ArticlePDF Available

Mainstreaming gender equality in Europe: A critical frame analysis

Authors:
Mieke Verloo at Radboud University
Mieke Verloo
Download full-text PDFDownload full-text PDF
Read full-text
Download citation

Abstract

This article analyzes implementation problems in gender mainstreaming as accentuated by a multi-level setting and assumes that one of the major factors affecting implementation problems is a discursive one. Against this backdrop a methodological approach is presented to study such divergences in policy frames on gender equality. Based upon recent literature, the article first outlines the necessity for a comparative methodology to analyze (gender equality) policy frames, and identifies some major problems in the construction of such methodology. The article then presents and explains Critical Frame Analysis as a promising methodological approach for studying and comparing the framing of gender inequality as a policy problem across Europe in a systematic way. Critical Frame Analysis builds upon social movement theory, gender theory and policy theory. This article can be considered to be an introduction to the special issue, as all articles refer to Critical Frame Analysis methodology as it has been used in the MAGEEQ research project.
verloo pantelid
ou.pdf
Content uploaded by Mieke Verloo
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Mieke Verloo on Nov 04, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
Mainstreaming gender equality in Europe: A critical frame analys
is.pdf
Available via license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
... To operationalize the presented approach to analyze the selected state's statements, policy analysis, specifically Mieke Verloo's method, offers a useful framework [18]. Through CFA one can identify through which patterns urban public space is constructed as an issue of national concern and national legislation taking action. ...
... To this aim, Goffman's [22] understanding of a frame as an organizing principle in cognition was adopted, which allows people to categorize and interpret everyday social experiences. A policy frame then is defined as "an organizing principle that transforms fragmentary and incidental information into a structured and meaningful policy problem, in which a solution is implicitly or explicitly enclosed" [18], (p. 20). ...
... CFA not only allows to analyze discursive elements but also how roles are attributed in policy and who is given a voice in the process, and thus could be understood as "a middle way between discourse analysis and frame mapping" [18] (pp. [27][28]. ...
Everyday Nationalism and the Politics of Public Space—How National Security Policies Create Zones of In(Security) in Vienna
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2024
While cities have always embodied difference, with their diverse inhabitants contributing to urban culture and economy, the underlying legitimation of belonging in the democratic nation-state continues to be based on an essentialized national identity. This study sheds light on the ways in which diverse cities, and specifically public spaces as spaces of encounter, are produced discursively on the level of the nation-state. The study employs Critical Frame Analysis (CFA) to examine the Austrian Security Police Act amendments between 2005 and 2018. This analysis focuses on how policy-making processes on the level of national legislation have discursively shaped public spaces in Vienna as zones of (in)security. The analysis reveals that national governments in Austria have increasingly framed urban public spaces as areas of insecurity. This framing aligns with broader nationalist agendas that seek to delineate who belongs within the nation, thereby exacerbating tensions between local multicultural practices and national discourses. The study highlights a significant gap between everyday multicultural encounters in urban spaces and national policies that reinforce exclusionary, homogeneous identities. These findings underscore the role of public space as a battleground for broader ideological conflicts over national identity and belonging.
View
... Since the 1980s, feminist policy analysis has focused on gender equality policies in Western postindustrial democracies as these policies have developed. The literature has analyzed policy formulation (Bacchi 1999;Verloo 2009, 2013;Verloo 2005;Verloo and Lombardo 2007); actors and institutions (McBride and Mazur 2010;Woodward 2004); implementation (Carey, Dickinson, and Olney 2019;Ciccia and Lombardo 2019;Engeli and Mazur 2018;La Barbera, Espinosa-Fajardo, and Caravantes 2023;Lombardo and Bustelo 2022;Mazur and Engeli 2020;Tildesley, Lombardo, and Verge 2022); and, although to a lesser extent, the evaluation of gender equality policies (Bustelo 2017;Minto, Mergaert, and Bustelo 2020). ...
... Furthermore, feminist policy studies taking discursive approaches have shown the contested nature of the concept of gender equality (Lombardo, Meier and Verloo 2009), the constructed definition (Bacchi 1999) and framing (Verloo 2005) of gender equality issues, and the importance of exploring how constructed meanings in policy documents influence policy formulation (Lombardo, Meier and Verloo 2009) and implementation . Discursive approaches, while shedding light on how gender equality is framed in policy discourses, also illuminate who has participated in the policy-making process and seek to understand the implications of their participation (or lack thereof) for the resulting policies. ...
... Second, we draw upon discursive approaches to gender equality. Feminist scholars have shown that gender equality is a contested concept (Dombos et al. 2012;Verloo 2005;Verloo and Lombardo 2007;Walby 2005) that can take on different meanings shaped by sociopolitical legacies, spatiotemporal contexts, and public debates. These meanings are open to interpretation and are disputed by different actors and, as policies evolve, certain meanings can be "fixed" or "shrunk" (Lombardo, Meier and Verloo 2009). ...
Gender Equality Policies “Confined”: Adopted Frames in the Prison System in Spain
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2024
The literature on gender and politics has consistently neglected the study of gender inequalities in penal institutions. Our article contributes to filling this gap by examining how gender inequality is represented and framed as a policy problem in the Spanish “Action Program for Gender Equality between Women and Men in the Prison System.” Using critical frame analysis, our findings reveal that gender equality policies in prisons reinforce maternal and caregiving roles, emphasize personal dependency and low self-esteem, and characterize women prisoners as “defective subjects” and “victims,” without adopting an intersectional approach. Our main argument is that the prison system’s failure to embrace the exchange of ideas, involve diverse actors, and engage with civil society, particularly feminist and women’s movements, constrains the formulation process of gender equality policies in this area, and also influences understandings of the issues and the proposed solutions.
View
... Reasoning devices : aspek pembenaran terhadap cara "melihat" isu. Jadi framing kesetaraan gender dalam PUG dengan menetapkan kesamaan akses, kesempatan, perlakuan yang sama, partisipasi yang sama, dan reformasi pemerintahan (Verloo, 2016) untuk mempermudah pemahaman masyarakat akan permasalahan gender yang kompleks. ...
... Kebijakan dengan karakter seperti ini berpotensi besar menimbulkan problematika sosial, berupa ambivalensi, kebingungan dan praktik-praktik konfliktual karena nilai dasar legitimasinya yang berbeda dengan yang di masyarakat (Jauhari, 2012;Wood, 1994). Pemikiran yang berniat menyejahterkan rakyat terkait persoalan ketidakadilan gender, yang berkonteks global, menunjukkan signifikansinya pada kehidupan manusia yang sustain, ini menjadi menghadirkan permasalahan baru karena konsepsi kesetaraan gender PUG menggunakan paradigma obyektif, neolib, (Moser, 1993) mengabaikan subyektivitas, dan hanya menganggap perempuan sebagai sumber penting mewujudkan kesetaraan gender PUG (Verloo, 2016). Implementasi PUG dangan pendekatan obyektif telah menghasilkan problematika, progresivitas perempuan sekaligus interaksi interpersonal konfliktual pada pasangan. ...
Framing Kesetaraan Gender Kebijakan Pengarusutamaan Gender dalam Konteks Interaksi Interpersonal Konfliktual Pasangan
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2025
Framing kesetaraan gender bekerja dalam rentangan arena ketimpangan interpretasi antara relasi setara dan konfliktual. Implikasi implementasi kebijakan Pengarusutamaan Gender (PUG) problematis, terjadi peningkatan kualitas sumber daya perempuan sekaligus interaksi interpersonal konfliktual dalam pasangan pernikahan. Studi literatur ini bertujuan menganalisis konsepsi kesetaraan gender pada dokumen kebijakan Inpres Nomor 9 Tahun 2000 tentang PUG dalam Pembangunan, dalam konteks praktik relasi interpersonal konfliktual. Kajian ini dilakukan dengan metode penelitian kualitatif, dengan analisis framing model Gamson dan Modigliani. Konsepsi kesetaraan gender dokumen PUG dianalisis mendasarkan pada devices metaphora, exemplar, catchphrase dan depiction. Dengan metode interpretif kajian ini mengidentifikasi “bekerjanya” devices dalam perspektif antropologi kebijakan. Kajian ini memberi informasi bahwa metafora, gaya bahasa, dan fokus konsepsi kesetaraan gender dokumen PUG yang dengan pendekatan obyektif menjadi perangkat mobilisasi dan legitimasi kaum perempuan dalam mentransformasi diri mengarah ke identitas gender dan peran gender yang lebih modern . Hal ini menjadi dasar adanya ketimpangan interpretasi tentang kesetaraan gender dalam pasangan, mendorong potensi respon konfliktual, dalam dimensi stereotip, pembagian kerja dan kepemimpinan laki-laki. Kajian literatur ini memberi informasi perlunya pendidikan gender untuk memahami wacana gender secara progresip bagi laki-laki maupun perempuan. Pada level kebijakan diperlukan penetapan kebijakan lanjutan, mendasarkan pada upaya deliberatif dan kontekstual.
View
... Consequently, the very way events are problematised, or framed as a policy problem, crucially shapes what policy solutions get to be seen as desirable, feasible and worthwhile (Zaun and Nantermoz 2022). For that, as Verloo (Verloo 2005), drawing on Entman (1993), points out A policy frame is an organising principle that transforms fragmentary or incidental information into a structured and meaningful policy problem, in which a solution is implicitly or explicitly enclosed. ...
... Analysing such policy frames then means to scrutinise the construction and negotiation of reality, what gets to be seen as the problem, possible solutions, who is seen as responsible and what counts as a legitimate course of action (Verloo 2005). In this vein, scholarship on EU migration governance has analysed, how EU policy discourses produce 'migration' as a social phenomenon and problem (Bello 2022;Glouftsios and Scheel 2021;Sachseder, Stachowitsch, and Binder 2022;Stachowitsch and Sachseder 2019). ...
Same, same but different? A Discourse Network Analysis of the EU’s framings of refugee arrivals in 2015 and 2022
Article
Full-text available
The European Union (EU) experienced two major instances of refugee influx: in 2015, refugees, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq fled civil war, persecution, and dire conditions in neighbouring countries and in 2022, Ukrainians fled from Russia’s full-scale invasion. Fusing theoretical insights on framing and crisification of migration, we ask: How do EU actors frame situations of refugee mass influx? Employing a Discourse Network Analysis, we examine EU representatives’ framing of both instances with respect to three analytical foci: (1) who or what they considered to be in crisis, (2) their framing of refugees; and (3) who they saw to be responsible for solving the crisis. We show how, in 2015, EU representatives framed mass displacement predominantly as a crisis at and of Europe’s borders, and refugees as threats to Member States’ public, economic and cultural security. In contrast, in 2022, crisis framings are almost absent or pertain to Ukraine’s – and by extension the EU’s – security. Ukrainian protection seekers are framed as ethnically and culturally similar and their protection as a humanitarian imperative. Our analysis empirically substantiates debates about double standards in refugee governance and draws attention to actor constellations and the factors that shape crisification of mobility.
View
... Social movement theorists often portray framing as an intentional, conscious, and strategic process [7]. While we in the writing up of this article consciously employ strategic framing as a methodological and analytical tool, we also draw upon scholars who emphasize framing as an unintentional, discursive process [3,40,58,60]. Inspired by Michel Foucault, a grounding premise of this intellectual tradition is that concepts are contested and open to multiple interpretations. Such an approach implies critical scrutiny of the assumptions that underpin the framing practices; that is, the unspoken and hidden elements that the dominant discourse is muffling, and the things that are silenced or excluded from the frame. ...
Navigating authoritarian politics: towards reflexive framing in healthcare research
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2025
Background How do Northern Global Health scholars navigate authoritarian political contexts in their research in other countries? This question motivated the research project on which this article is based. Over ten months, we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with sixteen European and North American scholars who were engaged in health-related research in an authoritarian country we refer to as Patria. Results All our interviewees recognized health as a political matter and acknowledged the importance of considering politics in Global Health research. Yet, they were reluctant to explicitly integrate politically sensitive topics and discuss questions related to local political context in their research. To gain and maintain access, and to protect themselves and their local collaborators in a politically sensitive and authoritarian context, the researchers employed practices of ‘framing’. Such strategies included avoiding terms, scholarly references, and questions that were politically loaded; strategically conforming to the assumed apolitical language and methodologies of health research, and negotiating with and leaning on their local counterparts in processes of research dissemination and writing. Conclusion Drawing on frame theory and literature on fieldwork and authoritarianism we discuss the implications our findings have, not only for Global Health research, but for healthcare sciences more broadly. While researchers who work in authoritarian regimes may be particularly prone to engage in practices of framing, the strategies our interviewees used are not limited to Global Health researchers working in such settings. As anthropologists with experience researching health in multiple countries, including in the United States, we recognize the strategies that our interlocutors used from our own research. By including a discussion of some of the ways political factors have shaped our research we make an argument for the value of political reflexivity in health research: the critical scrutiny of the taken-for-granted presuppositions and norms that guide our research, and of the political environments and power dynamics that shape and are shaped by our research. A turn to political reflexivity in health research can unravel some of the tacit assumptions, biases, norms and practices that are integral to the health care sciences and which students and researchers must critically think about.
View
... Penciptaan lapangan kerja, pertumbuhan ekonomi atau pengurangan kemiskinan, individualisme, dan kepercayaan pada pasar adalah sasaran tujuan kebijakan PUG, dianggap tidak adanya tujuan yang tepat untuk mengurangi ketidaksetaraan gender (Verloo 2005;Debusscher 2012;Holmgren & Jonsson 2014). Persaingan global ekonomi daerah menjadi tujuan politik kesetaraan gender dan mobilisasi perempuan di UE (Walby 2004). ...
Ruang Publik Pengarusutamaan Gender Dalam Kebijakan Adaptasi Perubahan Iklim Di Indonesia
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2024
The global water crisis, disaster-conflict linkages, and the impact of various crises on women's mental health and well-being require a gender-mainstreaming policy approach to climate change. The implementation of a gender mainstreaming approach requires a public space for women, as a space for autonomy to voice issues and produce policies that are in line with women's interests. This article examines how public space can be present in discussions on gender mainstreaming in climate change. This article aims to elaborate on the public sphere that will interpret gender mainstreaming of climate change. The method in this article uses library research, which collects data by understanding and studying theories from various literatures. The research results in the public sphere combining discursive democracy and complex problem-solving rationality, which is not centralized planning but an open society to realize policies. The discourse of gender mainstreaming can be utilized by women's groups whose knowledge capacity is improving through public space to discuss their interests related to climate change. The public space in Indonesia uses the development planning deliberation (musrenbang) from the local to the national level.
View
Navigating policy in (trans)action: A methodological framework for situated and relational policy practices
Article
  • Dec 2024
This paper presents a methodological framework to study situated and relational policy practices in the context of the policy transaction perspective. Building on policy ethnography, it addresses the entanglements of researching policy transactions through triangulation of methods to explore how practices emerge, and how they are “seen,” “talked about,” and “read.” The paper aims to contribute to the policy transaction framework in three ways. First, it discusses how the policy transaction framework furthers the shifting of focus from policy systems to policy worlds, to address the complexities enclosed in policy processes. Second, it advances the framework along the discussion of relationality and situatedness, to highlight the reciprocal mode of transactions. Third, it proposes a methodological exemplar for the analysis of policy transactions, by looking at transactions as practices. With these steps, the paper aims to contribute to a methodological framework for undertaking research in the context of the policy transaction perspective.
View
View
View
View