they counter gender bias and produce gender equality in politics and society. Pioneered by feminists in development, it aims at challenging androcentric policy norms and structures by transforming policymaking processes, mechanisms, and acto...

Feminist knowledge transfer and gender mainstreaming are deeply interrelated. Gender mainstreaming requires that institutional and organizational cultures undergo changes to include a gender perspective — based on gender knowledge — into all public policies and processes (Council of Europe, 1998). However, policymakers generally do not have suffici...

The need to stop rape is pressing and, since it is the outcome of a wide range of practices and institutions in society, so too must the policies be to stop it 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 engages with the law and...

This article argues that a discursive–sociological approach to study Europeanization is particularly apt for understanding the dynamics of policy change in Europe. It does so by bringing closer the agenda of discursive institutionalism (DI) and gender policy analysis, drawing upon the recent sociological and discursive turns in the study of the dom...

Este articulo hace un recorrido atraves de las politicas de igualdad en Espana, en relacion con las politicassociales, desde su origen, desarrollo, y desmantelamiento en un contexto decrisis economica. Las politicas de igualdad de genero han tenido un desarrolloespectacular en Espana desde principios de la democracia. Se haninstitucionalizado graci...

In 2007 Spain introduced statutory electoral and corporate board gender quotas as part of a broader gender equality programme. These quotas greatly differ with regard to the parity criteria in use, the period of application, and the measures for promoting compliance or sanctioning non-compliance. Electoral quotas are by far the most successful ones...

In this article, we analyze the implementation of gender mainstreaming in the European Union (EU) through the study of ‘resistance’ to gender equality initiatives in EU research policy. Contributing to feminist institutionalist theories, we identify resistance to gender initiatives within the Directorate General Research and Innovation, showing...

El objetivo del capítulo es, en primer lugar, proporcionar una visión general de la metodología en las Ciencias Políticas. Con ese fin se abordan aspectos clave como la construcción del conocimiento y de los conceptos, y los principales métodos en uso en la disciplina. En segundo lugar, se pretende utilizar las investigaciones realizadas con perspe...

Book reviews: http://webs.ucm.es/info/target/Book%20flyers/BookReviewSRJournal%20of%20International%20Women's%20Studies,%2016-3,%20Jul%2015.pdf https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147892991667

What is symbolic representation? Since Hanna Pitkins seminal The Concept of Representation, the symbolic has been the least studied dimension of political representation. Innovatively adopting a discursive approach, this book - the first full-length treatment of symbolic representation - focuses on gender issues to tackle important questions such a...

Resistance expressed by both organizations and participants in processes of gender training that are conducted to mainstream gender into policy-making poses a key challenge for gender mainstreaming. However, such resistance is relatively under-studied. This article explores resistance to gender training that emerges during the implementation of gen...

The study provides an overview of the worldwide best practices for rape prevention and for assisting women victims of rape. It reviews the international literature and offers selected examples of promising practices. It addresses the comprehensive range of policies in the fields of gender equality; law and justice; economy, development and social i...

This article seeks to reintroduce discussions on gender relations in politics back into scholarly and political debate. Many countries have adopted gender quotas, but it is unclear whether their implementation has meaningfully changed the prevalent inequalities governing gender relations in politics. This article considers whether the implementatio...

Can the quality of gender+ equality policies be defined in ways that apply across different policy contexts and different policy moments? In light of different scholarly debates and empirical material from gender violence policy debates especially in Southern and Central Eastern Europe, this article discusses dilemmas around defining the quality of...

This article analyses political approaches to inequalities in three south European countries: Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Analysis is based on Crenshaw's (1991) concept of political intersectionality, McCall's (2001, 2005) broader structures of inequality and “configuration of inequality,” and scholarly works on the institutionalization of multiple...

This article explores the extent to which the emergence of an antidiscrimination policy in the European Union (EU) implies a shift in EU gender equality policies towards an intersectional approach. The frame analysis of EU gender equality policy documents shows that intersectional dimensions are increasingly present but they are treated implicitly...

The EU and the member states have progressively developed a legal and institutional framework for dealing with inequality, and in the past decade they have intensified their political treatment of multiple inequalities (Van der Vleuten, 2007; Bell, 2002). In this chapter we explore the Europeanization of the political treatment of inequality in thr...

In this book we have aimed to strengthen the synergy between the gender equality and Europeanization research agendas, in order to better our understanding of policy change in the European Union (EU). It has been our argument that a better analysis of gender and other equality policies calls for the adoption of comprehensive and pluralistic approac...

Europeanization and gender are two fields of study within political science that have often moved on parallel tracks and have only occasionally met. Yet they have much to offer each other, and if they joined forces they could help improve the understanding of the complex processes of policy change in Europe. This chapter aims to bring the two resea...

This chapter explores the institutionalization of intersectionality in a selection of South European countries (SEC): Italy, Spain, and Portugal.1 It argues that, although a multiple inequalities agenda is beginning to blossom under the impetus of the EU anti-discrimination policy, this does not mean that truly integrated approaches have been imple...

Discursive dynamics play an important role in shaping the meanings of gender equality. The article discusses the relation between hegemonic discourses on gender equality policies and feminist taboos. It suggests that feminist scholars could paradoxically be trapped in hegemonic discourses on gender equality policies that may lead to taboos about pa...

Because gender equality policies are social constructions in which issues of gender inequality and equality get meaning through (amongst others) discursive processes, they may contain biases. While certain biases may be intentional choices, meant to strategically frame a specific policy issue, others may be unintentional and due to the fact that po...

Este artículo explora la normativa y maquinaria institucional acerca del género y la antidiscriminación en laUnión Europea (UE) y, en menor medida, la postura de la sociedad civil europea en relación con el tratamientode la interseccionalidad del género con otras desigualdades. Su objetivo es investigar si la institucionalizaciónactual de la inters...

European Union (EU) policies are a good case to explore with regard to the extent to which intersectionality has been institutionalized, given that the EU has broadened its equality agenda from the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty onwards and can be expected to impact on the trajectories of institutionalization in member states. Situated in an analysis of the...

This article studies a potential barrier for women in political decision‐making: the way in which policy documents frame the concept of power. Our study covers a selection of Dutch and Spanish policy documents on the issue of women in political decision‐making. Drawing on Steven Lukes, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault, we examine what policy acto...

In this article we reconstruct the development of the issue of ‘gender’ and ‘non employment’ in Italian policy debates from 1995 to 2007. Considering that ‘non employment’ refers to which category of citizens is considered as legitimately non-employed and to what are the gender implications of these assumptions, we ask the following questions: whic...

In the last decade, the European Union (EU) approach to gender equality has broadened to new concepts, such as gender mainstreaming, and new issues, such as “family policies”, “domestic violence”, and “gender inequality in politics”. However, the frame analysis of policy documents in these new areas shows, first, that each issue has developed its o...

Citizenship is both a contentious and contested struggle about the creation of rights, duties, and opportunities. Feminist practices and debates can clarify the meaning of citizenship. This is because the form of feminist practices, characterized by an ongoing struggle, and the content of feminist debates, focusing on gender and other inequalities,...