DECISIONS TAKEN BY THE PARIS MEETING
THE RESEARCH DESIGN
The meeting envisaged both core and linked projects in the final multi-method research design.
So we adopted a flotilla concept of a core project highly focused on implementation and policy
success plus linked projects that overlap and enhance the core project.
Thus a set of core projects will focus on the implementation of (gender + and other equality
policies (e.g. welfare state) using agreed definitions and following a (yet to be agreed in detail)
common method.
This strategy permits a set of linked projects in which implementation and policy success are
considered in the context of the whole policy process – pre adoption, adoption and post
adoption , particular institutions are highlighted and case selection that is from other types of
policy than gender equality which might affect equality but do not claim to do so.
THE RESEARCH QUESTION (RQ)
RQ
The research question that we settled on is
DOES EQUALITY POLICY RESULT IN GREATER GENDER EQUALITY (in its full complexity)?
This RQ has a number of advantages.
1. We can develop a research design around it that focuses on policy output and outcome.
2. It can be interpreted broadly or narrowly, hence can accommodate any number of linked
projects.
3. It can be reworded in feminist terms. (We can ask ‘Is feminist policy possible?’ with a number
of sub questions.)
For example:
- What are the conditions and processes that make the realization of feminist policy
possible?
- What are the blockages, resistances, ambivalences that gender/ equality policies come up
against? (And how can we understand these?))
The Working Model (core elements highlighted)
The outline research design is captured by the following model.
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Context
Adoption
Implementation success
Implementation Failure
State capacity/
Institutional capacity:
Policy Story: Problem/
problem frame
Adoption experience
Contestations/
Resistances
Final Content
Actors, instruments and processes including
resistances and contestations
Actors, instruments and processes including resistance and
contestations
OUTPUT
Good Policy effectively implemented
Good implementation
Inclusive/empowers
Gender change
OUTPUT
Bad Policy effectively implemented
Bad policy not implemented
Good policy Not implemented
Good Policy badly implemented
Supra/
trans/Nat
/sub/local
Globalization
Inclusiveness of women
Time Frames (21st
Century)
Culture
Actors
Resistances
Dynamic
Policy Area
Intersectionality
Gender Mainstreaming
OUTCOME
Positive gender change
Inclusiveness/ empowerment women
OUTCOME
Exclusion
Negative or no gender change
(NOTE: Context is not the same as the conditions, influence, factors etc. more things to take into consideration.)
Possible combinations of Output and Outcome success/ Failure providing a number of possible results:
Both Output and Outcome wholly successful in terms of empowerment and positive gender change
Output success and Outcome Failure
Output failure and Outcome success
Both partly successful
Both wholly fail
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Definitions
Success and Failure are defined in terms of women’s empowerment and positive gender
change which can take place both in output and outcome. So the core indicators are
empowerment and transformation.
Women’s Empowerment is broadly defined as the inclusion of women both in terms of
outputs and outcomes. This concept is well discussed in the literature which provides numerous
definitions and operationalisations. (Laurel has provided a bibliography –see end of this
document.)
Gender Transformation is less well articulated. There are not so many conceptualisations of it
though Peter Hall’s conception of three orders of change might be useful. Neither are there
many examples of the operationalization of this concept for research). There was considerable
discussion of how to define and operationalise transformation. Participants stressed the need
to differentiate small changes (include women in neoliberal systems) to broader
transformations (transform roots of gender inequality); you need a diagnosis of what the
problem of inequality is and how to address it. Some of this distinction is captured in the
discussion of adaptation v fundamental change on page 13 of the scoping document.
Both concepts need to be articulated as we design our fieldwork.
IMPLEMENTING THE MODEL
THE RESEARCH PROCESS –
LOGIC starts with how to put the project together, a mix of regional and country leads can
identify researchers who we might then organise around thematic interests. Thus we will have a
cross national, cross issue structure.
Need also to define the perimeter of the object of research …area, specific policy, time frame.
SAMPLE FRAME
Should include all the “Important/ crucial” ‘equality policy areas
ISSUE AREAS: (may or may not be explicitly framed in terms of gender equality or as important
to gender issues)
Issue areas: This needs to be further reduced (probably) Note that since the meeting we have
separated Intimate citizenship and reproduction (on advice from FemCit participants) and
added Higher Education in order to include the Women in Science project. So now we have up to
8 issue areas.
Equal Employment,
Gender-based violence,
Intimate citizenship
Reproduction
Immigration
Elder Care
Political Representation
Higher Education including Women in Science
REGIONS AND COUNTRIES
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Work on EU members, the EU itself, plus long established democracies to make fine grained
distinctions and draw conclusions about what works in complex societies.
CASE SELECTION
There is still a lot of work to be done here but we did discuss and note some initial
considerations.
How to select cases? Reason through hypotheses. Start with hypothesis about something, and
then try to operationalize it. Ex: we might hypothesize that a strong women’s movement favours
stronger policy instruments, then operationalize both and check.
Selection of cases needs to take into account a number of considerations.
Most important is the need to distinguish between gender equality policies objectives and gender
policy objectives: trafficking is gender(ed) policy, but not necessarily an issue of gender equality.
For now we distinguish between explicitly gendered/on equality/feminist versus not
(explicitly) gendered/on equality/feminist issues.
Gender mainstreaming may well undermine some broader principles of case selection. We
cannot limit ourselves to select policies that are explicitly labelled as gender equality policies
because we might not have many cases, especially in countries that have actually adopted a
gender mainstreaming strategy in which, in theory at least, gender is taken account of in all
policy areas.
Feminist intent in the discourse. Is this more than a matter of language? In some cases policies
have an explicitly feminist intent. We need to pay attention to the fact that such a labelling of
feminist or not differs from country to country (thus differs by context). Also, in some cases (cf
France) no distinction is made between equality and gender equality because gender and
gender equality discourse is a taboo (How convenient!) .
Overall some policies have a gender equality intent from the outset (gender based violence),
whereas others (such as taxation) contain a equality dimension but are not labelled as having a
gender equality intent at the outset.
Strategy suggestion: So, what about distinguishing between policies having an explicit feminist
framing (no matter how they are labelled) and others that are not explicitly framed in feminist
terms and then look at how that shapes post-adoption? Some feminist or equality issues are
sometimes actually labelled as social progress (cf the UK case). Also, often there might be a
feminist claim at the outset (cf violence issue) but it may get linked up with others or lost in the
course of the process.
The logic is as follows: in some issue areas feminist claims can be potentially made
and we look at cases where such a claim is made in the run up to the adoption and at
others in which such a claim is not made in the run up to the adoption; this means we
need to map out the sub area to see what decisions have been taken and to what extent
they contain a feminist frame; we then select the one with most of a feminist frame and
the one with no/least of a feminist frame
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‘Importance’ of the policy as a basis for selection.
The notion of importance is opaque. Most (important) of what? Most important policy case
adopted in an area (which we presume will have a lot of impact in the area) or framed in most
feminist terms (which should then also have most of a chance of having some outcome)? If we
select on both of these dimensions we actually select crucial cases. Question: Are there such
policies in all of the countries we are looking at, especially within the same time frame?
PROPOSED CASE SELECTION PROCESS (chocolate selection strategy)
1. issue area/field mapping – identify all the cases in an agreed time period. (Currently
21st century.)
2. select two cases (feminist and non-feminist)
3. report to group at a meeting which then decides upon case selection
4. the actual research of the case
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