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The European Union: Initiator of a New European Anti-Discrimination Regime?

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Institutionalizing Intersectionality

Part of the book series: Gender and Politics series ((GAP))

Abstract

The key aim of this chapter is to explore the possibilities and constraints that the complex setting of the European equality regime poses for ‘institutionalizing intersectionality’. That the EU has an impact on national equality law and policies is beyond question, but a study of various EU power instruments, institutions, and political actors is needed for a better understanding of the workings and the outcomes of the process. We pay attention especially to the complexity of EU equality law and policies, which involve multiple dimensions of equality and more or less compelling means of influencing the member states. We also show how intersectionality figures in these instruments, institutions, and policies of EU influence. We claim that the mandatory EU anti-discrimination law has compelled member states to adopt a minimum regulation of combating discrimination on several ‘status’ grounds. However, explicit statements on combating intersectional discrimination are located in soft law instruments or in policy programmes. Such instruments do not aim at a complete harmonization of equality law and policies, but rather promote convergence by methods that rely on national and ‘stakeholder’ processes. The ‘soft’ approach, we assume, allows differentiation within the EU and at the national level. Here diversity of traditions and policies becomes important.

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Authors
  1. Johanna Kantola
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  2. Kevät Nousiainen
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Policy Studies, Central European University, Hungary

    Andrea Krizsan (Research Fellow) (Research Fellow)

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway

    Hege Skjeie (Professor of Political Science) (Professor of Political Science)

  3. University of Bristol, UK

    Judith Squires (Professor of Political Theory) (Professor of Political Theory)

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© 2012 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Kantola, J., Nousiainen, K. (2012). The European Union: Initiator of a New European Anti-Discrimination Regime?. In: Krizsan, A., Skjeie, H., Squires, J. (eds) Institutionalizing Intersectionality. Gender and Politics series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137031068_2

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