State Feminism and Womens Movements: Assessing change of the last decade in Europe

Joyce Outshoorn and Johanna Kantola

It is by now well established that under certain conditions womens policy agencies
institutional arrangements set up in national states to improve the status of women - have
contributed considerably to meeting demands of womens movements and improving
womens status the phenomenon of state feminism. This workshop aims to chart and
assess the impact of the significant changes in state capacity (due to supra-nationalism,
decentralisation, or privatisation or the democratisation of CEES) in Europe on womens
policy agencies (or their functional equivalents) over the last decade. How have they been
affected by these changes and how have they responded? How have they been affected by
policies of gender mainstreaming? What have been the effects of the EU level and the postBeijing Platform of Action? How has their relationship with womens movement
organisations evolved and how have changes within the movements, who have in turn been
reacting towards the changed political opportunity structure, affected the agencies or other
state institutions concerned with womens issues? Empirical papers on these themes as well as
on potential change in gender policy discourse are solicited. Papers examining concepts to
study state feminism and their applicability to the new democratic states are also welcome.

Department of Political Science/Joke Smit Institute

for Research in Womens Studies
Leiden University
P.O. Box 9555
2300 RB Leiden
The Netherlands
outshoorn@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

Department of Political Science

University of Helsinki
P.O. Box 54
00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Johanna.Kantola@helsinki.fi

(Outshoorn) + 31 71 5273969 (Kantola) + 358 9 19124856

(outshoorn) + 31 71 5273619 (Kantola) + 358 9 19124832

State Feminism and womens movements: assessing change of the last decade in Europe
Outline of the topic and relation to existing research
In response to the challenge of the new womens movements in the 1960s and 1970s in
Western Europe, many states developed institutional arrangements to improve the status of
women and deal with womens issues. These arrangements, usually called womens policy
machineries or policy agencies, raised questions whether these had the potential to act on
behalf of the movements, helping to gender issues in ways conducive to goal attainment and
provide access to feminist advocates into decisional arenas. In a number of recent empirical
studies it has been established that state feminism-the capacity of the state to respond and
act in favour of womens movement goals - is indeed possible, specifying the conditions
under which this is the case and providing insight in the variations in the capacity of the
womens agencies in different states (Stetson and Mazur 1995; Stetson 2001; Mazur 2001;
Outshoorn 2004; Lovenduski c.s. under review). This research also traced the developments
in the womens movements since the early 1970s into the 1990s and how they were (un)able
to impact on womens public policy and change dominant discourses about womens status. It
identified the factors making for successful alliances between movement activists and civil
servants working in the womens policy agencies across states.
At the same time it emerged that the institutions of the state were undergoing farreaching changes in their scope, volume and capacity, changes known as the reconfiguration
of the state in the literature (Banaszak, Beckwith and Rucht 2003). Supra-national institutions
encroached on state capacity, while at the national level power and responsibilities were often
decentralised, delegated or privatised. Many studies, especially in the gender and welfare state
tradition, have already shown how these have impinged on womens social policy (e.g.
Sainsbury 1996; Daly and Rake 2003) and on the capacity of the womens movement to
gender public debate and influence the most controversial issues on the political agenda

(Haussman and Sauer, in progress; Liebert 2003). It appears that these processes are leading
to changes in the political opportunity structure social movements face, providing new
opportunities for mobilisation or raising obstacles for their continuation and power. It is thus
highly likely that these changes are impacting the institutional arrangements set up to improve
womens status, putting womens policy agencies under pressure or providing them with new
leverage, changing the basic policy discourses about womens status and giving rise to new
policy instruments such as gender mainstreaming.
The proposed workshop therefore aims to chart and assess the changes at the state
level in the institutional arrangements and in the policy discourse, focusing on the various
womens policy agencies or their functional equivalents in European states since the mid
1990s. How have they been affected by the processes of reconfiguration and how have they
responded to these changes? Have they established ties with various institutions of the EU?
What are the long term effects of the UN Beijing Conference Platform of Action? In how far
has their original mandate been affected by gender mainstreaming? How has their relationship
with the various social movement organisations of womens movements developed in this
period? Have changes within the movements, also responding to the new political opportunity
structure, affected the womens policy agencies or other parts of the state bureaucracy
concerned with womens issues?
The workshop also aims to map and examine the changes in state institutions
concerned with womens status of the CEES states acceding to the EU. The effects of the
reconfiguration in these states since the end of the Cold War on maintaining a credible
womens equality policy and the problems for mobilising a new womens movement not
tainted by the old communist regimes, have already been the attention of some scholarly work
(e.g. Gal and Kligman 2000; Watson 2001). What state structures have been mandated or
established to deal with womens status? How they are forging (or failing to forge) links with
womens movement organisations, and how are the latter attempting to influence womens
public policy? How are the EU requirements for accession (e.g. the acceptance of the acquis
on gender equality, the relevant Convention articles and the requirement to set up womens
policy agencies) affecting the institutional arrangements?
By looking at case studies from both Western Europe and the acceding CES states, the
workshop also hopes to contribute to comparative politics and social movement theory. It will
be possible to examine in how far the concepts developed and tested in the literature on state
feminism and on womens movements thus far are applicable to the new democratic states or
will need to be adjusted for future research purposes.

Types of papers solicited

We are looking for empirical work aimed at answering the major questions raised in the
outline, preferably not looking at either the institutional arrangements for improving womens
status or womens movements in isolation, but set within the context of changing state/society
relationships and focusing on the interaction between the major actors. Papers analysing
policy shifts in womens public policy and the dominant political discourses about gender are
also welcome.
Participants
The community of scholars working on feminist public policy, state feminism and womens
movements has been developing steadily over the last few years. Many of these are active in
the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State, which unites scholars from Europe,
Australia and North America, and belong to member institutions of the ECPR. There is also a
growing group PhD students who are doing research on the themes outlined above, as became
evident in the attendance of the panels on gender at the Marburg ECPR in September 2003.
Gender scholars from the CEES working on politics have not been numerous; we expect and
hope that the workshop will bring them together with the aim of setting up future joint
research.
Funding
Funding from the relevant EU institution and the ESF will be solicited. For scholars in the
Netherlands the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) and the Leiden Alumnae
Fund (LUF) will be approached . Scholars participating will be encouraged to approach their
home institutions and national social science research councils.
Biographical note on directors
Johanna Kantola is a PhD student at the University of Bristol; her PhD thesis is on gender
governance and the state. She is currently working as a research fellow at the Politics
Department of the University of Helsinki, where she is also teaching feminisms and
international relations. She has published articles on gender and the state in the European
Journal of Womens Studies and European Political science as well as in edited volumes The
Politics of Prostitution. Womens movements, democratic states and the globalisation of sex
commerce, ed. by Joyce Outshoorn and in Feminism and Political Representation of Women
in Europe and North America, ed. by Joni Lovenduski et al. She is co-editor of the Finnish
Womens Studies Journal Naistutkimus-Kvinnoforskning.
Joyce Outshoorn is Professor of Womens Studies at Leiden University, where she is head of
the Joke Smit Institute for Research in Womens Studies and a member of the Department of

Political Science. She is co-convenor of the Research Network on Gender Politics and the
State. Her research focuses on womens movements, gender politics and social movement
theory. She recently edited: The Politics of Prostitution. Womens Movements, Democratic
States and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004. Other recent articles have been published in Public Administration Review, Acta
Politica, European Journal of Womens Studies, and a chapter in: Stetson, D. McBride (ed.),
Abortion Politics, Womens Movements, and the State, New York/Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001.

References
Banaszak, Lee Ann, Karen Beckwith and Dieter Rucht (eds.) 2003. Womens Movements
Facing the Reconfigured State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Daly, Mary and Katherine Rake 2003. Gender and the Welfare State, Cambridge/Oxford:
Polity Press.
Gal, Susan and Gail Kligman 2000. The Politics of Gender after Socialism, Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Hausmann, Melissa and Birgit Sauer (eds.) in progress. Gendering the State in the Age of
Globalisation. Womens Movements and State Feminism in Post Industrial Democracies.
Liebert, Ulrike (ed.) 2003. Europeanisation and Gender Equality. Reframing Public Policy in
EU Member States, Brussels: Peter Lang.
Lovenduski, Joni, Petra Meier, Diane Sainsbury, Marila Guadagnini and Claudie Baudino
(eds.) under review. Feminism and the Political Representation of Women in Europe and
North America.
Mazur, Amy (ed.) 2001. State Feminism, Womens Movements and Job Training: Making
Democracies Work, London/New York: Routledge.
Outshoorn, Joyce (ed.) 2004. The Politics of Prostitution. Womens Movements, Democratic
States and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sainsbury, Diane 1996. Gender, Equality and Welfare States, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Stetson, Dorothy McBride and Amy Mazur (eds.) 1995. Comparative State Feminism,
Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi: Sage.
Stetson, Dorothy (ed.) 2001. Abortion Politics, Womens Movements and the Democratic
State: A Comparative Study of State Feminism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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