Rescaling Gender Relations: The Influence of European Directives on the German Gender Regime

Abstract

During the 1960s-1990s, a gradual yet definite shift in the organization of gender politics in the European Union (EU) and member states has become apparent. This shift began with the implementation of the early gender directives of the 1970s and has since evolved to include a partial rescaling of policy-making from national to transnational spaces and a gradual redefinition of gen- der regimes and policies at the national level. As a result, gender policy cannot be viewed as either predominantly transnational or national but arises through interaction of multiple and coexisting policy spaces. In this article, I use a multiscalar analysis to highlight this complex interaction. I draw on (West) Germany as a specific case study to offer a historical analysis of the implementation of the early European gender directives and the manner in which these developments have contributed to the redirection of the German gender regime and the emergence of a new hybrid regime. A major shift in the organization of gender policy regulation has taken place in the European Union (EU) and its member states during the 1960s-1990s. Gender policy, arguably once firmly grounded in the politics of the nation-state, has been rescaled and partially relocated to an EU level. This has not, as some scholars