Chapter 7: Krizsan and Zentai

Forthcoming in July 2012 in Institutionalising Intersectionality? The Changing Nature of European Equality Regimes. Eds. Andrea Krizsan, Hege Skjeie and Judith Squires. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Institutionalizing Intersectionality in Central and Eastern Europe: Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia.

Andrea Krizsan and Violetta Zentai1

Countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEEC) emerged in the early 1990s from a half-

century-long state socialist emancipation project (Gal and Kligman 2000, Fodor 2004) to

join global processes of human rights and gender equality norms diffusion. This brought

about a shift from the total absence of formal equality policies towards an increasing

recognition, formalization, and institutionalization of equality concerns within a

relatively short period of time. Although most comparative research has conspicuously

failed to document them in the region, gender equality institutions started to emerge from

the mid-1990s.

The European Union (EU) accession process presented a new and strong

incentive structure for countries in this region from the early 2000s onwards, pushing

them towards amending their existent, often embryonic, or weak equality institutional

structures. The accession negotiations of CEECs coincided with the emergence of new

priorities in the EU equality agenda: namely a steady move away from policy approaches

that deal with gender inequality separately towards approaches to address multiple

inequalities in integrated ways (Lombardo and Verloo 2009, Squires 2008, EC 2007).

This European shift has been especially manifest in institutional terms, where equality 1 This paper is based on research reports written within the framework of the FP6 comparative project Quality in Gender+ Equality Policies in Europe (QUING) – available online: http://www.quing.eu. We are very grateful to all researchers from Central and Eastern Europe for their enormous and extremely valuable work. In alphabetical order, they are: Magda Dabrowska, Tamas Dombos, Majda Hrzenjak, Vlasta Jalusic, Erika Kispeter, Roman Kuhar, Marja Kuzmanic, Zuzana Ocenasova, Raluca Popa, Stanislava Repar, Elena Stoykova, Melinda Szabo. Raluca Popa has contributed substantially to research for this paper and earlier writings on the topic. We owe her special recognition.

2

bodies dealing with multiple inequalities came to replace or to complement previous

inequality-specific institutions. Changes were accompanied by expectations that an

integrated equality policy and institutional approach would be more favorable to deal

with multiple, intersecting inequalities, and thus would better capture the complexity of

inequalities and disadvantages (Fredman 2005, Squires 2008, EC 2007).

Equality institutional changes in CEECs during the last decade should be

discussed as being strongly embedded in both the post-communist legacy as well as the

process of EU accession. While this common context might indicate a one-size-fits-all

adoption of EU equality norms across the region, this chapter aims to show the variations

in patterns of institutionalizing equality and their different engagement with

intersectionality. Differences will be explained by the legacies of institutions social

movements from the late communist and post-communist period, the role of political and

discursive opportunity structures in shaping policy developments, and the agency of

different non-state and international actors in catalyzing change.

The aim of this chapter is to analyze what equality policy changes across the

European Union (see Introduction, and chapter on the EU in this volume) mean for

gender equality institutions in CEECs and what are their implications for the engagement

of those institutions with multiple inequalities and particularly intersectional inequality.

The chapter looks at four countries that show markedly different trajectories of

development in institutionalizing equality: Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia.

The scarce literature on the emergence of gender equality policies and related

policy processes in CEECs focuses extensively on the common legacy and general trends

across countries of the region (Gal and Kligman 2000, Sloat 2004, Beveridge 2009,

Saxonberg 2000, Ghodsee 2004). Studies have pointed out the general weakness of civil

society (Howard 2002) and the problematic character of the term feminism within it

(Roth 2007), weak political representation of women (Saxonberg 2000, Sloat 2004), and

serious implementation deficits for policies in place (Beveridge 2009, Falkner, Treib, and

Holzleithner 2008). More than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, studies started to

refocus arguments and marshal evidence to show variation among countries of the region

3

(Johnson 2007, Glass and Fodor 2007, Selewa and Saxonberg 2007, Spehar 2007). While

the legacy of state socialism is recognized by most of these studies, differences are

pointed out in how these legacies are transposed into the present and also in a

composition of factors that lead to divergent policy outcomes across countries of the

region. Differences are explained by role, strength, and strategies of feminist civil society

(Spehar 2007); economic and institutional traditions (Saxonberg and Selewa 2007); or an

interplay of factors including availability of formal political channels, timing of civil

society mobilization, and prioritization of inequality considerations that drives

mobilization (Johnson 2007, Glass and Fodor 2007). In addition, the influence of

transnational feminist cooperation and international organizations on domestic

mobilization is highlighted as crucial for understanding gender policy development in the

region (Johnson 2007).

We argue that EU-wide equality policy processes that brought a move from a

gender-only focus towards a focus on multiple inequalities had a differential impact on

equality institutional architectures in these countries. Along the framework of this

volume, equality institutional architectures are understood to be structured along three

different institutional pillars: political-administrative equality bodies, anti-discrimination

bodies, and consultative bodies. These pillars serve different functions in promoting

complex gender equality approaches and are seen to have the potential to work

complementarily towards promoting complex equality approaches (Introduction to this

volume, Krizsan 2011). While the four countries in this analysis witnessed an increasing

emphasis on equality policies covering multiple inequalities, due to a variety of historical,

structural, and discursive reasons different institutional responses emerged in the four

countries. Some countries create multiple equality institutional layers where some layers

remain gender-specific and others are integrated; other countries maintain relatively

strong gender equality priorities; yet others replace gender-specific institutions with

institutions bringing an integrated approach to multiple inequalities. The many different

ways that different types of equality institutions engage with intersectionality has been

noted elsewhere (Krizsan 2011). In the CEE context this chapter also points to the

relevance of interaction between different types of equality institutions and civil society

and international actors for successfully engaging with an intersectional agenda.

4

The chapter relies on the methodology and data generated by the European

comparative project, Quality in Gender+ Equality Policies (QUING). We use a mixed

neo-institutionalist approach, by relying both on tools of historical institutionalism

(Waylen 2009) as well as those of discursive institutionalism (Schmidt 2010). The

chapter aims to explain institutional change by a combination of discursive, interactional,

structural, and historical elements. Data collection for the analysis closed in early 2010,

which leaves some of the most recent institutional changes in the region outside the scope

of analysis.

The chapter first analyzes the institutional and discursive context in the selected

countries, next discusses patterns of institutional change coming with the EU accession

and then explains variation among them. The final section looks at different modes of

institutional engagement with intersectionality in the context of the different emergent

institutional structures of the four countries.

Context and Legacy

The countries of Central and Eastern Europe witnessed two main waves of

institutionalization in equality policy (Krizsan 2011). The first wave brought institutions

that placed a specific focus on different inequalities, particularly gender inequality, and

took place mainly within the context of global UN processes for creating women’s policy

agencies (Goetz 2005, Rai 2003). The second wave of institutionalization took place

within the context of EU accession negotiations in the mid-2000s and brought about a

tendency towards integrated institutionalization of different inequalities. Equality

institutions created during the first wave of institutionalization, embedded in political and

discursive opportunity structures (Ferree et al 2002) of the given country, served as

important legacies influencing the direction of change taking place within the second,

more recent wave of institutionalization. Early equality institutional developments and

their embeddedness in state structures, the strength of feminist civil society and its

relation to early equality institutions, and the discursive place of gender relative to other

5

inequality categories are the three major contextual factors comparatively analyzed in this

section.

Institutional developments

An analysis of institutional and discursive factors points to a variety of early

institutionalization trajectories in the four analyzed countries. In our analysis we look at

factors referred to by the literature (Stetson and Mazur 1995) such as founding, framing,

and location within the government and resources, and also look at embeddedness of

gender equality institutions within the state and in relation to feminist civil society,

particularly their stability and legitimacy.

In Hungary, the Beijing World Conference (1995) provided the momentum for

launching the first gender equality policy strategy and the first gender equality

institutions. The Secretariat for Women’s Policy2 was established under a left-liberal

government in 1995 within the Ministry of Labor to coordinate and monitor performance

along the lines of the Beijing Platform for Action (Krizsan and Zentai 2006). In place

since then, the Hungarian gender equality machinery has gone through a number of

changes primarily tied to realignments in government or in relevant ministries. Its place

and mission has been reframed repeatedly in ways that place it closer either to a gender

equality framing as employment and social issue (during left-wing governments of 1995–

98, 2002–2010) or to a women’s policy framing tied to family policy (under conservative

governments 1998–2002), or even to an international compliance and European

integration framing (2004). The Hungarian gender equality machinery has always been

at a relatively low level in the hierarchy, with a modest budget and personal resources.

Changes in framing have also impacted on status and resources: the machinery has

repeatedly moved up and down the hierarchy, with its resources and personnel cut

depending on the orientation of the government (Krizsan and Zentai 2006).

2 Later renamed Equal Opportunity Secretariat.

6

In Poland, institutionalization of gender equality started with the establishment of

the Plenipotentiary for Women in 1986, under the influence of the Nairobi Third World

Conference (Nowakovska 2000). Created with relative autonomy and a high rank within

government, it acted to implement the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies across

different government departments. The end of the state socialist period brought many

challenges to the Plenipotentiary, coming mainly with the strengthening role of the

Catholic Church and its links to major political forces in Poland (Saxonberg and Selewa

2006). As Nowakovska points out, the name, power, and position of the Plenipotentiary

has been through many changes related to political turning points (2000). Name changes

reflected changes in framing, too, from gender equality framing that engaged with such

strongly controversial issues in Poland as abortion and reproductive rights (1991–1992),

to framing that focused on the labor market and women’s entrepreneurship issues (1997–

2001), to framings that were indifferent or oppositional to gender equality such as youth

(1992–1995) or traditional family framing (1997–1999) (Dabrowska 2007). The activity

of the Plenipotentiary was limited by budget and resource constraints, and it had an

advisory role rather than direct influence on policymaking (Nowakovska 2000).

Governmental engagement with gender equality in Romania can also be dated

back to the Beijing Conference. A Department for Strategies for Promoting Women’s

Rights and Family Policies was created within the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare

in 1996 largely to fulfill international obligations. In 1998 the Department was lowered in

the ministerial hierarchy and was replaced in 1999 by a Division for Equal Opportunities.

Due to restructuring of the ministries, the Division was split into two units and anchored

at two different line ministries (labor, family and health, respectively), and finally the

remnants of the unit for equal opportunities were fully erased from the ministerial

structures in 2003. With the decline of the Division for Equal Opportunity, an Inter-

ministerial Consultative Commission on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men,

established in 1999, functioned as the only gender equality body in the governmental

structure until 2005 (Popa 2008, OSI 2005). The Commission consulted NGO

representatives and in so doing it fulfilled the functions of a consultative body.

7

Socialist Yugoslavia, as an exception among the four countries, tolerated a vibrant

civil society, including feminist, gay and lesbian, peace, and environmental groups. After

the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of Yugoslavia, some of these groups

remained active and started mobilization. One of them, called Women for Politics, with

roots in the women’s movements in the 1980s, was the driving force in setting the first

pillars of the gender equality machinery in the new Slovenian state (Kuhar et al. 2007,

Humer 2007, Neubauer 2004). First, a Parliamentary Commission for Women’s Politics

was formed (1991) composed by members of parliament with regular engagement with

civil society representatives. In 1992 the Office for Women’s Politics was set up acting as

gender equality machinery placed in the prime minister’s office with the tasks of assisting

government policymaking, initiating legislative changes, preparing reports and

disseminating gender equality relevant information. While in the second half of the

1990s, the parliamentary committee was slowly dismantled, the Office for Women

Politics remained the main gender equality body within the state, and its status and

prerogatives remained unquestioned (Neubauer 2004). The position of the Office was

strongly reaffirmed in 2003 when the zeal for state administration reform nearly

submerged it in the Ministry for Work, Family, and Social Affairs. The Slovenian

delegation to the CEDAW Committee reported on the proposed institutional change

endangering the autonomy of the Office. In its concluding comments, the Committee

proposed to reconsider the plan, which resulted in a decision to maintain the Office as an

autonomous coordinating entity of the government (Neubauer 2004).

Gender equality machineries that resulted from this wave of institutionalization

show a lot of variations, yet a few common denominators can be discerned. UN influence

strongly determined the course of development in all countries except Slovenia where

civil society acted as a catalyst. An important commonality of these institutions was their

overall mandate that targeted women and gender inequality specifically, and focused on

policy implementation and representation of the gender equality perspective within the

government. These tasks were mainly enacted in order to comply with international

obligations (reporting to CEDAW, Beijing, early preparation for EU requirements).

Another important commonality that can be noted in all countries, with the exception of

Slovenia, is that overall genuine gender equality work remained marginal on the political

8

agenda. Confirming research findings on the wider CEE region (Krizsan 2011) in three of

the four countries analyzed here, gender equality machineries remained extremely

exposed to political shifts. The number of name changes, shifts in location between and

within ministries, and frame alterations of institutional missions illustrate this instability

most notably in Poland and Hungary.

Relation with civil society

Literature on women’s policy machineries (Rai 2003) and state feminism (Stetson and

Mazur 1995, Kantola and Outshoorn 2007, McBride and Mazur 2010) discuss their

objectives and success in terms of their relationship to women’s and feminist movements.

Movements can be seen to matter not only in the creation of institutions but also to their

continued accountability and legitimacy (Stetson and Mazur 1995), and their

embeddedness and stability within the state. Conversely, the main objective of women’s

policy machineries is to give political voice to women’s movements and contribute to the

substantive representation or women (Goetz 2003). The weak presence of women’s

movements, and their low mobilization and impact on policy distinguish equality

institutionalization processes in CEECs from most Western post-industrialized states.

Consultative equality bodies formalizing access to the state become particularly

important in this context (Krizsan 2011). Based on the limited primary research in the

field, this section looks into the relationship between women’s movement and gender

equality machineries in the four countries.

In the countries examined weak and fragmented NGO sectors operate with

uneven access to equality institutional structures, Patterns of participation in and

communication with equality institutions largely depend on political cycles.

Hungary has a relatively small autonomous feminist NGO sector, mainly

concentrated in the capital. Overall, its voice and standing in gender policy development

9

has been relatively weak and it had limited access to policymaking.3 The machinery and

the feminist civil society always had a controversial relationship: the machinery was

rarely seen by feminist groups to channel voice and representation of women into

policymaking. Questions of legitimacy and accountability were constantly on the agenda

regardless of right- or left-wing governments (Krizsan and Zentai 2006). Yet there were

periods of more intensive cooperation. One of the main fora for such cooperation was the

Council for Women’s Affairs established in 1999 as a consultative body. Given its close

link to the gender equality machinery, the Council has also been through changes and

inoperative periods throughout its existence. Formed by representatives of ministries,

national women’s associations, NGOs, and gender equality experts, competences of the

Council are only consultative and therefore weak. It nevertheless provides a forum for

access and consultation with the state for autonomous NGOs.

The Polish feminist movement has been relatively large and politically active in

lobbying for the improvement of gender equality policy (Dabrowska 2007), but also

exceptionally fragmented along framing issues and strategic questions. This often led to

the absence of concerted action in Poland, resulting in difficulties for example in the

creation of umbrella organizations (Dabrowska 2007, Fuchs 2007). The Polish

Plenipotentiary had always had an ambiguous relation with feminist groups. While its

operation was largely disconnected from the movement until 1995, post-Beijing

developments brought some improvements. The Standing Forum of Co-operation

between NGOs and Government Plenipotentiary for Family and Women was established

and operated from 1996 (Nowakovska 2000). The relation between the Plenipotentiary

and its consultative body proved extremely vulnerable to political cycles, which brought

radical shifts in framing, changes in NGO membership, and also inoperative periods for

the Forum. From 1991 the Parliamentary Group of Women played the role of an ally

within formal politics to the women’s movement, often to the extent to enter debates with

the Plenipotentiary in pursuing gender equality issues (Nowakovska 2004, Dabrowska

2007). Communication between the Parliamentary Group and the NGO Forum was

3 Domestic violence is an important exception, an issue where NGOs were the main driving force of policy development (Krizsan and Popa 2010). See Fabian (2009) for a detailed analysis of emergence, organization, resources, and changes of the Hungarian women’s movement.

10

regular throughout the active years of the Forum, pointing out that the parliamentary

group may be seen as a more state feminist formation as the Plenipotentiary’s Office.

In Romania, women’s NGOs were weaker and more fragmented in terms of

policy advocacy than the ones in Poland and Slovenia. In the 1990s, international

funding played a major role in the development of women’s organizations.

Notwithstanding, these organizations took a strong anti-political position inspired by the

former dissident approach and did not strive to engage in political and policy debates. It

is argued that in the 1990s women’s NGOs in Romania lacked the power to influence

policymakers: ‘women’s NGOs are busy helping women but not emancipating them’

(Grünberg 2000: 314). From the early 2000s on, NGOs became somewhat more active in

policy processes particularly regarding violence against women (Popa 2007). The above

mentioned gender equality consultative Commission that was created in 1999 provided

formalized access to gender equality groups to policymaking. However critical

evaluations highlight that the Commission channeled civil society voices into policies

with modest results (Popa 2007).

Slovenia, unlike the other three countries, had an active feminist NGO movement

during socialism. Influenced by transnational activism, Slovenian NGOs successfully

lobbied for the creation of the gender equality machinery in the early 1990s already

before the landmark Beijing Conference (Humer 2007). The Women for Politics group,

established in 1991, but with roots in the new women’s movement in the 1980s, was

instrumental in fostering the construction of the post-socialist gender equality machinery.

The creation of the Office for Women’s Politics demonstrated a conceptual shift in the

feminist movement’s position: from the rejection of engaging with the state to the

willingness to contribute to the policymaking processes. Access of the movement to the

machinery and their correspondent relationship was good all along, to the extent that

some scholars discuss the Office for Women Politics interchangeably with the Slovenian

women’s movement (Spehar 2007).

Relative place of gender inequality

11

Another contextual factor that may have influenced recent equality institutionalization

processes and the location of gender equality within them is the discursive place of

gender equality in relation to other inequalities (Glass and Fodor 2007, Ferree et al.

2002), particulary the five other inequality grounds covered by European policy. Only in

one out of the four countries is gender equality a privileged inequality ground (Slovenia),

in two of them ethnicity drives the agenda of equality thinking (Hungary and Romania),

with Poland being driven by an anti-gender equality agenda (Saxonberg and Selewa

2007).

A country with important Hungarian groups outside its borders and also an

important Roma minority within, Hungary has always prioritized protection on grounds

of ethnicity more than gender or disability (Dombos et al. 2008). Equality for ethnic

minorities has been driving development, both as a foreign policy issue, and following

increasing Roma mobilization, also as an ethnic discrimination issue (Krizsan 2000). An

Ombudsman for the Rights of Ethnic Minorities, the predecessor of the later anti-

discrimination body, has been in place since 1995 and had a relatively important role in

fighting ethnic discrimination and in shaping the equality policy agenda. Disability is also

an issue with a strong presence: a model Law on Equal Opportunity for Disabled Persons

was passed already in 1998, with disability institutions, including governmental

machinery and a consultative body, in place from the end of the 1990s. Competition for

recognition and resources between the three inequalities is often manifest in Hungary;

however, as a pattern gender never drives the agenda (Dombos et al. 2008).

In Poland there is no strong competitor to gender among other inequality

categories. The very early institutionalization (1986) shows the good initial position from

which gender policy started off in the late socialist period. Ethnically, Poland is a

relatively homogenous country; ethnic claims have never meant a challenge to gender.

The most important contestation to gender came from active anti-gender equality claims

conveyed by the Catholic Church acting in coalition with major conservative political

12

forces in defining policies and shaping prevalent social norms (Saxonberg and Selewa

2007).

In Romania the equality policy agenda was also shaped mainly by ethnicity. The

large and politically influential Hungarian minority, claiming collective rights from the

very early post-communist years, and a large Roma minority facing extreme forms of

discrimination set the agenda for discussing inequalities and discrimination in Romania.

Paramount international critique on criminalized homosexuality evolved as an important

external force (Krizsan and Popa 2010). Within this context Romanian policymaking

aimed to neutralize collective minority rights claims and to pursue the internationally

prioritized issues of Roma inclusion and protection of sexual orientation by promoting an

equal individual rights agenda. Gender remained mostly in the background and in the

shadow of political battles.

In Slovenia the equality policy agenda was driven by gender equality from the

very beginning. The legislative and the institutional framework of gender equality

advanced in Slovenia as a pioneer in post-socialist contexts in the 1990s. While some

argue that the CEDAW Convention and its reporting mechanisms represent major

reference points for gender equality thinking and institution building in Slovenia (Kuhar

et al. 2007), all interpretations agree in that the role of a relatively strong feminist

movement is key to explain the location and the authority of the gender equality policy

field in the state machinery (Humer 2007, Spehar 2007). The relative centrality of the

gender equality issue within the equality agenda has not been questioned in any form

until 2003 (Neubauer 2004).

13

Table 9: Legacy (up to 2000)

Integrated Semi-integrated

Separate- only gender

Separate: inequalities covered

No institution

Anti-discrimination body – up to 2000

Hu - ethnicity 1995 Ro, Sl, Pl

Political administrative body – up to 2000

Sl 1992 Pl 1986

Hu - gend. ethn.disab Ro – gend. ethn.

Consultative body - up to 2000

Pl Hu -ethn. gend. disab Ro – ethn. gend.

Sl

The analysis in this section showed that gender equality institutionalization started

by the mid-1990s in all four countries mostly upon impacts from the UN, with the

exception of Slovenia, where NGOs played a key role. Apart from Slovenia, the women’s

policy agencies developed troubled relationships with the women’s movements. These

bodies were neither seen to give voice to the feminist movement nor seen as

embodiments of state feminism in the region (Stetson Mazur 1995, OSI 2005); they

rather served as gatekeepers to international influence on gender. While the weak

relationship between the machinery and the movements in the three countries might have

legitimized the creation of alternative consultative mechanisms, these mechanisms have

been very vulnerable to political cycles themselves. Only Slovenia stood out as having

well-embedded, stable gender equality machinery genuinely connected to the women’s

movement. In sum, gender was a privileged inequality in Slovenia and Poland, while

ethnicity was a driving force for change in Hungary and Romania. The new millennium

finds these countries having gender equality arrangements of different strengths:

Romania with a very weak and relatively young gender equality consultative body,

Poland with a long standing yet overly controversial and politicized Plenipotentiary,

Hungary with a young and politically vulnerable architecture composed of a machinery

and a consultative council, none of them supported by their respective women’s

movements, and Slovenia with a long-standing and relatively embedded Office for

Women’s Politics with close ties to the movement.

14

Change

Trajectories of change

Countries in the region started accession negotiations with the European Union in the late

1990s and beginning of 2000s. Conditionality criteria of the accession, as shaped by the

evolving EU equality policy regime, met in different ways with the institutional and

discursive context of the four countries discussed above. This section aims to analyze

institutional changes in the context of the EU accession and post-accession, and explain

variation between countries with reference to factors discussed in the previous section.

In the early 2000s, EU member states faced important changes discussed by the

literature as institutional shift from gender equality to diversity (Squires 2008, Kantola

and Nousianen 2009, Kantola 2010). This chapter argues for the need to look at ongoing

equality policy changes while also noting institutional continuity. We identified two

kinds of institutional change trajectories in the countries analyzed: one emphasizing

continuity, the other emphasizing change. The two trajectories are: institutional layering

and institutional displacement. Institutional layering (Heijden 2011) implies that the

equality institutional architectures become increasingly complex. Political administrative

gender equality bodies and consultative bodies already in place are complemented with

new institutions serving new functions: with anti-discrimination bodies that cover all

inequalities under one umbrella. The other trajectory, institutional displacement implies a

more radical move from the earlier equality institutional model towards a new approach.

In this framework earlier equality institutional models addressing gender in its specific

terms are displaced by integrated equality institutions that cover multiple protected

inequality categories. Institutional displacement thus brings a new institutional setting

rather than amending the earlier one.

Hungary and Romania witnessed institutional layering. They both established

integrated anti-discrimination bodies complementarily to gender-specific political

administrative and consultative bodies already in place. In this model the two pillars of

the equality institutional architecture may be seen to work complementarily on promoting

gender equality: one pillar focusing primarily on an individualist, complaints-based equal

15

treatment approach, where gender is handled similarly to other inequalities, the other

pillar geared towards gender equality specifically, targeting by political and

administrative tools of positive action and gender mainstreaming the structural

components of inequality, and aiming to channel the collective voice of feminist civil

society into policymaking.

From the end of the 1990s in Hungary, increasing NGO and expert mobilization

targeted the creation of an efficient anti-discrimination policy. This mobilization

strengthened within the context of the EU accession process, but remained partly

independent from it (Krizsan 2009). Mobilization revolved primarily around

discrimination against Roma, and to a lesser extent around women, disabled persons, and

LGBT persons. While there was relative agreement among advocates about the need for

better anti-discrimination policy, and more efficient litigation of discrimination

complaints, debates revolved around the scope of these laws in terms of inequalities

covered. Three failed anti-discrimination bills submitted in 2000–2001 under a right-

wing government illustrate the contestation between the different approaches: one was on

racial discrimination, another one on all grounds of discrimination, and yet another one

on gender discrimination.

The comprehensive anti-discrimination act adopted soon after the emergence of a

new left-liberal government opted for an integrated approach with reference to EU trends

(Dombos et al. 2007). The act covers an open-ended list of seventeen inequalities, but

does not cover multiple discrimination. The law also created as of 2005 an independent

anti-discrimination body, the Equal Treatment Authority (ETA). This body has the

mandate to address complaints and monitor law enforcement. It is a relatively strong

equality body handling large number of discrimination cases, including gender. ETA’s

creation fueled contestation coming from ethnicity, but not from gender equality groups.

The reason was the overlap between the mandate of ETA and the Minority Ombudsman

overseeing anti-discrimination work regarding ethnicity since 1995. Ultimately, the

integrated anti-discrimination body handles all discrimination complaints, while the

Minority Ombudsman deals with complaints relating to structural forms of disadvantage

and group-based minority rights.

16

The Hungarian anti-discrimination body functions in the gender equality field in

parallel and complementarily to the political administrative gender equality body and the

consultative gender equality body that were previously in place. Their competences are

not overlapping as ETA focuses on discrimination complaints, while the political

administrative and consultative bodies work on specific gender policy development and

coordination. 2006 brought the reshuffling of the consultative body as well, upon

pressure coming from feminist NGOs, resulting in a Council for Gender Equality that

was more accountable to gender equality groups (Krizsan 2009).

The start of the EU accession process opened a new chapter in equality policy

development in Romania. A combination of left-wing political pressure (from 2000) and

EU influence was conducive to passing new comprehensive regulations in the field of

anti-discrimination (in 2000) and the filed of equal opportunities for men and women

(2001),4 as well as the creation of an integrated anti-discrimination body and the

revitalizing of the gender equality machinery (Popa 2007). From 1999 the Department for

the Protection of National Minorities worked in cooperation with NGOs on developing

anti-discrimination legislation. Developments thus were fostered by powerful internal

political forces as well, most importantly, by minority rights advocates and civil society

groups fighting against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. The newly

passed anti-discrimination act covered fourteen inequality categories and also explicitly

mentioned multiple discrimination as a heightening condition. The Romanian anti-

discrimination body established in 2001, called the National Council for Combating

Discrimination (NCCD), is an independent body with mandate to investigate complaints

and assist victims of discrimination. It is a relatively strong and legitimate anti-

discrimination body with an increasing flow of cases (Popa 2008: 53). Experts involved

in its legislative and institutional birth recall that it was a compromise to proceed first

with integrated anti-discrimination work and then focus on specific groups (Popa 2008:

56).

4 First in the form of Executive Ordinances. Later also pushed through Parliament to become laws.

17

Two years after passing the Law on Equal Opportunities between Women and

Men (2002), in 2004, a new political administrative gender equality body, the National

Agency for Equal Opportunities between Women and Men, was also created in Romania.

The Agency was set up without having direct continuity with the gender equality

machinery established with the Beijing wave (Popa 2007) and it became the main actor of

gender equality policy. Unlike in other countries, EU accession influenced this

institutional progress (Popa 2007). Major European inspiration and support was also

coming through a PHARE Twinning Project in which the Spanish gender equality

machinery was the advising party of the Romanian institution (Popa 2007). The Agency

has pursued a conscious gender mainstreaming strategy, in the frame of which it has

established local level offices and a regular interface with civil society. This has proven

to be crucial for developing sensitivity to multiple discriminations and an intersectional

understanding of equality issues (Popa 2007).

The Romanian anti-discrimination body and the political administrative gender

equality body followed different equality strategies (Rees 1998, Walby 2005), one

focusing on equal treatment for all the different inequalities, the other targeting gender

inequalities along the lines of gender mainstreaming. While the two can be seen as

complementary to each other, they quickly found themselves in a space of competition

for resources and visibility. The 2005 Regular Report on accession progress of the

European Commission pointed out the ambiguous division of responsibilities between the

two bodies. An explicit competition with instances of open conflict emerged between the

two bodies for the role of main implementing agency of the European Year of Equal

Opportunities for All in 2007, backed by the support of different circles of civil society

(Popa 2008).

Somewhat differently from Hungary and Romania, Poland and Slovenia

witnessed institutional displacement (Streeck and Thelen 2005) during the same period.

This brought a move away of equality institutions from a gender-specific focus towards

covering multiple inequalities. Depending on contextual factors and earlier patterns of

institutionalization, this shift had different implications in the two countries for gender

equality and other inequalities, respectively.

18

Slovenia was fast in reacting to EU Directives in the midst of accession

negotiations. The Slovenian political administrative gender equality body, the Office of

Equal Opportunities, that was in place since 1992 was instrumental in preparing the Act

on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, adopted in 2002. Though relying on

previous efforts of the Office and civil society mobilization, the law was an explicit step

in fulfilling the accession criteria of EU membership (Kuhar et al. 2007). Besides

provisions for gender mainstreaming, the Act brought functional extension to the equality

institutional structure: it launched in 2003 the first, at this stage gender-specific, anti-

discrimination body within the framework of the already existent political administrative

gender equality body. The Advocate for Equal Opportunities for Men and Women was

mandated at this point to conduct hearings on individual gender discrimination

complaints.

In 2004, the Implementation of Equal Treatment Act was adopted to extend the

principle of equal treatment beyond gender to fourteen inequalities, and to bring equal

treatment protection for these under the Office of Equal Opportunities and the Advocate

for Equal Opportunities. This changed the earlier gender-specific mandate of the anti-

discrimination body and the political administrative equality body into an integrated one.

In addition the comprehensive anti-discrimination law has also created from 2004 an

integrated consultative body: the Council for the Implementation of the Principle of

Equal Treatment. This new consultative body was composed of governmental delegates,

representatives of major ethnic minorities, and several NGOs active in the anti-

discrimination field representing all protected inequality categories. The Equal Treatment

Act (2004) thus brought in de jure terms a shift away from specific gender equality

institutions, both political administrative and anti-discrimination bodies towards

integrated institutions, and it also added an integrated consultative body. The new

consultative body had a particularly high potential for inequality groups other than gender

which had far more problematic relations with state institutions than gender equality

groups. Interpretations of these changes converge in saying that in fields other than

gender equality the activity of the political administrative institutional structures

remained restricted to policy coordination, while gender equality remained the main field

of activity (Kuhar et al. 2007, Kuhar 2008). While an integrated approach prevailed in the

19

realm of equal treatment work, more extensive equality work remained focused on

gender.5

In Poland, after a prolonged conservative period criticized by NGOs and the EU

for its approach to gender equality (see, for example, Krizsan and Popa 2010, Fuchs

2007, Dabrowska 2007), the 2001 political shift to a left-wing government brought the

revival of the political administrative gender equality body. Renamed Plenipotentiary for

Equal Status of Women and Men, upon NGO pressure the office was elevated to State

Secretarial level within the Prime Minister’s Office. In 2002, within the framework of the

EU accession process, the competences of the Polish political administrative gender

equality body were extended to other inequalities as well, including race and ethnicity,

religion, age and sexual orientation, although without extending the mandate to address

individual discrimination complaints. Nonetheless, the core of the activity at this point

continued to revolve around gender (Dabrowska 2007). The relatively proactive period

between 2001 and 2005 resulted in regional offices of the Plenipotentiary and better

cooperation with women’s NGOs through a renewed Consultative Council made up of

NGOs, experts, and state representatives (Dabrowska 2007). After the 2005 elections,

won by a right-wing majority, the office was closed down with no delay. Soon

reestablished upon protests by NGOs, the new Office received a lower rank, was

reframed as Plenipotentiary for Women and Family, and placed within the Department

for Women, Family, and Counteracting Discrimination.

A final shift took place in 2008 when the political administrative gender equality

body was closed down and replaced by a new political administrative body covering

multiple inequalities, including gender, race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion or

beliefs, political convictions, age, sexual orientation, civil (marital) and family status.

While using an integrated approach, the new institution, called the Plenipotentiary for

Equal Treatment does not fulfill the function of an anti-discrimination body as required

by the EU, as it does not have competences to address individual complaints.6 To the

5 Review of activities on the institutional website clearly point in this direction. Available online: http://www.uem.gov.si/en/areas_of_work. 6 ‘Poland’ in European Anti-discrimination Law Review, No. 3, 2006.

20

contrary, it has become infamous and criticized for repeated anti-gender, xenophobic, and

homophobic statements (Dabrowska 2010). Since 2005 cooperation with NGOs has

shifted towards right-wing, pro-life, and Catholic Church linked organizations, despite

domestic and international critique (Dabrowska 2007). To date, despite numerous drafts

and attempts, Poland has not yet passed either a comprehensive anti-discrimination law

or a gender equality law, and no equality body addressing complaints along the standards

of the EU acquis has been established.

Table 10: Current institutions

Integrated Semi-integrated

Separate -only gender

Separate - inequalities covered

No institution

Anti-discrimination body

Hu 2004, Ro 2003, Sl 2004

Pl

Political administrative body

Pl 2008

Sl 1992

Hu - ethn. gend. disabRo – ethn. gend.disab

Consultative body Sl 2004 Pl 1996 Hu- gend. Ethn. disab Ro - gend, ethn.

21

Understanding change

Two patterns of change emerge from the analysis: institutional layering and institutional

displacement. The layering pattern creates specific spaces and institutional pillars for

visions of gender equality. Accordingly, integrated thinking about inequalities emerged

only in the equal treatment realm, while specific gender equality institutions remained in

place both in Hungary and Romania for group-based positive action and mainstreaming

approaches and also for consultative purposes. By the same token, Poland and Slovenia,

followed an institutional displacement model by reorganizing their specific gender

equality institutional structures at the expense of strengthening a new integrated approach

to inequalities. Contextual factors, however, fundamentally shaped de facto policy

outcomes in these two countries. In Poland the displacement came together with a general

weakening of the equality architecture and decreasing political will for genuine

engagement with any inequalities, in particular gender. The opportunity of institutional

change was used as an excuse for dismantling the gender equality machinery. In Slovenia

the displacement came as an obvious response to Europeanization, but did not lead

unequivocally to weakening gender equality thinking.

The different trajectories confirm the thesis that policy development in CEE has

to be understood in the triangle of civil society, states, and international actors (Johnson

2007) working in discursive spaces. International actors, particularly UN actors and the

EU, played significant roles at one stage or another in all four countries. World

conferences (particularly Beijing and Nairobi) had an important influence on launching

the first waves of gender equality institutions as in other parts of the world (Rai 2003),

though somewhat later. CEDAW monitoring mechanisms have also provided a

framework for the activity of gender equality machinery and in some instances (Slovenia)

a safeguard against marginalizing them. The EU offered a blueprint for anti-

discrimination institutional development, both through the equality directives and the

accession reports, and also through social learning and policy transfer mechanisms

(Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005). The latter is connected to soft policy instruments

and increasing incorporation of these countries in different European structures.

22

Nonetheless, looking at the variation in patterns of change between the four

countries, the homogenizing effects of international mechanisms, and particularly the EU

influence, need to be reflected upon. Local forces and processes filter and translate

international influence to domestic contexts. A variety of these forces and their

interactions may offer explanation for patterns of change, such as strength and access of

civil society to gender equality machineries, dynamics between different inequality

groups, and particularly the relative place of gender equality in discursive opportunity

structures (Ferree et al 2002). In Hungary and Romania, where institutional layering took

place, inequalities other than gender were the primary drivers of the equality agenda:

above all ethnicity, but also sexual orientation in Romania. Civil society groups

mobilized themselves around these inequality grounds, thus facilitating the adoption of an

integrated equal treatment agenda that left gender in a relatively marginal position backed

mostly by international players.

In Slovenia and Poland, where institutional displacement took place, gender

equality civil society groups were strongly present in debates and change occurred as

outcome of political struggles: a won battle in Slovenia and an oscillating but ultimately

lost one in Poland. Institutional changes emerged in relation to already existing gender

equality institutions. In Slovenia gender equality had strong public and political support,

while in Poland strong anti-gender equality rhetoric became contested by vociferous

(though fragmented) pro-gender equality civil society. The well embedded and legitimate

gender equality machinery of Slovenia resisted the EU influence and maintained the

primacy of gender equality in the new institutional setup despite the formal institutional

displacement, probably at the expense of progress in protecting other inequalities. The

Polish Plenipotentiary, while having a long history, appeared to be very weak position

and largely illegitimate for civil society groups. Its shift brought the total loss of gender

equality priorities to the benefit of other inequalities, but most importantly, of anti-gender

equality rhetoric.

Looking at Europeanization’s influence in the four countries against the presented

context, we can notice different usages of the same set of European norms (Woll and

Jacquot 2010). Poland and Slovenia use the new integrated European equality agenda to

23

introduce protection for ‘new’ inequality categories, but the dominant discursive

opportunity structure ultimately determines how gender equality remains the privileged

inequality in Slovenia or is leveled down to the minimal protection given to ‘new’

inequalities in Poland. By the same token, Romania and Hungary use the same set of

norms to enhance a strong anti-discrimination agenda that then becomes the core of their

equality agenda. It should also be taken into account that Europeanization generates

different requirements over time (Krizsan and Popa 2010). Differences become

particularly visible if looking at Romania, the only country in the analysis acceding the

EU in the second wave (2007). This wave seems to have brought a different focus on

multiple inequalities as compared to the first wave. In the peak of Romania’s accession

negotiations, multiple discrimination had already been an issue on the EU agenda, which

could be masterfully laced in national anti-discrimination laws by civil society actors.7 It

is also important to note the leverage the EU has played particularly through soft policy

instruments to improve the gender equality machinery in Romania – not the case in any

of the other three countries.

The emergent institutional structures in the four countries looked upon in this

context bring various potential for institutionalizing intersectionality.

Institutional changes and nascent intersectionality

This section looks at whether newly emerging equality institutional architectures compel

intersectional thinking and operation in the four countries concerned. It analyzes how

different institutions engage with intersectionality either through recognizing the needs

and including the voices of specific groups at intersections of inequality axes or through

building frameworks that treat inequality categories as interdependent.

7 This finding is also corroborated by the case of the other second-wave accession country, Bulgaria, which

again has multiple discrimination included in its anti-discrimination law (Krizsan 2011).

24

Scholars and policymakers alike (Fredman 2005, Squires 2008, EC 2007)

assumed that an institutional approach that addresses several inequalities in integrated

ways would be more favorable to deal with multiple, intersecting inequalities than an

approach segmented along different inequalities. Providing a similar level protection for

different inequalities as well as making the specific expertise gathered for different

inequalities speak to each other by being merged in one location (Fredman 2005, EC

2007) were seen as keys to addressing multiple discrimination. While this potential was

repeatedly voiced, concerns also emerged about the inherent difficulties courts and court-

like bodies have in engaging with the social complexity of intersectionality (Hannett

2003, Fredman 2005). Research findings on the early activity of integrated anti-

discrimination bodies confirm the latter rather than the former (EC 2007). Out of the four

anti-discrimination bodies reviewed in this paper, all of which are using an integrated

approach, only one has explicit mandate to address multiple discrimination: the National

Council for Combating Discrimination in Romania. Hungary and Slovenia have open-

ended lists of protected inequality, a condition seen to favor engagement with multiple

discrimination (Fredman 2005). None of the four bodies designates institutional

structures targeted specifically for addressing multiple discrimination, though none of

them separates departments according to inequalities either. So in principle cases are

handled on an integrated basis, which might open platform for capturing intersectional

disadvantage.

Little comprehensive data is available on specific discrimination cases examined

by anti-discrimination bodies. Information available in the annual reports of the

Romanian Council (NCCD Romania 2007) and other secondary studies (Society for

Feminist Analyses 2007) indicates that even in Romania – where multiple discrimination

is in the text of the law – there is a general tendency towards framing multiple

discrimination in reductionist rather than mutually constitutive terms (Introduction to this

volume 2011). In cases that involve multiple or intersecting inequalities, the Council

tends to establish a dominant inequality (Society for Feminist Analyses 2007: 38) or

notes various inequalities, yet considers only one as dominant and relevant for

adjudicating. This explains the fact that in the period under review the Council has made

25

no decision implicating multiple discrimination despite its specific mandate established

by the law.

A summary review of cases considered by the Hungarian ETA shows similar

tendencies. Decisions made by the ETA are organized into groups according to inequality

categories, without any reference to multiple discrimination. This lack of attention to

multiple discrimination is particularly striking because in several cases the short

description of the complaint makes clear that more than one axis of inequality is

involved. Two examples from 2008 illustrate well what seems a random choice of the

one inequality category prioritized in intersectional cases. The case of an elderly woman

who complained of harassment at work on the basis of her age, marital status, and gender

is seemingly randomly listed under the heading of ‘discrimination on the basis of family

status’; whereas the case of a Romani woman whose family was evicted from a council

flat is listed under class-based discrimination.8 Handling of intersectional cases shows a

tendency to establish hierarchical relations between inequalities and prioritizing the most

feasible one for deciding on the case. A systematic review of intersectional cases

addressed by anti-discrimination bodies in all four countries is much wanted.

Gender equality machineries have the potential to approach intersectionality in an

intra-categorical way when dealing with diversity within gender (McCall 2005). Their

potential is in going beyond an understanding of gender as a homogenous category to

include the variation and diversity within it, and to reveal the mutual constitution of

gender and different other inequalities. Yet, genuine engagement of gender equality

machineries with intersectionality is the exception rather than the rule in the countries

observed. This confirms conclusions of recent Research Network on Gender Politics and

the State (RNGS) project outcome by Outshoorn and Kantola (2007) who found that

‘many [women’s policy] agencies still tend to take women as an undifferentiated

category as their point of reference, with the attendant danger of paying too little heed to

minority voices’ (280).

8 Available online: http://egyenlobanasmod.hu/zanza/43-2008.pdf and http://egyenlobanasmod.hu/zanza/54-2008.pdf

26

The few examples of intersectional activity of gender equality machineries can be

found along the lines of encounters with international or civil society actors. A notable

case for in-depth involvement with multiple discrimination was generated by the

Romanian National Agency for Equal Opportunities between Women and Men. Good

cooperation by the Agency with civil society groups, and in particular Romani women

activists, was conducive to the most enduring contribution of the Agency to intersectional

thinking in Romania: to introduce the concept of multiple discrimination in the 2006

amendment of the Law on Equal Opportunities between Women and Men and further on

to the amendment of the anti-discrimination law the same year (Popa 2008). This was the

direct result of Roma women’s group advocacy, in later stages in coalition with

mainstream women’s organizations and human rights NGOs. In this particular case, the

advance of the intersectional agenda is an interesting local development at the interface

of the gender equality machinery and minority women’s groups. The benefits of the

cooperation continued in the context of the European Year for Equal Opportunities

(2007). The Agency chose multiple discrimination as the core issue of the Year in

Romania and specified that ‘actions [would] focus on those vulnerable social categories

that suffer discrimination at the intersection of many deprived positions’.9 To meet this

priority, the Agency commissioned two analyses concerning multiple discriminations: a

survey regarding the labor market and another more general review for which a major

feminist NGO was contracted. The EU-wide initiative on the European Year of Equal

Opportunities for All (Decision 771/2006/EC) provided a framework for engaging with

multiple discrimination in the other three countries as well. The national strategies for the

European Year of Equal Opportunities developed by implementing bodies provided one

of the very few documents that developed at a declaratory -level language recognizing

the mutual constitution of inequality categories.10 In Hungary and Slovenia, the Year was

implemented by equality institutions using an integrated approach to inequalities (ETA in

9 National Strategy and Priorities for 2007 – European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, p. 14. 10 All National Strategies of the European Year of Equal Opportunities are available on the Year’s official website. Available online: http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/eyeq/index.cfm?cat_id=NI&

27

Hungary and Office for Equal Opportunities in Slovenia). In Poland and Romania gender

equality machineries were the implementing bodies.11

CEDAW reporting provides another important meeting point between

international actors and gender equality machineries and another platform for engaging

with intersectional thinking. This is a particularly important international influence, both

because of trends at the level of the CEDAW Committee to increasingly recognize

differences among women,12 but also because one of the chapters of the CEDAW

Convention (Article 14) actually identifies a specific group: rural women. On the issue of

Roma women, CEDAW’s voice has been shaped by Roma women’s advocacy in a

typical boomerang pattern (Zwingel 2005).

CEDAW reporting is normally coordinated by gender equality machineries, thus

it may reveal their institutional engagement with intersectionality. The Hungarian

CEDAW Report 2006 gives a relatively well developed description of the intersectional

nature of the category of rural women. It captures the main structural conditions for

regional/micro-regional and urban/rural inequalities in the country and discusses the main

gender related aspects of these regional (in the professional jargon often called spatial or

territorial) inequalities. The 2007 CEDAW Report on Slovenia pays the most detailed

attention from among the intersecting categories to the problem of rural women. It reports

on decisive distinction between young and elderly rural women through evidence based

data and even goes on to highlight the plight of poor rural Roma women. The CEDAW

Report on Romania in 2006 better demonstrates policy attention to Roma women in

employment and makes some modest references to foreign aid projects in support for

rural women. The report also refers to intersecting social categories when discussing

trafficking (for example, vulnerable young women). The Polish CEDAW Report 2007

11 In Romania, the appointment of the National Agency for Equal Opportunities between Women and Men as the National Implementing Body of the Year met with significant resistance from the multiple grounds body, but also from civil society. See Letter on the Year of Equal Opportunities sent to the Minister of European Integration, the Prime Minister, the Ministry for Labor, Social Solidarity, and Family, the Romanian Parliament, the European Commission, the Embassy of Finland, and the Embassy of Germany by a coalition of human rights NGOs in Romania, 24 August 2006. 12 This assessment is based on statements at the 25th anniversary of the CEDAW Committee, July 2007, and the overview of the Committee’s work that was published for the anniversary. Available online: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/25anniversary.htm

28

covering the period between 1998 and 2002 discusses specific problems of rural women

extensively and also mentions problems around early marriage and early school leaving

of Roma women.

Alternative shadow reports by civil society actors were recently submitted in three

out of four countries. Under the leadership of the transnational advocacy group, the

European Roma Rights Center, Roma women’s organizations from Romania and

Hungary drafted specific Shadow Reports on Roma Women in which they have

highlighted the deficiencies of gender equality policies in addressing their specific

problems and implicitly criticize the Official CEDAW Report for its missing

intersectional aspects.13 Somewhat similarly in Slovenia, organizations of lesbian women

produced an alternative shadow report to the mainstream one in which they criticized the

legal framework on gender equality and on equal treatment for failing to respond to

multiple discrimination claims (Slovenia Shadow Report/B 2008). But the Polish

mainstream Shadow Report 2007 also discusses rural women specifically in criticizing

their government’s approach.14

Finally, consultative equality bodies may be open to engagement with

intersectionality due to their important NGO component. They could be seen as platforms

for transversal politics (Yuval Davis 2006). Integrating intersectional groups into

consultative bodies and consultation processes is an obvious way to improve the potential

of policymaking to capture intersectional disadvantage (Krizsan 2011). A case in point is

the Hungarian Council for Gender Equality which now has eight NGO members along

with experts and government representatives after its recent NGO-driven consolidation.

These members represent different specializations in gender equality policy including one

designated slot for multiply disadvantaged women. No such clearly formalized

requirement for including intersectional voices in consultative bodies is set in any of the

other countries. Yet, representatives of intersectional groups could be identified

incidentally among members of other consultative bodies (for example, Poland in earlier

years but not in Romania or Slovenia). While consultative bodies do have a strong 13 In Hungary two shadow reports are submitted in parallel: the mainstream report and a Roma women’s report. See document available online: http://www.errc.org/db/03/7A/m0000037A.pdf. 14 Available online: http://www.iwraw-ap.org/resources/pdf/Poland%20final%20SR.pdf.

29

potential to introduce intersectional thinking to the policy agenda, the limited power of

these bodies largely qualifies this potential.

The engagement of equality institutional structures with intersectionality has not

come a long way in CEECs. The few good examples that come through are located at the

crossroads of equality institutions and specific international influences or NGO voices.

The research has identified NGOs and international influence as the main voices that, in

partnership with equality institutions, prompt intersectional thinking. Those institutions

that have a strong NGO component, like consultative bodies, seem to be the best

candidates for institutional sites that would advance intersectionality. Anti-discrimination

bodies that are mandated to address discrimination based on different inequalities tend to

reduce complexity and uniqueness into what most easily fits given legal categories. The

reluctance to open the Pandora’s box of intersecting inequalities (Fredman 2005) is quite

strong in most of these bodies for the moment. To summarize: while different types of

equality institutions convey different intersectional potential pending both on their

functions and their scope, currently in the CEE context it is certain types of interactive

processes between different actors that are indicative of intersectional policy potential

rather than certain types of institutions.

Conclusions

Based on the analysis of processes of equality institutional change in four countries of the

CEE region, this chapter developed two sets of arguments. First, it argued against a wider

assumption in the literature, according to which countries of the European Union are

witnessing an institutional shift from gender-equality-specific institutions to integrated

equality institutions dealing with several inequalities, and pointed out a more complex

picture in which a variety of institutional change trajectories may emerge. From the four

case studies, it identified two main trajectories of institutional change emerging upon EU

influence: institutional layering and institutional displacement, whereby institutional

layering maintained the previous gender institutional structures but made institutional

architectures more complex, and institutional displacement meant a move away from

30

specific gender equality institutions towards integrated ones. The chapter showed the

importance of contextual factors such as institutional path dependencies, civil society

mobilization, discursive opportunity structures, and political opportunity structures, in

explaining why countries took one or the other trajectory of change, and also in what de

facto policy outcomes resulted from the newly emergent equality institutional

architectures.

Second, the chapter argued that despite the institutional complexity in the four

countries and diverse platforms within these institutions, very little genuine engagement

with intersectionality could be detected on the equality institutional map. It argued that in

the four distinctive cases the engagement of different equality institutions with

intersectionality did not depend primarily on the types of equality institutions (gender

equality machinery, consultative body, anti-discrimination body) or their scope (gender

equality specific or integrated) but rather on interactions between different equality

institutions as well as relevant civil society and international actors pursuing an

intersectional agenda. Our comparative endeavor cannot explore the inherent difficulties

of legalistic and quasi-legal work of such agencies in capturing the complexity of

intersectional inequality or with the modest equality knowledge and tradition within anti-

discrimination bodies of the CEE region. Further work needs to be done to that end.

To move further in developing the discursive institutional analysis of equality

institutional architectures in CEE and in understanding their implications for

institutionalizing intersectionality, one needs in-depth knowledge on the activity of these

institutions and on the political and policy debates that make certain notions of multiple

discriminations meaningful and relevant in the given contexts. A larger study of the

domestic contexts and production of ideas may offer more insights in the structural and

programmatic thoughts in political and policy debates that shape the concept and model

of equality institutions.

31

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