Parliamentary Affairs Advance Access originally published online on March 11, 2008
Parliamentary Affairs 2008 61(3):505-517; doi:10.1093/pa/gsn015
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This article appears in the following Parliamentary Affairs issue: The Political Representation of Women [View the issue table of contents]
Civil Society Participation in EU Gender Policy-Making: Framing Strategies and Institutional Constraints
The participation of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) in the policy processes of the European Union (EU) is a potential site of substantial representation of women (SRW). In the article, it is argued that the institutional context can both enable and constrain civil society actors' claims-making. TANs employ framing strategies to make their claims resonate with or challenge the dominant discourse of the EU policies. The institutions use contested frames to constitute legitimate claims-makers, by recognising certain claims as more valid than others. The possibilities of SRW are delimited, since the pluralisation of claims is not sufficiently prioritised by the institutions.