Slipping Off or Turning the Tide? Gender Equality in European Union’s External Relations in Times of Crisis

The European Union has faced several crises in the past decades, including the economic and financial crisis, Brexit, a migration, climate change and security crisis, and the latest COVID-19 crisis. In this context, feminist scholars have shown how the causes and effects of the economic and financial crisis are strongly gendered. Generally, this literature suggests that crises can open a window of opportunity for gender considerations but may also promote policies which exacerbate gendered inequalities. Yet, the impact of crises on the attention to gender equality in European Union’s external relations is still unknown. This is surprising, as the European Union has promised to mainstream gender in all external policies, and understands itself to be a normative power and gender actor in world politics. This Special Issue analyses how the European Union’s identification of crisis and its policy responses to crisis in different external policy fields are gendered. The introduction situates the Special Issue within existing scholarship, theorises the central concepts of this Special Issue – crisis, gender (equality) and the European Union identities – and highlights how the different contributions advance our understanding of how gender figures in European Union’s external relations in past, current and future times of crisis.