Expertise in European Economic Governance: A Feminist Analysis

Recent years have seen a distinctive transformation in EU economic governance, including the introduction of a regime of oversight and recommendation as well as the establishment of new policymaking, oversight and expert institutions at both the European and member state levels. These changes raise questions about legal and political accountability, and about the current state of integration. Debates over the political nature of contemporary economic governance have, thus far, ignored the role that the politics of gender may be playing in constructing and legitimising this regime. While much research has documented the gendered impacts of this regime, there remains a gap in the literature concerning how gender influences the regime itself. This article addresses this gap by exploring two ways in which gender politics have shaped and legitimised the new regime. First, it explores the gendered nature of economic expertise within EU economic governance. Secondly, it explores the framing of the economic crisis, and show how the narratives of the crisis helped to create this gendered regime. The article explores the gendered nature of the process of seeking legitimacy in economic policy, and so the analysis helps to deepen the understanding of the politics behind economic policy more broadly.