Losing Grounds: Masculine-Authoritarian Reconfigurations of Power Structures in the European Union

Abstract

The chapter analyses the two most fundamental processes of restructuring and transforming the European Union during the last decade from a feminist political economy perspective, namely the economic governance regime in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2007/2008 and the reconfiguration of the (in)security regime of the EU, which has been accelerated since 2017. The chapter moreover investigates the gradual transformation in EU gender equality policies, funding and institutions. The transformations show deeply enshrined reconfigurations of gender relations and gendered power structures. Common tendencies are the closing of democratic spaces, shifts of key public functions to private spheres and increasing male dominated masculinized institutions, a revival of masculine imaginery and trends of a re-essentialization of men’s and women’s roles. These developments are complemented by dynamics of re-shifting the focus on and obliterating gender equality. The three interwoven change dynamics are paradigmatic for the changing nature of the European Union and profound changes in the gender order within the EU. Shifts in the economic, military and public-private spheres strengthen and constitutionalize stronger masculine authoritarian reconfigurations in EU economic and (in)security policies and institutions meanwhile.