Opposition to Gender Equality Policies in the European Multi-Level Space: The Case of Abortion

This research project focuses on the opportunities for contesting and obstructing progressive abortion policy offered by the European multi-level space to anti-choice advocates.

The project’s goals are twofold. First, it seeks to gain a better understanding of who the anti-abortion civil society groups operating at the supranational level are and how they are networked. Second, it examines how anti-choice actors can gain access to and take advantage of both the EU and European governing bodies to push their agenda forward. To achieve these goals, the project will be divided into two research articles. The first article will aim at gaining a systematic understanding of the anti-choice advocates operating at the European level, their networks and their policy-making activities. By employing Social Network Analysis, I will be able to capture how social conservatives mobilize material resources to gain access to policymakers, as well as to explain their goals and policy influence across institutional venues. The second article will examine the interpretative frames on abortion formulated by anti-choice advocates. Making use of Critical Frame Analysis will allow me to understand how the deployment of specific rhetoric frames enables conservative actors to reach the supranational policymaking space and meaningfully shape the resolutions, conclusions and rulings adopted on abortion. The project will build upon and contribute to the incipient literatures on opposition to gender equality policies and morality policymaking at the supranational level.    

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Period: 1 September 2020 – 31 August 2022

Funding: 2 300 000 SEK from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working and Welfare (Forte)