Cristina Chiva

The limits of Europeanisation: EU accession and gender equality in Bulgaria and Romania

Abstract The paper seeks to bridge the existing gap between three distinct strands of literature: scholarship on EU enlargement; studies of social policy in the European Union; and feminist theorising on equality between men and women. It explores the impact of the EUs conditionality on policies, legislation and institutions on gender equality in Bulgaria and Romania between 1990 and 2007 from a feminist perspective, uncovering the multifaceted process whereby Europeanisation and domestic determinants of change interact with each other in the formation and implementation of a new gender equality agenda.

Establishing Male Dominance: Descriptive, Substantive and Symbolic Representation

This chapter traces the establishment of the institutions of male dominance in Central and Eastern Europe to political actors’ deployment of two strategic resources at their disposal during the transitions from communist rule: (1) organisational networks, which enabled them to draw on predominantly male memberships when negotiating the collapse of state socialism and then when selecting their candidates for the founding elections of 1990; (2) symbolic repertoires, which enabled them to portray themselves as representatives of broad social groups such as ‘civil society’ or ‘the nation’ rather than particular interests, and to construct women as citizens with gender-specific roles in the process of democracy-building.

Candidate Selection and Male Dominance in Europe’s New Democracies

This chapter examines the supply and demand model of candidate recruitment in the context of post-communist Europe. Altogether, it seeks to make a prima facie case as to where the balance of the evidence lies with respect to identifying the mechanisms sustaining men’s numerical over-representation in politics over the post-communist period. I find that that the mechanisms responsible for sustaining male over-representation in politics over the post-communist period are located primarily at the stage where party gatekeepers select candidates for political office. Additionally, there is also some (for now, limited) evidence that supply-side factors—time, rather than motivation—also play a role in the shift from eligible to aspirant. However, there is virtually no evidence that electorates in the post-communist region actively prefer male candidates to the extent that they vote against women in elections.

Reproducing Male Dominance: The Role of Electoral Systems

This chapter assesses the evidence for the proposition that electoral systems have reproduced male dominance in Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism. There are several notable findings. First, the type of electoral system matters, with proportional representation systems marginally less effective in sustaining male dominance over time than mixed systems. Second, ballot structure also matters, but not in the direction that would have been expected given that post-communist electorates are rather conservative in their views of gender roles. Instead, it is clear that open-list systems can challenge rather than reproduce male dominance. Finally, the reform of electoral system from proportional to mixed systems does not increase the levels of men’s over-representation in politics, while a reduction in the size of the legislature can trigger a re-assertion of men’s ‘incumbency advantage’.

Breaking Male Dominance: Institutional Change in New Democracies

This chapter argues that, despite the relatively short interval, and despite the formidable resilience of men’s over-representation in politics of the past two decades, the process of breaking male dominance is well under way in Central and Eastern Europe. I identify five mechanisms of change, all of which have been at play in the region: gender quotas, party contagion, party system change, the diffusion of international norms and an increase in women’s activism in some countries, coupled with the emergence of a whole array of women’s policy machineries and other state institutions dedicated to promoting gender equality.

Reproducing Male Dominance: The Role of Incumbency

This chapter argues that incumbency functions as a mechanism of reproduction for male dominance in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Specifically, incumbency sustains the over-representation of men in legislative politics over time by ‘freezing’ the proportions of male and female MPs re-elected to the national parliaments of the region. Thus, where incumbency rates increase over time, the ‘incumbency advantage’ favours men, who tend to be disproportionately represented among returning MPs. The effects of incumbency are mitigated, to a limited extent, by the electoral volatility and unstable party systems of post-communist Europe.

Gender, institutions and political representation : reproducing male dominance in Europe’s new democracies

This book traces the struggles over the institutions of political representation in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on the factors that have held women back over the post-communist period, as well as on the growing evidence for change throughout the region. Post-communist Europe has long raised two puzzles for scholars of women’s representation in politics. First, why have women been under-represented in politics in every country in the region since communism’s collapse? Secondly, why are there relatively few cases where women’s advocates have been successful in pressing for change? This comparative study of Europe’s new democracies argues that these puzzles are best understood as questions about male dominance – that is, about the mechanisms that sustain, or, alternatively, change long-established patterns of male over-representation in politics over time. The author covers six EU member states – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – during the period 1990-2016. The book will be of use to students and scholars in the fields of Comparative Politics, Democracy and Democratization, European Studies, Gender Studies, Post-Communist Studies, and Central and Eastern European Studies.

Reproducing Male Dominance: Asymmetric Institutionalisation in New Democracies

How can we account for the persistent marginalisation of womens issues and womens advocates in post-communist politics over the period since 1990? I argue that asymmetric institutionalisation represents the key mechanism responsible for reproducing male dominance vis-a-vis substantive representation in Central and Eastern Europe. As conceptualised here, asymmetric institutionalisation refers to the process where consolidating democracies privilege certain areas of democracy-building over others, and therefore marginalise certain areas of political activity over others. Over time, this leads to a situation where some arenas of a consolidated democracy, such as the rule of law and competitive politics, become embedded earlier, as well as more deeply, into the functioning of the new political system. In contrast, other arenas, most notably civil societies and state bureaucracies, are more weakly institutionalised, and therefore less likely to provide actors within with the opportunity to take full advantage of the opening of new avenues to influence politics. In sum, asymmetric institutionalisation has served to inhibit the opportunities for the emergence of state feminism in Central and Eastern Europe.

EU accession and party competition in post-communist Romania

This paper examines the impact of the EU on party competition in post-communist Romania by testing Robert Ladrech’s model for the Europeanization of Central and East European party systems. It argues that, although it certainly holds true for a variety of post-communist cases, Ladrech’s model has a very limited explanatory power in the Romanian case after accession, for two reasons. First, the post-accession period has seen further institutionalization of the party system through the gradual disappearance of the extreme-right from within the ranks of parliamentary parties, and through increased competition between established parties on the centre-left and the centre-right of the political spectrum. Second, there has been little change in parties’ stances on European integration. Thus, Romanian formations’ consensus on the benefits of EU membership has continued to exist in the period after accession, while conflicts over the EU’s socio-economic acquis, such as those emerging in Poland and the Czech Republic, have failed to materialize. The main explanation for this situation is the fact that Romania continues to be subject to monitoring in the form of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, which has essentially extended the EU’s conditionality into the post-accession period. Given continued monitoring by the European Commission, the distinction between the impact of the EU before and after accession is therefore less clear-cut in Romania’s case than in the case of other post-communist EU member states.

Preface: The European Union's 2007 Enlargement

Bulgaria and Romania have often been described as the ‘laggards’ of the EU’s eastern enlargement. From their applications for EU membership in 1995 to their eventual accession in 2007, the two countries were consistently trailing their Central and Eastern European (CEE) counterparts in the enlargement ‘regatta’ launched by the Luxembourg European Council in 1997. While the EU’s decision to open accession negotiations with all remaining CEE countries two years later enabled, at least in principle, each country to accede if and when it was ready for membership, neither Bulgaria nor Romania were successful in either keeping up with Lithuania, Slovakia or Latvia which began negotiations at the same time or catching up with the ‘ins’ of Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia whose negotiations were already underway. The difficulties inherent in overcoming the immense political, economic and administrative challenges involved in meeting the Copenhagen criteria were reflected in virtually every European Commission report between 1998 and 2006. Indeed, the Commission’s recommendation as to the actual date of accession to the Union was only made in September 2006, just a few months before the two countries joined, demonstrating the reluctance with which the EU and the member states tidied up the eastern enlargement. The introduction of postaccession monitoring, itself a decision without precedent in the history of EU enlargement, constituted both an acknowledgement of the difficulties posed by Bulgaria’s and Romania’s accession and a warning that further widening was to become increasingly problematic. This special issue focuses not only on the process and effects of the EU’s 2007 enlargement but places it within the wider context of the enlargement more generally. It considers, for example, whether the accession of Bulgaria and Romania was simply a coda to the ‘big bang’ enlargement of 2004 or significant in its own right. Evidence for the former includes the fact that both Romania and Bulgaria