"Moral sovereignty and the European Union: Is gender equality a supranational concept?"

Edquist, Kristin A. (1997) "Moral sovereignty and the European Union: Is gender equality a supranational concept?". In: UNSPECIFIED, Seattle, WA. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Recent analysis of European Union (EU) policy on women supports the historical institutionalist model of the EU as a multi-tiered supranational entity. This scholarship also indicates that in addition to examining the political and social effects of European integration on state sovereignty, its moral effects also require examination. What is the ethical significance of European integration? In this paper, I outline some of the key theoretical issues surrounding this question, such as whether states should be the ultimate arbiters of issues of justices, and whether policy on women ought to be made at the supranational level. To do so, I draw from communitarian theory and feminist theory. These different approaches suggest that the EU is not and perhaps cannot be a force for moral justice within member state borders. Interestingly, however, it appears that scholars may reach different conclusions according to the geographical location they examine. For example, feminists may support EU infringement of state sovereignty in the south, but may oppose it in the north. Moreover, the fact that some nonfeminist women's views of the EU coincide with at least one northern feminist perspective on the EU indicates that scholars must begin examining the effects of European integration on what I term state moral sovereignty. That is, we must begin analyzing the extent to which, and the conditions under which, European integration affects states' ability to advance, adjudicate, and defend certain notions of the good and of citizenship. The paper concludes with an outline of the questions raised by this project and with suggestions for possible areas of research.

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