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GENDER AND POLITICS
SERIES EDITORS: JOHANNA KANTOLA · SARAH CHILDS

Feminist Framing of
Europeanisation

Gender Equality Policies in Turkey


and the EU

Edited by
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm · F. Melis Cin
Gender and Politics

Series Editors
Johanna Kantola
University of Tampere
Tampere, Finland

Sarah Childs
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, UK
The Gender and Politics series celebrated its 7th anniversary at the 5th
European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in June 2017 in
Lausanne, Switzerland having published more than 35 volumes to date.
The original idea for the book series was envisioned by the series editors
Johanna Kantola and Judith Squires at the first ECPG in Belfast in 2009,
and the series was officially launched at the Conference in Budapest in
2011. In 2014, Sarah Childs became the co-editor of the series, together
with Johanna Kantola. Gender and Politics showcases the very best inter-
national writing. It publishes world class monographs and edited collec-
tions from scholars - junior and well established - working in politics,
international relations and public policy, with specific reference to ques-
tions of gender. The titles that have come out over the past years make key
contributions to debates on intersectionality and diversity, gender equal-
ity, social movements, Europeanization and institutionalism, governance
and norms, policies, and political institutions. Set in European, US and
Latin American contexts, these books provide rich new empirical findings
and push forward boundaries of feminist and politics conceptual and theo-
retical research. The editors welcome the highest quality international
research on these topics and beyond, and look for proposals on feminist
political theory; on recent political transformations such as the economic
crisis or the rise of the populist right; as well as proposals on continuing
feminist dilemmas around participation and representation, specific gen-
dered policy fields, and policy making mechanisms. The series can also
include books published as a Palgrave pivot. For further information on
the series and to submit a proposal for consideration, please get in touch
with Senior Editor Ambra Finotello, ambra.finotello@palgrave.com.

More information about this series at


http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14998
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm
F. Melis Cin
Editors

Feminist Framing
of Europeanisation
Gender Equality Policies in Turkey and the EU
Editors
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm F. Melis Cin
Department of Political Science and Department of Educational Research
International Relations Lancaster University
Bahçeşehir University Lancaster, UK
Istanbul, Turkey

ISSN 2662-5814     ISSN 2662-5822 (electronic)


Gender and Politics
ISBN 978-3-030-52769-3    ISBN 978-3-030-52770-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52770-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements

This book had its genesis in a ‘Europeanisation of Gender Equality Policies’


workshop, which we organised in Istanbul in April 2018 as a part of the
European Union Jean Monnet Programme under Grant Agreement Number
2017-2764/001-001, project number 587615-EPP-1-TR-EPPJMO-­
MODULE, entitled ‘Women’s Development and Europeanisation of Gender
Policies’. We gratefully thank funding support from the EU for bringing
together a group of young, passionate and established feminists and EU
scholars and academics and thus providing the launchpad for this exciting
book. We would like to thank our contributors for this collective work and
their dedication and patience to go through our endless revisions during the
editing process. We hope that this book will contribute to create a more gen-
der-equal Europe and society in which women can be equal partners to men!
We also extend our special thanks to Istanbul Ticaret University for
hosting this project and mobilising all their resources for its successful
implementation. Within Istanbul Ticaret University, we owe special grati-
tude to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Mustafa Said
Yazıcıoğlu, and Faculty Secretary, Mine Tan, who have helped us to over-
come numerous bureaucratic hurdles, and also the academic staff at the
Department of Sociology, Ahmet Korkut Tuna, Necmettin Doğan,
Mehmet Bedri Mermutlu, Ahu Paköz Türkeli and Mustafa Poyraz, as well
as the Chair of the Department of Political Science and International
Relations, Uğur Yasin Asal, for supporting our project and encouraging
students to enroll the courses opened as part of the project. We also thank
Ahenk Anbar and Ali Rıfat Kılıç for assisting us throughout the project.
Additionally, we would like to extend our special appreciation to our

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

students who enrolled in the undergraduate (SOS319) and postgraduate


(SOS514) courses entitled ‘Gender Equality Policies and the EU’ for
enriching our discussions and opening new avenues and lines of thinking
for us. We have learned a lot from them, and without them this book
would not have been possible! We are also deeply indebted to Erhan
̇
Içener, who acted as an academic advisor for quality control and who
monitored our project; his support and encouragement was invaluable in
terms of leading this project to success.
There was a very deeply dialogical, social and relational learning process
throughout the writing of this book. Therefore, we would like to acknowl-
edge our colleagues who challenged us with their critical ideas. In particu-
lar, for their contribution to our thinking and research, we thank Özge
Zihnioğlu, Ebru Turhan, Parvati Raghuram, Faith Mkwananzi, Melanie
Walker, Aikande Kwayu, Ayşegül Akdemir, Ayşe Deniz Ünan Göktan and
Bahar Rumelili. We believe that this book will be beneficial and bring fresh
debate and new feminist perspectives to the field of gender equality policy,
making meaningful changes to women’s lives in the long term. We do
hope that we can ultimately create a feminist society and Europe in the
future through endless endeavours and the commitment of feminist activ-
ists, scholars, bureaucrats and practitioners!
Rahime extends her special gratitude to her husband, Osman Kürüm, for
his endless support to her academic ambitions and for being a perfect father
to their sons that made this feminist work possible. She also thanks her sons,
Arda Batu Kürüm and Doğukan Kürüm, for being the main sources of
motivation and encouragement, dedicates this book to them and hopes that
her research contributes to making a better world for them to live in and
motivates her sons to contribute to a better world for women and girls. She
also thanks to her parents, Osman and Ferize Süleymanoğlu, and her sister-
in-law, Merve, and brother, Oktay Süleymanoğlu, for their emotional sup-
port and the help for taking care of her sons and for being the perfect
grandparents, aunt and uncle at times when she really needed help.
Melis is particularly grateful to her partner, Dimitrios Anagnostakis, for
being supportive, a source of inspiration, and sharing her feminist spirit
and passion for the cause. He has also read several versions of this book
and shared her academic and personal commitments. She would also like
to express her gratitude to her parents, Mesut and Belgin Cin, and her
brother, Melih Cin, who have been amazing mentors throughout her life.
Istanbul and Liverpool
April 2020-Under Lockdown
Contents

Part I Conceptual Framework   1

1 Introduction: Why Gender and the EU?  3


Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and F. Melis Cin

2 Enlargement Strategy of the EU: A Framework for


Analysis for the (De)Europeanisation in Turkey 19
Digdem Soyaltin-Colella and Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm

3 EU Foreign Policy and Gender: How Does the EU


Incorporate Gender in Its External Relations? 41
Dimitrios Anagnostakis

4 Alternative Explanations from Feminist Theories:


Towards a Feminist Framework for the Europeanisation
Process 63
F. Melis Cin and Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm

5 Construction of a Gender Equality Regime? The Case of


European Union Assistance in Turkey 85
Büke Boşnak

vii
viii CONTENTS

Part II Empirical Analysis of Gender Policies in Turkey 107

6 Internationalism and Europeanisation in the Struggle


Over Gender Equality: Women’s Rights/Feminist
Movement in Turkey109
Elif Uzgören

7 Cherry-Picking in Policymaking: The EU’s Presumptive


Roles on Gender Policymaking in Turkey131
Burcu Taşkın

8 Turkey’s Legislative Reforms to Address Violence Against


Women, and the EU: Uphill Struggles, Hard-Won
Achievements and a Promising Ally157
Burcu Özdemir Sarıgil

9 Budgetary Impact of Gender Mainstreaming and Its


Implementations in the EU and Turkey181
Gamze Yıldız Şeren Kurular

10 Gender Inequality in Businesses: Woman Managers and


Resilient Gender Norms205
Mine Afacan Findikli, Duygu Acar Erdur, and Ayfer Ustabaş

11 Gender Equality in Basic Education: Feminist


Constructions of the EU229
F. Melis Cin and Ecem Karlıdağ-Dennis
CONTENTS ix

12 The External Dimension of EU Migration and Refugee


Policies: Gender-Specific Challenges251
Canan Ezel Tabur

13 Conclusion: Can the EU Be a Feminist Actor?271


Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and F. Melis Cin

Index  283
Notes on Contributors

Duygu Acar Erdur is an assistant professor in the Business Administration


Department of Beykent University since 2017. Her research interests and
expertise include the institutional theory, dissemination of management
knowledge, and diversity management.
Mine Afacan Findikli is an associate professor in the Business
Administration Department of Beykent University. She is also a visiting
fellow at the Future of Work Research Centre, School of Management,
University of Bath, UK.
Dimitrios Anagnostakis is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and
International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. His research inter-
ests include EU studies and the external policies of the EU. He has written
EU-US Cooperation on Internal Security: Building a Transatlantic Regime
(Routledge, 2017).
Büke Boşnak is an assistant professor of International Relations at
Istanbul Bilgi University. Her research focusses on civil society,
Europeanisation, gender studies, environmental politics and human rights,
and EU-Turkey relations.
F. Melis Cin is a lecturer in Education and Social Justice at Lancaster
University, UK. She is a feminist researcher with a particular interest in
exploring the relationship between education, peace, and international
development. She is the author of Gender Justice, Equality and
Education: Creating Capabilities for Girls’ and Women’s Development
(Palgrave, 2007) and the co-editor of Capabilities, Youth, Gender:

xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Rethinking Opportunities and Agency from a Human Development


Perspective (Routledge, 2018).
Ecem Karlıdağ-Dennis is a researcher in Social Innovation and Impact,
Institute for Social Innovation and Impact, University of Northampton.
Her research interests include social justice, gender, education policy, and
higher education.
Burcu Özdemir Sarıgil is working as a part-time lecturer at Bilkent
University, Turkey. Her main research interests are EU-Turkey relations,
international organisations, diffusion of international norms, women’s
human rights, gender, gender in foreign policy, violence against women,
and the social movements.
Gamze Yıldız Şeren Kurular is an assistant professor in the Department
of Public Finance at Namık Kemal University, Tekirdag-Turkey. Her main
research fields focus on public finance, environmental economics, budget-
ing, and gender.
Digdem Soyaltin-Colella is an assistant professor of Political Science at
Altınbaş University, Istanbul, and a board member of Transparency
International, Turkey. She is also the academic director of the Jean Monnet
Module entitled “EU Good Governance Promotion Inside and Beyond
Its Borders (EUGOGOV)” funded by the European Commission for
three years (2018–2021). Her main fields of interest are the EU enlarge-
ment policy, Europeanisation and domestic change, good governance,
Southeast European and Turkish politics, and more specific policy
sectors of the fight against corruption. She is the author of
Europeanisation, Good Governance and Corruption in the Public Sector:
The Case of Turkey (2017).
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm is an assistant professor at the
Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bahçeşehir
University. She is also an associate member of the Nottingham
Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
Her research focusses on Europeanisation, EU foreign policy, Turkish for-
eign policy, gendering EU studies, gender, and diplomacy. She is the
author of Conditionality, the EU and Turkey: From Transformation to
Retrenchment (Routledge, 2018).
Canan Ezel Tabur is a teaching fellow at the Department of Politics and
International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. Her research
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii

i­nterests include EU migration and asylum policy, EU Neighbourhood,


and EU policymaking.
Burcu Taşkın is an assistant professor at the Department of Political
Science and Public Administration, Istanbul Medeniyet University. Her
areas of interest are political representation of minorities, democratisation,
gender studies, voter behaviour, Turkish-Greek relations, and Balkan
politics. She is the author of Political Representation of Minorities in
Greece and Turkey: Nationalism, Reciprocity and Europeanization (2019).
She has published several related articles in the journals Turkish
Studies, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, and Nationalism and
Ethnic Politics.
Ayfer Ustabaş is an assistant professor and the head of the Department
of Economics at Beykent University’s Faculty of Economics and
Administrative Sciences. Her research interests and expertise include
industrial economics, microeconomics, economic growth, and women’s
employment.
Elif Uzgören is a lecturer at the Department of International Relations
at Dokuz Eylül University. Her research interests include critical political
economy, European politics, and Turkish politics.
List of Tables

Table 7.1 Women MPs in the Turkish parliament and party competition
(1935–2018)142
Table 7.2 Parliamentary work of women deputies in the Turkish
parliament (26th/27th terms) 150
Table 10.1 Demographic characteristics of participants 213
Table 11.1 Girls’ schooling ratio 239

xv
PART I

Conceptual Framework
CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Why Gender and the EU?

Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and F. Melis Cin

This book is co-edited by two scholars—Cin, in the feminist theory and


gender studies, and Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, in the EU studies—and thus
offers a thorough interdisciplinary consideration of how the EU
(Europeanisation, to be more precise) and gender equality (or feminist
theory) can conceptually co-exist to examine the domestic change occur-
ring in gender equality policies, and addresses some of the challenges in
the debates surrounding the domestic impact of the EU. By taking Turkey
as a case study, it illustrates that Europeanisation needs a feminist agenda
and perspective and illuminates the limitations of the Europeanisation
pathways emanating from the problematic gender equality understanding
of the EU, as well as the associated problems of coherence among the
member states. Subsequently, the book develops a feminist framework of

R. Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm (*)
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bahçeşehir
University, Istanbul, Turkey
e-mail: rahime.kurum@eas.bau.edu.tr
F. M. Cin
Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
e-mail: m.cin@lancaster.ac.uk

© The Author(s) 2021 3


R. Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, F. M. Cin (eds.), Feminist
Framing of Europeanisation, Gender and Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52770-9_1
4 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

Europeanisation by drawing on the work of key feminist philosophers


(Carole Pateman, Onora O’Neill, Nancy Fraser, Anne Phillips, Iris Marion
Young, Martha Nussbaum) to offer a critique of the Europeanisation of
gender policies in various areas.
Developing such a feminist framework for gender policies is an impor-
tant determinant by which to assess the EU’s transformative power on
member states and candidates. This is best exemplified by the report from
the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and
Constitutional Affairs, revealing a backlash in gender equality and wom-
en’s rights in six EU countries (Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania
and Slovakia) (European Parliament 2018). The report indicates that EU
membership does not in itself ensure the adoption or the full application
of EU norms. Indeed, as the report reveals, gender equality norms may be
abandoned once membership has been granted. This report underscores
how important and urgent it is for EU gender policies to incorporate a
feminist agenda and framing that goes beyond merely ticking boxes to
meet legislation. It also underlines the importance of the case of Turkey, a
country involved in a long-term relationship with the EU, and its endeav-
ours to obtain full membership, which was argued to be the most effective
incentive for adopting the EU norms. Hence, through the case of Turkey,
our aim here is to apply a critical lens to the EU’s approach to promote
sustainable gender equality within the member states and beyond, and
identify the crucial mechanisms underway.
Our analytical framework departs from a popular and oft-cited defini-
tion of Europeanisation. In this definition, Europeanisation is defined as ‘a
process of (a) construction, (b) diffusion, (c) institutionalisation of formal
and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles and “ways of
doing things” and shared beliefs which are first defined and consolidated
in the making of EU decisions and then incorporated in the logic of
domestic discourse, identities, political structures and public policies’
(Radaelli 2002: 11). This definition implicitly illustrates that what is to be
Europeanised includes not only formal rules but also informal ones, and
extends to procedures, political structures, public policies, identities and
discourse, to summarise the main headings. Additionally, by focussing not
only on the construction but also diffusion and institutionalisation,
Radaelli (2002) implicitly incorporates the domestic change both at the
level of harmonisation and implementation subsequently within his
definition.
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY GENDER AND THE EU? 5

Scholars of Europeanisation popularly applied new institutionalist


approaches, particularly its rationalist and constructivist/sociological vari-
ants, to study the EU’s influence on current and future EU member states
(Cowles et al. 2001; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005). These theo-
retical approaches offer a well-equipped analytical toolbox with which to
trace the processes, scope conditions and causal mechanisms for the dem-
ocratic construction of EU norms; however, the units of analysis and the
agencies studied leave us with a major question: ‘Can we talk about only
one type of understanding of Europeanisation which works through the
EU-driven strategic calculations or socialisation?’ Related to this question,
the book questions the limits of Europeanisation with gender policies and
builds a novel agenda based on an understanding of Europeanisation as
informed by feminist debates to look into gender policies. In doing so, the
book critically assesses the conceptual and theoretical framework of
Europeanisation as studied by new institutionalist approaches and offers
alternative explanations from feminist theory in order to contribute to
building a feminist framing of Europeanisation. It is also an important
contribution to the Europeanisation research agenda, which has grown
significantly but has remained limited in its focus on gender issues and
women’s development. However, gender policies represent a crucial case
to study the EU’s impact as integration and enlargement of the EU also
involves constructing gender relations by advancing the normative ideas of
gender orders. It is a goal that has been in place since the Treaty of Rome
in 1957 and indeed has intensified since then through law instruments,
treaty provisions and directives as well as soft policy tools. Yet, how
Europeanisation is conceptualised and understood in the establishment of
gender equality policies in the absence of a strong acquis still remains mar-
ginal in EU studies.
The research focusses on Turkey—a candidate country for accession
with prospects of full membership—for a number of reasons. As
Europeanisation research has illustrated, the EU’s impact is greatest when
the EU offers a membership perspective (Schimmelfennig 2007; Börzel
and Risse 2012), and Turkey’s candidacy status since 1999 has made it a
most-likely case for being influenced by the EU. Additionally, even though
single-country case studies have been criticised on the basis of their limited
capacity to generalise their findings (King et al. 1994), we have deliber-
ately chosen the single-country case of Turkey as its economic, political,
cultural and social relations with the EC/EU date back to 1959, which is
longer than those of many current member states. The case of Turkey
6 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

offers us significant variation in the independent variables (such as the clar-


ity and legitimacy of EU demands, the size and credibility of EU incen-
tives, domestic veto players, etc.) proposed under the rationalist and
constructivist institutionalist approaches and allows us to identify the gaps
in their explanatory value. Therefore, the findings will be relevant beyond
Turkey, being of significance for a set of countries with which the EU
establishes different types of associations. Additionally, as we are focussing
not only on the adoption but also the application of the EU’s norms (see
further information below), a single-country study provides us with
opportunities for an in-depth analysis of the reasons for the gap between
the adoption and application of EU norms. Such an in-depth analysis
would not be possible by comparing different countries with different
legal and cultural backgrounds, as this would risk threatening the validity
of the findings for a wider set of cases. The report mentioned above also
stresses the importance of why Turkey offers the best case study to prob-
lematise Europeanisation from a feminist lens.
Conceptualising the case of Turkey as a most likely case is also deter-
mined by Turkey’s liminal identity of being both Western and Eastern and
its struggle to rely on women’s rights and status in order to have its
European identity confirmed by Europeans (Rumelili and Suleymanoglu-­
Kurum 2017). Women’s position in society has always remained an
emblem of Turkey’s modernity and Westernisation/Europeanisation.
Thus, gender issues are of particular importance for Turkey and a compre-
hensive understanding and awareness of gender issues and women’s devel-
opment is needed if Turkey wants to internalise the democratic values of
the EU. Furthermore, Turkey offers a robust case to illustrate that gender
should not be seen as a variable or a unit of analysis, but rather as an
underpinning rationale in understanding various forms of the EU’s impact
on target countries in various policy areas. The research on the EU and
Turkey has neglected the debates and the relationship between gender
equality and the EU, even though both Turkey and the EU stress gender
equality as both an important goal and an issue to be addressed. This book
aims to fill this gap whilst providing analytical tools to help contextualise
EU strategies and policies within gender studies. In doing so, it argues and
illustrates that Europeanisation process, without a feminist rationale and
framing, is insufficient to create transformative changes in gender equality.
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY GENDER AND THE EU? 7

Why the EU and Gender Equality?


There is a growing body of work on the Europeanisation of gender equal-
ity policies or the EU and gender equality (see Chiva 2009; Sindbjerg
Martinsen 2007; Forest and Lombardo 2012; Jacquot 2015; Bego 2015;
Kantola 2010; Abels and MacRae 2016). For instance, Weiner and MacRae
(2017) explored the dynamics of power and change within institutions
where they looked at gender as a critical aspect of such. In doing so, the
book brought a new perspective from which to study the EU’s gender
equality agenda by highlighting the institutional challenges of redressing
gender inequalities. Abels and MacRae (2016) opened a new avenue for
debate and dialogue between European integration theory and gender
studies. This debate has been followed up by Ahrens (2018), focussing on
the internal processes in and between the EU-level institutions and which
has helped us to understand how gender equality policies are developed
and processed within the EU whilst paying attention to the role of actors,
NGOs and institutions in forming the gender equality programmes within
the EU. These books have enriched our understanding of the gendered
nature of EU policymaking throughout the integration process and the
gender problem in its institutional settings. We build on this literature but
focus predominantly on the process of Europeanisation to reflect on how
the gendered structures in EU policymaking impact the EU’s promotion
of gender equality both inside and beyond its borders. We are interested
in unpacking the outcomes of the process of Europeanisation and the
quality of these outcomes and whether they reflect meaningful changes in
the lives of women and girls and whether the EU has the mechanisms to
make its impact positive, sustainable and irreversible.
There are also a number of studies that focus on feminist institutional-
ism to explain the shortcomings of the EU’s gender equality promotion
(Eräranta and Kantola 2016; Ansorg and Haastrup 2018). Whilst feminist
institutionalism can help us unpack how institutions can be sites of resis-
tance and can obstruct the gender movement (Kenny 2013)—as revealed
by the backlash towards women’s rights in six EU countries—what is miss-
ing is an understanding of how Europeanisation can align with feminist
theory to offer a discussion that moves beyond the mechanisms of the
EU’s impact on women’s status and position in a wide range of social and
political contexts and, indeed, the private realm. This book takes this
debate further and builds on the emerging research on gender and the EU
8 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

and complements the work of Jacquot (2015), which looks at changing


conceptualisations and understandings of gender equality within the EU,
and the study of Cavaghan (2017), which identifies the barriers and mech-
anisms of gender mainstreaming and provides a roadmap to understand
how gender mainstreaming can be effectively employed. We also draw on
the work of Kantola (2010) and Forest and Lombardo (2012). This book
particularly takes Kantola’s arguments forward by offering a much closer
look into understanding how the EU can promote gender equality by
drawing on different gender policy arenas in a single candidate country
context and offering a feminist framework for Europeanisation. We
develop alternative normative feminist lenses to Forest and Lombardo’s
(2012) discursive-sociological approach through a comprehensive, critical
and micro- and meso-analysis of the gender equality policy outputs of
Europeanisation. Lastly, we draw attention to the lack of analysis of Turkey
as a candidate country, where the longitudinal impact and tensions of
Europeanisation and gender equality can be best captured. So far, there
are a number of studies such as that by Bego (2015), which focusses on
four new EU member states (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Latvia and
Poland) to understand the effects of Europeanisation in relation to gender
equality and study of Avdeyeva (2015) on a comparative analysis of gender
equality reform in ten post-communist states that became EU members.
This book is a collective tribute to the emerging body of work com-
pleted over the past ten years and contributes to the debates in these
books and articles by offering an innovative feminist approach and by
focussing on multiple policy arenas (from gender-sensitive budgeting
to education acquis) through a feminist analysis deeply rooted in femi-
nist philosophy. Thus, we offer a feminist critique and reading of the
Europeanisation of gender policies that impact various aspects of wom-
en’s lives. This edited collection illustrates the role of the EU in con-
structing a democratic, peaceful and gender-just society, its potential
and limits, and proposes a comprehensive understanding and theorisa-
tion of gender equality policies and process drawing on the work of
contemporary feminist philosophers that complement each other’s
work on the issues of recognition, representation and distributive theo-
ries of justice, deliberative democracy, intersectionality and the contract
models, which collectively offers a coherent piece of overarching prin-
ciples and framing for Europeanisation. Our feminist approach has its
genesis in the normative human development frame of Martha
Nussbaum’s capabilities approach (2000), and we start with a question
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY GENDER AND THE EU? 9

posed by Amartya Sen (1999), ‘Equality of What?’, to find an answer to


what sort of an equality EU gender policies should aim to achieve.
In developing a feminist understanding and critique of the
Europeanisation process, we set out a gender equality understanding that
is based on equality of outcomes, opportunities and substantive positive
and negative freedoms, which is complementary to the human rights
approach. Our understanding of gender justice is normative, taking the
gender justice-based human development approach of Martha Nussbaum
(2000) and going beyond the rhetoric of equal rights. We argue that equal
rights do not necessarily mean gender equality or empowerment—because
women are not considered equal partners with men in democracies
(Pateman 1988)—and the discourse on human rights does not challenge
the power and gender inequalities deeply embedded in gendered institu-
tions. Therefore, we argue that the rights language adopted in the EU’s
directives and Europeanisation process should be superseded by a more
comprehensive gender equality language that focusses on substantive free-
doms and the widening of opportunities, particularly for girls and women,
and women’s agency to use the rights granted to them. Although the
human rights-based approach provides strong language and legislative
tools to advocate gender equality at the international and national levels,
it does not necessarily create a more moral social order or redistribute
resources and power in alignment with notions of gender equality
(Unterhalter 2007). Therefore, we also argue the importance of feminist
institutionalism, feminist and velvet triangles to improve understanding of
gender equality in policies, legislations and mindsets, in order to decon-
struct informal institutions such as rules and norms that act as an obstacle
to substantive gender equality.
Therefore, our feminist approach provides a moral and ethical philo-
sophical lens with which to examine the nature of rights and human dig-
nity, and we engage from a feminist perspective to design initiatives and
policies that could truly lead to gender awareness and gauge the obstacles
that stand in the way of this objective. In doing so, we argue for a policy
understanding and Europeanisation of gender equality that does not rest
solely on gender parity, but also devises policies that could stipulate a
deeper understanding of gender equality with concerns for qualitative
indicators such as women’s roles in decision making, who benefits most
from the policy outcomes and labour market opportunities, and how the
social, cultural, political and economic processes that cause gender dis-
crimination in the public/political sphere and in labour markets can be
10 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

dismantled. So, our analysis of Europeanisation is not limited to the adop-


tion of the EU laws, but also examines their application and offers expla-
nations for the capacity-implementation gap based on insights from
feminist theory.
In order to achieve consistency in the overall volume, this book is
inspired by the work of Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005) and orga-
nises the theoretical underpinnings of their approach under three models
or pathways of the EU’s influence: the interest-driven, norm-driven and
lesson-driven. The interest-driven pathway is guided by rationalist institu-
tionalism and argues that the EU’s potential to influence third countries is
determined by the cost-benefit assessment of the target countries, which
are measured by variables such as the clarity of the EU’s demands, the size
and credibility of its incentives, the preferences of the governing parties,
the domestic adoption costs and the number of veto players. By contrast,
the norm-driven pathway is rooted in the main ideas of sociological/con-
structivist institutionalism and argues that the target states adopt the EU
norms because they consider them to be appropriate as they go through a
process of learning from their EU counterparts. Nevertheless, the effec-
tiveness of the model depends on the identification of domestic political
elites with the EU, their legitimacy and resonance with the domestic
norms, as well as the perceived uncertainty and novelty on the part of the
domestic political elites in a given policy area. Lastly, the lesson-driven
pathway refers to a voluntary and idealised type of policy transfer due to
domestic dissatisfaction with the status quo and includes both a rationalist
and sociological variant. In the rationalist version, learning is generated by
new information that leads to change in the means but not in the ends; in
the sociological variant, complex learning includes a modification of
underlying goals (Deutsch 1963: 92). Lesson-drawing is a result of a
number of factors such as policy dissatisfaction, the presence of EU-centred
epistemic communities, rule transferability and veto players. Each chapter
will discuss the explanatory value of these approaches and illustrate how
feminist theory can fill the gap to better explain the EU’s impact in a given
policy area within gender policies. Hence, the book offers a cross-sectional
analysis by exploring a series of sub-cases of gender policies ranging from
political representation, violence against women, the rise of the feminist
movement and women’s NGOs, the budgetary impact of gender main-
streaming, role and position of women in the private sector, asylum policy,
and education.
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY GENDER AND THE EU? 11

The aforementioned pathways lead to two kinds of outcomes which


constitute the operationalisation of the dependent variable: policy change.
The first is norm adoption, which refers to formal compliance with the
EU’s rules or the establishment of formal institutions and procedures in
line with the EU norms, similar to the formal rule adoption as defined by
Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005). However, norm adoption does
not automatically lead to implementation. Therefore, the second outcome
to be traced in this book is ‘norm application’, which refers to the imple-
mentation of the EU norms in real-world practices. The adoption and
application of these norms can be patchy and selective as it is observed in
majority of the Central and Eastern Europe an countries (Schimmelfennig
and Sedelmeier 2005; Spendzharova and Vachudova 2012). The outcome
at each level is also measured with regard to its direction and magnitude:
positive, negative and selective. The first is positive change, which indi-
cates the target state’s compliance with the EU’s requirements and estab-
lishment of the institutional templates, which is often conceptualised as
‘Europeanisation’ in the literature. By contrast, the second type of change
is negative change, which corresponds to cases of decoupling (see Soyaltin
2017), or detachment, from the EU’s requirements, amounting to ‘de-­
Europeanisation’ (Ágh 2015) or backsliding (Sedelmeier 2017). Lastly,
selective change is observed when positive and negative changes occur
simultaneously, or some positive changes are undertaken without substan-
tially modifying existing policies, processes and institutions (see also Börzel
and Risse 2003; Radaelli 2002: 117). The feminist framework we propose
will address and assess these two kinds of outcomes.
Through the aforementioned framework, this book also contributes to
the literature on Europeanisation and de-Europeanisation by analysing
the change or lack of change with regard to the gender policy in Turkey
whilst constructing gender as an underpinning rationale to explain various
forms of the EU’s impact on the formation, rationale and outcomes of
gender policies in Turkey. The book argues that the EU mostly relied on
the role of femocrats and velvet triangles to advocate women’s rights and
gender equality, both in the functioning of its own institutions and its
decision-making structures, and it has triggered positive changes that
remained selective and patchy with notable backsliding and negative
change along the way. Nevertheless, we argue that despite not being com-
prehensive and not being driven by a feminist rationale, the EU is a pro-
gressive gender actor compared to other international organisations as it is
the leading body in the advocation of gender equality both inside and
12 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

beyond its borders given the attractiveness of its economic power. The
conceptual and empirical chapters explored in this book illustrate the rela-
tive weight of the EU compared to other international organisations and
its power to trigger changes either through direct pressure on the govern-
ment in question or by empowering civil society organisations/women’s
movements. Yet, the EU is not a normative gender actor as it fails to dis-
play a feminist rationale in promoting gender equality abroad, diluting its
impact such that this remains at rhetorical level.
The book includes 13 chapters and offers a deliberately eclectic set of
articles. The rationale behind these diverse chapters was to focus on a wide
range of areas where the EU has been found to have influence and the task
followed in this book is to explore the ways in which the EU produces this
given impact. Each empirical chapter will start with a presentation of the
EU’s policy template as relevant to their chapters. The review of this tem-
plate will include areas in which the EU has the highest policy template
such as employment policy, social policy and anti-discrimination policy.

Overview of the Book


This edited collection focusses on selected examples of policy areas and
seeks to critique and analyse the legislative changes in these areas and their
potential impact on women. As such, the book creates a platform for shar-
ing why and how Europeanisation needs a feminist lens and actors and the
formation of feminist triangles in making sustainable gender equality poli-
cies that could touch upon the lives of women in the absence of feminist
concerns and thus contributes to developing an alternative imaginary in
the real world. Our central aim in selecting chapters was to identify vivid
examples of different policy areas that might best showcase the ways in
which Europeanisation affects our lives and policies within the EU and in
third countries like Turkey. Taken together, the chapters tell a comprehen-
sive story about the complexity of different variables that factor in how
Turkey has been and is responding to the EU’s demands regarding gen-
der issues.
The book is structured into two parts. The first part focusses on the
theoretical and conceptual debates and engagements with the EU and
feminist literature. The chapters in Part II weave together theoretical
understanding, empirical analysis and accounts of different policy areas.
The theory-empirical balance differs from chapter to chapter and we think
this reflects the reality and nature of policy areas and the extent to which
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY GENDER AND THE EU? 13

gender plays a central role in designing these, so some policy areas such as
gender-sensitive budgeting are more theory driven, accounting particu-
larly for the interests of women, whilst some are less so (e.g., asylum poli-
cies) due to the lack of overall gender concern both at the EU level and
where policies in migration are in their infancy in Turkey, though feminist
theory is still implicit in such chapters.
Turning now to Part I, the chapters provide a fertile basis and theorisa-
tion for EU and gender studies bringing the resources that have been
pooled by the literature on Europeanisation of gender equality policies,
gendering EU studies which collectively enrich our understanding of the
scope, nature and the priorities of the EU’s promotion of gender equality
through its external relations, how they influence the EU’s impact on
gender policies on different clusters of countries, and how the EU’s spe-
cific demands on Turkey shapes the ways in which the domestic-level
actors are setting their gender equality agendas.
In Chap. 2, Soyaltın-Colella and Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm present an in-­
depth analysis of the Europeanisation process, its mechanisms and scope,
as well as the potential outcomes. They map the EU’s evolving gender
equality policy template with a particular emphasis on the EU’s employ-
ment policy, social policy and anti-discrimination policy and discuss how
the different enlargement waves (UK, Scandinavia, Southern Europe and
Central and Eastern Europe) shaped the EU’s gender equality policy tem-
plate. Subsequently, the chapter offers in-depth discussion of the indepen-
dent variables for each mechanism and their operationalisation for the case
of Turkey, which incorporates an extensive discussion of the Turkish polit-
ical context and the cyclical nature of the EU-Turkey relations. In Chap.
3, Anagnostakis looks at gender and EU foreign policy and provides an
overview of how the EU tries to promote the gender perspective in its
external relations. This chapter discusses the rationale behind the develop-
ment of the EU’s gender equality policy template, illustrates the gap
between the rhetoric and practice hinting at the normative power/prag-
matic power debate, highlights the impact of multi-level nature of the EU
governance and its impact on the EU’s internal coherency and consistency
on gender issues, and how this in turn shapes the EU’s ability to project
its gender norms externally. In Chap. 4, Cin and Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm
set out to bring alternative explanations from key feminist philosophers’
work to build a feminist framework for the Europeanisation process.
Drawing on the insights from the previous two chapters, this chapter pro-
ceeds to a feminist reading of the theoretical approach used to study
14 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

Europeanisation, namely rationalist and constructivist institutionalism,


and illustrates how there is little, if any, concern for gender equality in
their framing. Then the chapter moves on to a discussion of feminist theo-
ries, drawing from feminist philosophy based on the liberal, social contract
and human development perspectives (e.g. Nancy Fraser, Onora O’Neill
and Martha Nussbaum) to argue what sort of an understanding and ratio-
nale Europeanisation needs to address in order to promote gender equal-
ity effectively. Thus, they deconstruct EU studies from its gendered
practices and develop a feminist framework of Europeanisation to inform
and devise effective gender policies. This is the framework that the empiri-
cal chapters rely on when offering alternative explanations for
Europeanisation processes that are described in Chap. 2. Chapter 5 by
Boşnak looks at the construction of a gender equality regime through the
case study of the EU’s assistance in Turkey and offers a comprehensive
analysis of EU aid and gender equality in candidate countries, of which
there is a general lack in the literature. To fill this gap, she explores how
gender equality is approached and framed in the EU in the enlargement
context through an analysis of EU-funded gender projects in Turkey. The
empirical analysis in this chapter draws on interviews with EU policymak-
ers and content analysis of the EU progress reports and project documents
and illustrates that the instrumentalist understanding takes precedence
over comprehensive understanding.
The next set of chapters are included in Part II and offer rich empirical
applications of the theoretical discussions of Part I. Uzgören, in Chap. 6,
explores how globalisation and the EU membership process have affected
women’s rights/the feminist movement in Turkey over the last two
decades and analyses how they perceive emancipation and shape their
strategies to influence the political sphere. She questions how the relations
between women’s rights/the feminist movement and the political sphere
are shaped in different historical conjunctures and moves to investigate
how globalisation and the Europeanisation process have impacted the
women’s rights/feminist movements in their historical evolution of strug-
gle. The book moves on to consider the political representation in the
Turkish parliament where Taşkın, in Chap. 7, explores the EU’s roles in
gender policymaking and the adoption and application of the EU’s rules.
Drawing on a novel dataset of floor-work and parliamentary commission
work by women MPs between 2007 and 2017, she argues that the EU’s
influence on Turkey regarding gender policies shifted from an interest-­
driven to a lesson-driven mechanism, and domestic factors, such as the
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY GENDER AND THE EU? 15

strong party discipline and ideological polarisation in the Turkish parlia-


ment, were decisive factors in terms of hindering women members of par-
liament from acting together to protect women’s interests.
The next chapter (Chap. 8) presents Turkey’s legislative reforms for
eliminating violence against women (VAW) using a bottom-up approach.
In this chapter, Özdemir Sarıgil investigates Turkey’s legislative reforms,
addressing the issue of violence against women with a particular focus on
the role and impact of the EU in this specific domestic reform process. It
asks if, when and how the EU accession process will actually become a
causal factor for domestic change in each sequence of the legislative
reforms on VAW using the original data derived from in-depth interviews
and process tracing conducted since the 1980s. The chapter discusses how
the EU indirectly or directly contributed to the measures for combating
violence against women and critically engages with the EU’s role in the
long term. In Chap. 9, Şeren Kurular presents an innovative case study of
the application of gender responsive budgeting (GRB) in Turkey as a mea-
sure of public policy means of gender mainstreaming strategy, both at the
norm adoption and norm application levels. She relies on face-to-face
interviews with 59 service beneficiaries and service providers, as well as
participant observation in Tekirdağ Süleymanpaşa Municipality as an illus-
trative case study.
Chapter 10 by Afacan Fındıklı, Acar Erdur and Ustabaş focusses on
gender inequality in the private sector. They investigate the role of
women in business life and explore the adoption and implementation of
the EU gender equality norms in the private sector. The chapter explores
how Turkey adopted changes in the field of employment as rooted in the
EU’s employment policy, social policy and anti-discrimination policy
through legislative changes for women’s empowerment, and then assesses
their implementation, which considers the extent to which the norm
adoption has created a sustainable change in the lives of women. Their
work relies on documentary analysis of legislative changes and semi-
structured interviews with 24 female managers at various managerial lev-
els in different sectors, such as health, communication, marketing, media,
law and finance, and traces the issues of the glass ceiling and mobbing
due to gender.
In Chap. 11, Cin and Karlıdağ-Dennis scrutinise the EU’s education
acquis and present the fragmented gender equality understanding of the
Ministry of National Education, and then outline how the EU (in line
with its social policy and anti-discrimination policy), along with UNICEF,
16 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

the World Bank and the UN, has been an important actor in improving
and establishing gender equality policies in Turkey since 1997. The chap-
ter traces the impact of the EU through the screening process and finan-
cial instruments on the gender equality policies in Turkey whilst opening
the discussion on how and why the EU and Turkey should broaden their
understanding of gender equality in education to create sustainable
changes. Lastly, Tabur (Chap. 12) addresses the much-debated issue of
the external dimension of EU migration and refugee policies with a spe-
cific focus on gender-specific challenges. The chapter analyses the extent
to which gender considerations are incorporated into recent EU migra-
tion and refugee policies, both at the level of norm adoption and norm
application. She draws on a qualitative content analysis of the EU’s asylum
policy from a gendered perspective and discusses the mechanisms of
Europeanisation to explain recent trends towards third country coopera-
tion. The concluding chapter, Chap. 13 by Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and
Cin, returns to the ideas and emerging common arguments that form the
threads between the chapters, and further responds to the questions of
whether EU can be a feminist actor by drawing on the findings of the
seven empirical chapters in Part II.
It has not been possible, within the boundaries of this single book, to
cover all the policy areas for gender equality analysis. Nonetheless, we
hope that the policy areas presented in this book provide sufficient cover-
age to allow the reader to pull out lessons by which to consider the femi-
nist agenda of the EU and, indeed, that of Turkey.

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CHAPTER 2

Enlargement Strategy of the EU:


A Framework for Analysis for the
(De)Europeanisation in Turkey

Digdem Soyaltin-Colella
and Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm

Introduction
Europeanisation is broadly defined as the impact of the EU in national
policies, structures, policy processes and actors, as well as changes in the
role and functioning of interest groups (Kröger 2018). It is concerned
with ‘how Europe matters’ and looks at how the EU generates domestic
changes. The literature has shown that the process of Europeanisation in
the EU’s own member states is a bottom-up process as member states

D. Soyaltin-Colella (*)
Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Altınbaş University,
Istanbul, Turkey
e-mail: digdem.soyaltin@altinbas.edu.tr
R. Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bahçeşehir
University, Istanbul, Turkey
e-mail: rahime.kurum@eas.bau.edu.tr

© The Author(s) 2021 19


R. Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, F. M. Cin (eds.), Feminist
Framing of Europeanisation, Gender and Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52770-9_2
20 D. SOYALTIN-COLELLA AND R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM

participate in the common decision-making institutions and pool their


gender equality agendas whilst shaping the EU’s gender equality tem-
plate. For instance, Fagan and Rubery (2018) show that the equal pay in
the Treaty of Rome in 1957 was not motivated by tackling inequality
but French concerns over unfair trade, whereby countries using cheap
female labour could diminish its competitiveness (Pillinger 1992).
Nevertheless, the equal pay principle was activated only in the mid-
1970s with the adoption of equal pay and equal treatment directives
which were instrumental to setting the substance of the EU’s gender
equality regime. Fagan and Rubery (2018) also note that these direc-
tives were adopted right before the election of Margaret Thatcher’s
Conservative government in 1979 in the UK, which diluted the further
advancement of the EU’s equality regime by blocking legislation in the
1980s and 1990s. The UK particularly objected to directives on mater-
nity and paternity leave and part-time workers until the mechanisms
have been set to allow the UK to opt out while the attempts to
find acceptable solutions for the UK led to the weakening of some of the
directives (Fagan and Rubery 2018). However, not all newcomers
diluted the emergence of the gender equality template at the European
level. For instance, Southern European countries (the so-­ called
Mediterranean enlargement—Greece: 1981, Spain and Portugal: 1986)
introduced gender equality laws on employment and anti-­discrimination
to strengthen their membership prospects.
The evolution of the EU’s gender equality regime accelerated in par-
ticular throughout the 1990s and 2000s, mostly due to the enlargement
of 1995 when two Scandinavian countries (Finland and Sweden) with
higher gender equality traditions acceded and pushed the EU to adopt a
strong and unified approach in the Beijing conference of the same year
(Fagan and Rubery 2018; Liebert 2002: 250). A year after the Beijing
conference, in 1996, the European Commission adopted a formal com-
mitment to gender mainstreaming which necessiated systematic incorpo-
ration of gender issues throughout all governmental policies (Pollack and
Hafner-Burton 2000). This has paved the way for the adoption of the
European Employment Strategy (ESS) in 1997 which emphasised the
promotion of equal access to, and control over, economic resources and
social developments (Elgström 2000: 463), and the Treaty of Amsterdam
(1997), which expanded the scope of non-discrimination to adopt an
intersectional approach whilst requiring the EU to play a greater role in
social policies. These provisions were incorporated into the EU’s
2 ENLARGEMENT STRATEGY OF THE EU: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS… 21

directives in 2000 (employment framework directive and racial equality


directive) and required the member states, candidates and, indeed, the
potential candidates to adopt and implement them as part of the EU’s
conditionality. The expansion of this template also influenced the Southern
member states (Greece, Portugal and Spain) as they had to harmonise the
ESS into their national legislation by undertaking measures such as pro-
viding training and start-up subsidies for women and boosting care facili-
tates to promote the reconciliation of work and family life (Zartaloudis
2011, 2015).
Hence, despite the UK government’s low level of commitment and the
practices it perused to dilute the EU’s gender equality template in its initial
stages, the EU managed to develop a sound gender equality regime which
influenced its member states and candidates. For instance, even though
Finland was one of the pioneers and agenda setters for the EU’s gender
equality regime, it was influenced by the EU’s policies to enhance the
family-friendly policies in Finnish workplaces (Eräranta and Kantola 2016).
Hence, the EU formed as a catalyst for reforms for members, candidates
and potential candidates who had to meet a higher threshold of conditions
through a top-down process in an asymmetrical relationship with the EU
(Bulmer and Burch 2005; Mikulova 2014). The post-­communist candi-
date countries were expected to comply with the constantly expanding
gender equality template as part of the acquis communautaire (Fagan and
Rubery 2018) and critical reforms were undertaken in Poland and the
Czech Republic (Anderson 2006), Romania and Bulgaria (Chiva 2009),
expanding the scope of the Europeanisation research on gender equality
policies to diverse sub-cases such as employment, social and anti-discrimi-
nation policies and efforts to reduce gender pay gaps and the reconciliation
of work and family life. Also, the scope of its influence reached the European
Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which was introduced in 2004; this policy
was revised in 2012 under the name of the New European Neighbourhood
Policy which incorporated gender equality promotion as one of its top
priorities in order to increase women’s participation in political and eco-
nomic life with a larger budget to mainstream gender (Kunz and
Maisenbacher 2017). Likewise, Ansorg and Haastrup (2018) illustrate
how the EU’s gender mainstreaming strategy in the security sector reform
worked in Ukraine and Afghanistan, ensuring better responses to gendered
violence and participation of women.
Following this brief analysis of the Europeanisation of gender equality
policies in different clusters of countries, this chapter moves to analyse the
22 D. SOYALTIN-COLELLA AND R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM

mechanisms and scope of the EU’s domestic impact. The chapter is divided
into two main sections. The first section introduces the domestic and
EU-level independent variables guiding three theoretical models or path-
ways of the EU’s influence, namely the interest-driven, norm-driven and
lesson-driven, whilst operationalising these variables in the case of Turkey.
The second part of the chapter discusses the outcomes of the processes
driven by the aforementioned three pathways. These outcomes were norm
adoption and norm application, both of which are also measured with
respect to their direction and magnitude in terms of being positive, nega-
tive and selective changes.

Europeanisation of Gender Equality Policies:


Pathways and Mechanisms
The EU’s impact on national gender policies is measured through hard-­
law or soft-law instruments or otherwise by combining both (Eräranta and
Kantola 2016) which overlap with the theoretical underpinnings on how
the EU matters. Due to the asymmetry of power between the EU and
non-member states, the EU acquired greater leverage over non-members
compared to full member states (Sedelmeier 2011). Therefore, the impact
of the EU is widely studied in the context of post-communist Europe dur-
ing these countries’ accession to the EU (Bauer et al. 2007; Schimmelfennig
and Sedelmeier 2005). Europeanisation is studied by new institutionalist
approaches which rest on the argument that institutions shape outcomes
and influence the norms and actions of political actors (Przeworski 2004:
527). Within this, rationalist institutionalism argues that institutions shape
actors’ behaviours by motivating them to engage in a strategic calculation,
whilst sociological institutionalism defines institutions as arenas for sociali-
sation and learning from each other which leads to changes in identities,
preferences and the behaviour of individuals (Schimmelfennig and
Sedelmeier 2005). Drawing on these insights, students of Europeanisation
elaborated on the domestic- and EU-level factors which drive domestic
change for each of the aforementioned theoretical approaches and accord-
ingly developed three explanatory models. The first is known as the exter-
nal incentives model, which is guided by rationalist institutionalism; the
second is the social learning model, which is guided by sociological insti-
tutionalism; and the third is the lesson-drawing model, which is based on
domestic initiation due to the dissatisfaction in domestic politics or the
2 ENLARGEMENT STRATEGY OF THE EU: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS… 23

lack of rules that leads to the adoption of EU standards within applicant


states (Checkel 2001). The following three sections will elaborate on the
above in depth and operationalise the independent variables they offer for
the case of Turkey.

Interest-Driven Change: Conditionality


This pathway is rooted in the rationalist institutionalist approach and
explains the domestic change as an outcome of the ‘cost-benefit assess-
ment’ of the target government. It is also known as the conditionality or
external incentives model (Schimmelfennig 2007; Schimmelfennig and
Sedelmeier 2005). As the guiding motivation is a rational calculation over
the attainment of state interests, we prefer to refer to this mechanism as an
‘interest-driven’ pathway or change triggered by asymmetric misfit. As this
asymmetry existed, the conditionality of the European Social Fund (ESF)
was effective in the implementation of the Greek employment policy
(Zartaloudis 2015), but the associated impact was limited on the recon-
ciliation of work and family life policies in Finland which already had an
extensive national policy (Eräranta and Kantola 2016). Therefore, the
interest-driven pathway explains the domestic change in newer member
states such as Romania and Bulgaria (Chiva 2009) and Poland and the
Czech Republic (Anderson 2006).
The model can be summarised with three EU-level (clarity of the EU’s
demands, and size, credibility and speed of incentives) and domestic-level
independent variables (domestic adoption costs). Firstly, clarity of the
EU’s demands is measured by the extent to which the EU has a general
policy template and formulates general demands and country-specific
rules (Grabbe 2001; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005), as well as
recommendations when the acquis is thin (Hughes et al. 2004: 526).
Nevertheless, as identified by Anagnostakis (Chap. 3 in this volume), the
EU’s gender equality policy remains weak due to the domination of eco-
nomic concerns (Elomäki 2015; Dobrotić et al. 2013) and indeed very
little focus has been placed on issues such as human trafficking and the
private sphere as the main sources of inequalities (Chiva 2009; Gerber
2010). As discussed in the introduction to this chapter, the EU’s gender
equality norms started to evolve with the introduction of equal pay for
equal work in the Treaty of Rome in 1957, but the real momentum
appeared in the 1970s with the introduction of the equal pay and non-­
discrimination directives. More profound changes came in the post-1995
24 D. SOYALTIN-COLELLA AND R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM

enlargement and following the signing of the Beijing Platform for Action
in 1995. Nevertheless, in the enlargement of post-communist states, the
EU has given priority to socio-economic development and only added
gender equality to the negotiation process at a rather late stage (see
Dobrotić et al. 2013). Therefore, compliance with the EU’s gender equal-
ity turned into a ‘mechanical’ process, also due to an inconsistent imple-
mentation among the member states which significantly diminished the
EU’s leverage ( Dobrotić et al. 2013: 221; see also Havelková 2010).
Secondly, size, credibility, and speed of the EU’s incentives are often
regarded as important determinants of the effectiveness of the EU’s con-
ditionality. The EU offers a series of incentives such as financial aid, asso-
ciation, and trade and cooperation agreements, accession to the common
market, increasing participation in the decision making at the EU level
and full membership (Schimmelfennig 2007). However, these incentives
should be credible to both the government and the public (Checkel 2005;
Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005) and delivered within a reasonable
timeframe (Tocci 2005). The EU rewards compliance through material
and other political benefits (Kelley 2006) whilst merely holding such
rewards in cases of non-compliance. The credibility of the EU’s incentives
in Turkey varies in parallel with the cyclical nature of EU-Turkey relations.
The main positive turning points include the signing of the Association
Agreement in 1963, which led to the establishment of the Customs Union
in 1995 and finally the acceptance of Turkey as an official candidate in
Helsinki European Council in December 1999. A further positive turning
point was the decision of the European Council in December 2005 to
open accession negotiations with Turkey on 3 October 2005. There were
also points where the credibility of the EU’s incentives declined. First is
the Luxembourg European Council in December 1997 which rejected
Turkey’s official candidacy status and the suspension of negotiations in
eight Chapters by the decision of the European Commission in 2006 and
the subsequent French and Greek Cypriot vetoes on additional Chapters.
Nevertheless, the credibility of the EU’s incentives was always debatable,
even in times of good EU-Turkey relations. Even the decision to open
accession negotiations in December 2004 came with statements declaring
negotiations ‘open-ended’ with no promise of full membership at the end
of the process, as well as the growing emphasis on ‘privileged partnership’
with Turkey. Credibility declined even further following the negotiation
of the readmission agreement between the EU and Turkey in 2011 and
̇
2012 (Içduygu and Aksel 2014) and the EU-Turkey refugee deal as the
2 ENLARGEMENT STRATEGY OF THE EU: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS… 25

EU reduced its conditionality in return for Turkey keeping the asylum


seekers within its borders (Müftüler-Baç 2016).
Thirdly, domestic adoption costs incurred by EU demands are critical
for shaping the cost-benefit assessment of the target government who per-
ceive such costs to be high when they touch upon sensitive issues that
threaten their preferences (reflected in their ideology) and re-election
prospects. Therefore, the electoral system and the structure of the party
system are taken into account by political elites in determining their reac-
tions to EU demands (Radaelli 2002; Schimmelfennig et al. 2003). When
they perceive domestic costs to be high, they also act as veto players. We
can identify four types of veto players: political parties in government, the
electoral and party system, interest groups and institutional templates such
as bureaucracies and the judiciary that mediate the adoption of the EU’s
gender equality norms (Börzel and Risse 2003; Gerber 2010).
As for the political parties in government, the literature asserts that
conservative actors and right-wing governments are less likely to support
the EU’s gender equality policies as they favour familialistic policies
(Havelková 2010; Weiner 2010), while left-wing governments are more
supportive of reforms on gender equality (Avdeyeva 2009, 2010; Dobrotić
et al. 2013: 222). In Turkey, Dikici Bilgin (2017) notes that secular social
democratic parties favour pro-Western agendas for historical reasons and
strongly support the EU, while nationalistic parties appear sceptical for
cultural and nationalistic reasons. The same is true for their support for
gender equality norms as women’s status in Turkey is associated with
modernisation, Westernisation and Europeanisation. According to the
electoral manifestos, party documents, government programmes and
coalition protocols since 1987, all the parties who served until 1996
favoured a pro-EU/European agenda until the election of the pro-Islamist
Welfare Party (WP) in coalition with pro-EU True Path Party (TPP) from
1996 to 1997 (Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm 2018). The period from 1997 to
2002 covers two coalition governments, both of which were pro-EU but
incorporated nationalistic and centre-right discourses. The Justice and
Development Party (JDP) came to power in 2002 as an officially pro-EU
party setting full membership as the highest priority. However,
Kumbaracıbaşı (2016) reminds us that it had its roots in the Islamist par-
ties (1970–present) on the extreme right and the only Motherland Party
(ANAP) during the 1980s on the centre-right. Therefore, one might
expect the JDP to support familialistic policies.
26 D. SOYALTIN-COLELLA AND R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM

Avdeyeva (2010) challenged the assumption of an ideological position


(left-wing or right-wing) to be the sole determinant of the government’s
reaction to the EU’s gender equality rules and highlighted the importance
of interactions between the parties in parliament and the women’s move-
ments. It shows that when women’s movements are strong and find ideo-
logical supporters within the government, they facilitate the adoption of
the EU’s gender equality policies regardless of the ideological position of
the government. In fact, left-wing parties in Poland, Hungary and Slovenia
were under pressure from mobilised (conservative) women NGOs and
were forced to adopt strong institutional legacies for gender equality,
while left and centre governments failed to do so in the Czech Republic,
Bulgaria, Romania and Estonia due to the weak women’s movements and
lack of demand for such from NGOs. Right-wing parties were also found
to be supportive of some of the associated policies such as parental leave
policies in Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia, but it did not do so
in Estonia and Poland (Avdeyeva 2010: 211–214). These findings remind
us to consider the relationship between political parties and women’s
rights organisations in Turkey. Lately, due to the women’s NGOs activism,
political parties have become increasingly aware over the last few decades
and made efforts to increase women’s representation by establishing gen-
der quotas (Kabasakal Arat 2017) and mandating alternations of women
and men on party lists and leadership (see Taşkın’s Chap. 7 in this vol-
ume). Also, in Turkey, there are conservative and government-organised
non-governmental organisations (GONGOs) which are supported and
funded by the government and which work in tandem with the govern-
ment and promote anti-egalitarian gender politics under the concept of
gender justice (Altıok and Somersan 2015).
Governments’ responses to the EU’s gender equality policies are also
influenced by the party system. Turkey has been a multi-party system since
the 1950 elections and the proportional representation electoral system.
The party system is marked by “fragmentation, polarisation and electoral
volatility” (Özbudun 1981; Dikici Bilgin 2017: 194; see also Taşkın Chap.
7 in this volume) which becomes critically important to the adoption of
the gender equality policies when we also consider the strong party disci-
pline. In Turkey, parties display undemocratic qualities due to the legal
limits and candidates being selected by party headquarters instead of run-
ning internal elections for candidate selection, which triggers strong party
discipline. Hence, party leadership is very strong, and inexperienced peo-
ple close to the party leadership can rise to power while party activists may
2 ENLARGEMENT STRATEGY OF THE EU: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS… 27

be left with few such opportunities (Kumbaracıbaşı 2016: 225). Due to


the strong party discipline, candidates who are listed by party leaders tend
to act in line with the ideology of their parties which further deepens the
ideological division between secularists and Islamists (see Chap. 7 in this
volume). Such a strong party discipline also diminishes the prospects of
women’s election as such issues are left to the discretion of the party
leadership.
It is also important to note the judiciary as a veto player towards the
Europeanisation of gender equality policies about which judges largely
lack awareness, which manifests itself in the court judgements in which the
rulings attempted to justify violence inflicted on women and summits on
juveniles with reference to the victim’s family background and attitude
(Tozlu and Göksel 2016: 17).
The impact of the aforementioned veto players emanates from the per-
ceived domestic costs of adoption. Such costs are perceived to be high by
political elites when there are urgent domestic and political problems and
political instability (Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm 2018). This was the case in
Turkey owing to unstable coalition governments and high inflation rates
until 1998. There was a period of stability following the ceasefire in 1998
with Partiya Karkaran Kurdistan (PKK), which is identified as a terrorist
organisation and was Turkey’s main security risk at the time. In February
1999, its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was arrested, which helped to bring a
period of stability along with the ANASOL-M government at the time.
There was also a strong economic crisis which was recovered in 2001 fol-
lowed by the election of the JDP as the first single government since 1991,
which further improved Turkey’s reform capacity as the JDP benefited
significantly from the electoral system based on proportional representa-
tion by gaining a 10% threshold, which led the JDP to gain 66% of the
seats with 33% of the votes in the November 2002 elections. Hence, a
radical change came to the Turkish party system with the election of the
JDP, leading to the emergence of a ‘two-party system with a dominant
party’ where the dominant one was the JDP and the second party was the
Republican People’s Party (RPP) (Kumbaracıbaşı 2016). Subsequently,
Turkey’s gross domestic product and foreign direct investment increased
rapidly, which produced an environment conducive to reform, at least
until the end of a ceasefire with the PKK in June 2005.
A recommencement of PKK attacks and their intensification in the
post-2005 period, rising uncertainty due to the eruption of the Arab
28 D. SOYALTIN-COLELLA AND R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM

uprisings in 2011, and Turkey’s fight with multi-faced terrorism from


Gülenist to the PKK, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and
the Democratic Union (PYD) since 2013 (Usluer 2016: 29), as well as the
politics after the failed coup attempt on 15 July 2016 by Gülenists against
the government, further deteriorated Turkey’s reform capacity to levels
akin to the post-1991 period where coalition governments were the main
factor in decreasing Turkey’s reform capacity (Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm 2018).
In sum, in the interest-driven model, the EU requirements will be
adopted and applied if it is clear that rewards are high, credible, and can
be quickly delivered, and that adoption costs are small and veto players are
few. Even if these conditions are conducive to rule adoption, target states
will choose the form of adoption that minimises their costs.

Norm-Driven Change: Social Learning


This model is rooted in the main ideas of social constructivism and con-
structivist/sociological institutionalism. It refers to the export of the EU’s
rules and norms through persuasion and socialisation. We refer to this
model as norm-driven change or pathway, as the target states seek appro-
priate behaviour with regard to collective identity, norms and values
because of the process of learning they have gone through (Checkel 2005;
Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005: 18). In this pathway, the target
states are not motivated by material but social rewards such as interna-
tional recognition and a positive image, and compliance with the EU
requirements is voluntary and occurs even in the absence of adaptation
pressures. It is identical to the ‘policy learning channel’ which is defined as
a process of domestic change resulting from a new governmental agenda
inspired by the ESS (Zartaloudis 2015). Such soft law instruments can
result in significant changes even in member states where the domestic
policies are well entrenched. In Finland, it worked through the activities
co-funded by the ESF which served as a learning mechanism for promot-
ing family-friendly policies in Finnish workplaces (Eräranta and
Kantola 2016).
An analysis of the literature illustrates that the effectiveness of the
norm-driven pathway is determined by EU-level and domestic-level fac-
tors. At the EU level, the presence of interactions or communication in
EU-sponsored networks is argued to be important for socialisation (Bauer
et al. 2007; Meyer-Sahling et al. 2016). These interactions serve as arenas
for EU-level actors to use norm-based arguments to persuade domestic
2 ENLARGEMENT STRATEGY OF THE EU: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS… 29

actors, which leads to the alteration of their identities and perceptions of


rationality and leads them to look for proper and socially acceptable behav-
iour (Börzel and Risse 2003). However, contrary to the structural changes
that take place quickly and dramatically, changes within political culture
and identities proceed at a slower pace and are often more difficult to see.
Even though the arenas for interaction are limited for candidates, they do
exist. For instance, the European Commission cooperates with politicians,
bureaucrats and other strategic groups within civil society such as busi-
nessmen, journalists, academics and other similar opinion formers. It also
empowers domestic groups and encourages ‘transnational social learning’
(Schimmelfennig 2007). Likewise, troika meetings and accession negotia-
tions serve as continuous rooms for interaction and intergovernmental
communication (Börzel and Risse 2003). Lastly, candidates are included
in the EU’s institutions as members and observers to facilitate rule
adoption.
The second EU-level factor is the legitimacy of EU rules, which has
been identified as a critical factor for its acceptance by target countries. If
the EU rules are clearly defined, consensually shared and consistently
applied among the member states, their compliance pull will be high
(Franck 1990; Schimmelfennig et al. 2003). For the EU rules to be legiti-
mate, they should be the outcomes of the legitimate process of rulemak-
ing and be consistently applied among the member states. Additionally,
the legitimacy of the EU rules will increase if the EU can project ‘owner-
ship’ of the rule and if other international actors such as the UN shares
them (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005: 19). Nevertheless, legiti-
macy is problematic when it comes to gender equality as there is neither a
common understanding of gender equality nor a common and consistent
application among its member states. The EU’s gender equality promo-
tion is motivated by macroeconomic benefits and treated instrumentally in
order to achieve the wider objective of achieving economic growth (see
Anagnostakis in Chap. 3 and Cin and Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm in Chap. 4).
Among the domestic-level factors, the first is the identification of the
domestic political elites with the EU or the Western European commu-
nity. It is argued that the feeling of belonging to Europe among the politi-
cal and social actors facilitates the adoption of the EU rules (Checkel
2001: 563). This is identical to the ideological leaning of the political
parties as left-wing parties; conservative and nationalist parties are less
likely to support the EU in general and gender equality in particular, as
discussed above. In the presence of a political party whose ideology and
30 D. SOYALTIN-COLELLA AND R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM

identification of its members requires them to detach from the EU and its
gender equality conditionality, the EU can exert pressure on governments
and influence domestic identities and norms by empowering domestic
actors. In such cases, as discussed above with the insights from Avdeyeva’s
(2010) research, ruling parties change national legislation regardless of
their ideology when they are pressured by women’s movements and facili-
tate the social learning of the political elites.
In Turkey, identification of the domestic political elites with the EU has
been considerable except for during two particular periods. The first was
the Welfare Party (WP) which served in a coalition with the secular and
Kemalist party, the True Path Party (TPP), from 1996 to 1997. The sec-
ond is the current ruling JDP party. Kumbaracıbaşı (2016) illustrates that
although the JDP emerged as a pro-European party, this was a strategy
designed to negate suspicions about its Islamic roots within secular circles
(Dikici Bilgin 2017). Rather, like the policymakers in Greece and Portugal
who exploited the ESS to promote their own agendas (Zartaloudis 2015),
the JDP treated the EU instrumentally to pursue its own agenda such as
ending the headscarf ban in universities and public offices and also elimi-
nating veto players. In fact, the JDP combined the ideologies of pro-­
Islamist parties with ultra-nationalist discourses to form a political alliance
between them, but also to close the gap between the extreme right and
the centre-right. Kumbaracıbaşı’s (2016) definition of extreme right
incorporates radical versions of Islam, radical and exclusionary national-
ism, as well as the variants of anti-Western ideologies such as Pan-­
Ottomanism and Pan-Islamism. Hence, the JDP can ultimately be
identified with an ideology that is anti-Western/European.
The second domestic-level factor is the resonance of the domestic
norms and values that define the domestic culture with European ones. It
refers to the closeness to Europe and the attractiveness of the EU norms
to the domestic historical and cultural heritage (Schimmelfennig and
Sedelmeier 2005, 2005). Hence, this refers to the presence of a normative
fit which is a factor that facilitates the adoption of EU norms (Cortell and
Davis 2000: 69). Ansorg and Haastrup (2018) illustrate that the EU’s
promotion of the integration of the UN’s Women, Peace and Security
Agenda (WPS) in the Security Sector Reform (SSR) in Afghanistan was
curtailed by societal constraints. Likewise, Dobrotić et al. (2013) illustrate
that, in the socialist period, norms related to the labour market (right to
work, equal treatment and equal pay, protective provisions for pregnancy
and maternity, working conditions for women; see Dobrotić et al. 2013:
2 ENLARGEMENT STRATEGY OF THE EU: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS… 31

220–221) were state imposed and resonated with the EU norms, making
their acceptance easier. On the contrary, norms related to the private
sphere such as domestic violence, the gendered division of labour and
LGBT rights had never previously been addressed by policy measures and
imposing gender equality in these areas was more difficult (see also
Havelková 2010). Likewise, in the Western Balkans, particularly in
Macedonia and Croatia, implementation of the EU’s gender equality leg-
islation stalled due to the informal social mechanisms that prevent women
from using their rights effectively, among other things (Spear 2012). In
Turkey, empirical analysis in this volume also highlights the fact that the
gender norms associated with the culture serve as the main obstacle to the
adoption, but in particular to the implementation, of the EU’s gender
equality norms.
In sum, the effectiveness of this model is determined by the intensity of
interactions, legitimacy of EU rules and their domestic resonance, and
identification of the domestic political elites with the EU and their sense
of novelty.

Lesson-Driven Change
The third theoretical model, which we conceptualised as the lesson-driven
pathway, refers to the voluntary and ideal type of policy transfer in contrast
to coercive forms of transfer, as in the interest-driven model (Rose 1991;
Dolowitz and Marsh 2000: 13). It comes as a response to domestic dis-
satisfaction with the status quo and motivates policymakers to engage in a
process of learning from abroad (Rose 1991: 10–12). This pathway has a
rationalist and a sociological variant. In the rationalist variant, this learning
is a simple process, that is, new information leads to change in the means
but not in ends; in the sociological variant, complex learning includes the
modification of underlying goals (Deutsch 1963: 92). This pathway is
particularly relevant to post-communist states which have been going
through a triple transition (political, economic and state/nation-building)
and which have sought to cooperate more closely with other countries and
the international/supranational organisations to find solutions to com-
mon problems or to achieve other policy goals (e.g., membership of the
EU). In fact, drawing on the research by Avdeyeva (2009) as well as Karu
and Pall (2009), Dobrotić et al. (2013) found cases of policy learning, that
is, transferring policies from neighbourhood countries (e.g., Estonia and
Lithuania from the Nordic countries). In this pathway, governments adopt
32 D. SOYALTIN-COLELLA AND R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM

EU rules if they expect these rules to solve domestic policy problems effec-
tively. Whether a state draws lessons from EU rules depends on the follow-
ing conditions: a government has to (1) search amongst rules abroad, (2)
direct its research at the political system of the EU (and/or its member
states) and (3) evaluate EU rules in terms of their suitability to drive
domestic consequences. These conditions depend on four factors: policy
dissatisfaction, EU-centred epistemic communities, rule transferability
and veto players.
This model simply starts with a policy dissatisfaction or failure in the
domestic context which increases the likelihood of rule adoption.
Policymakers might be particularly concerned about the threat of domes-
tic sanctions by maintaining the status quo, or the threat that dissatisfac-
tion discredits the idea underpinning the policy. In this case, policymakers
direct their search towards the EU or its member states since they do not
have the time or capacity to search elsewhere, and further have the advan-
tage of geographical proximity and professional contacts. In the case of
Turkey, the policy dissatisfaction concerning the violence against women
pushed the government to conduct a comprehensive ‘Research on
Domestic Violence Against Woman in Turkey’ in 2008 and adopt legisla-
tion on the Protection of the Family and the Prevention of Violence
against Women in 2012. In the implementation phase of the law, Turkish
policymakers exchanged policies and actions with their counterparts in
Italy and Spain (Palmén et al. 2016).
The EU can also encourage lesson-drawing by empowering domestic
actors (Bauer et al. 2007), especially in policy areas that depend on techni-
cal expertise and the specialist knowledge of epistemic communities (Haas
1992). Epistemic communities reduce potential conflict on policy-specific
issues by providing the government with the expertise, scientific advice,
and deliberative and consensual interpretations, thereby increasing the
receptiveness of domestic structures to new ideas and change of voluntary
compliance (Haas 1992: 3). The literature on the Europeanisation of gen-
der equality policies highlights the critical role played by epistemic com-
munities and femocrats in breaking the informal practices of gendered
institutions. In post-communist Europe, the EU gender equality agenda
opened discussions on gender equality and offered a ‘window of opportu-
nity’ for feminist movements and women’s organisations which used the
EU as a legitimising actor to accelerate reforms even for some ‘non-­
binding’ issues on the national agenda such as domestic violence and
LGBT rights (Dobrotić et al. 2013; Bútorová 2009). In the Western
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lustrum no se tenían en cuenta las variaciones ocurridas entre e
momento de fijar los censores la situación de las personas y bienes de
los ciudadanos y aquel en que el lustrum se celebraba; y con mayo
razón hay que decir esto de las variaciones que hubieren acontecido
entre el lustrum y el momento en que se aplicara prácticamente e
censo. Por consecuencia de lo cual, el censo vino a ser considerado
en general meramente como un acto preparatorio, y jamás pudo se
aplicado sino tomando en consideración las modificaciones aludidas
Ya se comprende también que cada censo no se aplicaba más que
hasta que empezaba a regir el siguiente. Entre los varios censos
habría de transcurrir por tanto, necesariamente, un intervalo, que
dado lo complicado del negocio, no podía ser muy breve. En Roma
este intervalo, en cuanto nosotros sabemos, no fue nunca fijado
legalmente; mas, a lo que parece, la duración normal del mismo fue de
cuatro años en un principio, y de cinco después. El determinar en cada
caso particular cuándo había de procederse a la formación de un
censo nuevo correspondió en los más antiguos tiempos a la
magistratura suprema, puesto que ella era la que hacía listas nuevas
cuando las que hasta el presente habían servido no se juzgaban
utilizables por más tiempo; después, quien resolvía de hecho acerca
de este particular fue el Senado. Por el contrario, lo que sí estaba
fijado por la ley era el plazo concedido para la práctica de las
operaciones preparatorias al colegium encargado del desempeño de
este negocio; mientras el mismo formó parte de las atribuciones de los
cónsules, estos magistrados, cuando procedían a formar el censo
habían, sin duda, de formarlo por sí mismos y dejarlo concluido, y en
caso de no ocurrir esto, sus sucesores no podían continuarlo, sino que
tenían que comenzar uno nuevo; después que se creó el cargo
independiente de censor, los censores, igual que el dictador, tenían
que abandonar su cargo una vez practicado el lustrum, o a lo más a
los diez y ocho meses de haber entrado en el cargo, de manera que
entre las funciones de unos y otros censores fue cada vez existiendo
mayor plazo de años de intervalo. No estaba jurídicamente
determinado el día en que había de tomarse posesión del cargo, pero
de hecho se realizaba esta, la mayoría de las veces, en la primavera, y
el lustrum en el verano del año siguiente.
Los derechos honoríficos del censor estaban sometidos al influjo de
la diferente manera como era apreciado el cargo, tanto
jerárquicamente como por la costumbre. No se le concedían fasces, n
tampoco de derecho la silla curul; en cambio, él fue el único de todos
los funcionarios al que se le concedió el uso de todo el vestido de
púrpura, cuando menos en los funerales.
La competencia de los censores era de más limitada intensidad
que la concedida a la magistratura suprema para la formación de
censo. Al ciudadano que descuidase cumplir con sus obligaciones
relativas a esta formación, o que diere informes falsos, podía el cónsu
castigarle por sí mismo con penas sobre el cuerpo y la vida, en tanto
que el censor, el cual carecía del derecho de coerción plena, solo
podía exigir responsabilidad por medio del cónsul; por tanto, la
institución de este cargo público no fue una mera segregación de la
magistratura suprema, como sucedió con la pretura, sino una
debilitación de la intensidad de aquella. También se advierte la
diferencia existente entre la formación del censo por los cónsules
como una de sus atribuciones y la facultad concedida a los censores
como cargo independiente, considerando que el censor carecía, sí, de
imperium, pero, sin embargo, convocaba al ejército de ciudadanos
para verificar la lustración. — De lo ya dicho resulta que todo acto
realizado por los censores, como tales, revestía por fuerza un carácte
provisional. Ellos eran los que concedían o negaban el derecho de
ciudadano y el derecho de sufragio, los que regulaban de esta o de la
otra manera la obligación del servicio militar y la de los impuestos
pero todas sus disposiciones no eran otra cosa, en el sentido jurídico
sino proposiciones hechas a aquellos magistrados a quienes tocaba
decidir sobre ellas por razón de su cargo. Como las variaciones
producidas realmente después de la formación y aceptación de las
listas censoriales habían de ser apreciadas por los censores mismos
estos podían, so pretexto de tomarlas en cuenta, apartarse, aun po
otros motivos, de los hechos censorialmente consignados, sin por eso
infringir el derecho, y menos todavía estaban obligados los censores
posteriores a atenerse al «juicio» de sus predecesores.
La competencia de los censores no se limitaba a la práctica de
negocio del cual recibían su denominación, o sea a la catalogación de
los ciudadanos obligados al servicio de las armas y al pago de los
impuestos, parte integrante de lo cual era la formación de la caballería
de ciudadanos, y posteriormente del orden de los caballeros; sino que
además les correspondía dar reglas sobre la vida económica de la
comunidad, así en lo relativo a los ingresos como a los gastos, en
tanto en cuanto pudiera hacerse esta regulación para largos plazos
Mas aquellas facultades que para este último efecto era preciso esta
ejercitando de un modo continuo, no le fueron quitadas a la
magistratura suprema, como se le quitó la de formar el censo; antes
bien, en los momentos en que no funcionaba la censura, esas
facultades eran ejercitadas por los cónsules. De todo lo demás
referente a esta materia trataremos en el libro siguiente, al cual nos
remitimos, al ocuparnos de la administración del patrimonio de la
comunidad. Del derecho de confirmar o de nombrar a los senadores
concedido a la censura por la ley ovinia en el siglo V, trataremos con
más detenimiento en el capítulo consagrado al Senado.
El tribunal de honor de los censores merece ser examinado aparte
Fue este tribunal un derivado de la facultad que los censores tenían
para organizar el ejército de ciudadanos, pues las personas infamadas
eran excluidas de las centurias de caballeros y de la ciudadanía
obligada a prestar el servicio militar ordinario de a pie; y como quiera
que las votaciones de la ciudadanía se verificaban conforme a esta
organización militar, las personas dichas perdían, por consecuencia
su derecho de sufragio. Este tribunal de honor adquirió mayo
importancia cuando los cargos senatoriales dejaron de ser vitalicios y
se encomendó a los censores la formación de la lista de los
senadores, pues a partir de este instante, los censores estuvieron
obligados a no incluir en la nueva lista de senadores a las personas
infamadas. De conformidad con su propia naturaleza político-militar
este tribunal de honor se aplicó únicamente a los varones. Las
consecuencias jurídicas que la existencia de ese tribunal trajo consigo
se proyectaron, ante todo, en las clases privilegiadas, porque las
personas sobre quienes hubiera recaído nota de infamia no podían
seguir perteneciendo a la caballería ni al Senado; a los demás
ciudadanos, el censor solo podía privarles del derecho de sufragio, o
mermárselo, y postergarles en el ejército; mas tampoco en este
respecto se hallaba obligado el magistrado poseedor de imperium a
respetar lo que el censor hubiera hecho.
Lo que desde luego estaba sometido al tribunal de honor era la
conducta del ciudadano en el cumplimiento de sus obligaciones
políticas; pero también dependía de la apreciación de los censores la
honorabilidad de la vida privada. Tanto la determinación de cuáles
acciones habían de considerarse deshonrosas, como la clase de
pruebas que había de ser suficiente para juzgarlas tales, fueron cosas
entregadas a la conciencia del magistrado; de hecho, sin embargo
hubieron de aplicarse con frecuencia a esta materia algunas
formalidades procesales. Este tribunal de honor, cuyo órgano se
nombraba en atención tan solo a la consideración moral y política que
gozaba la persona en quien recaía el nombramiento, y que aun en los
mejores tiempos de la República en este sentido fue en el que se hizo
uso de él, ese tribunal de honor, repetimos, solo puede decirse que
tuviera limitaciones legales en su obrar en cuanto que para privar de la
honra a una persona debía hacerse constar en la lista los fundamentos
de ello, y en cuanto era indispensable además el consentimiento
expreso de ambos colegas. La resolución dictada tocante al particula
no era tampoco definitiva, como hemos dicho que no lo era ningún otro
acto censorial; antes bien, todas las decisiones anteriormente
pronunciadas perdían su fuerza al formarse cada nuevo censo, y para
seguir teniéndola en lo sucesivo, era necesario que las repitiesen
expresamente los nuevos censores.
El cargo de censor romano, especialmente en la forma de cargo en
cierto modo superior al Senado que con el tiempo hubo de adoptar
pertenecía al número de los órganos más propios y privativos de la
comunidad romana, pero también fue de aquellos que más pronto
desaparecieron. Después de Sila, la censura, aun cuando no fue
propiamente abolida, solo funcionó en casos excepcionales. A este
resultado cooperaron distintas causas: la supresión de hecho de
impuesto de ciudadano; la variación en la manera de formar el ejército
empleándose, en lugar de la antigua leva, predominantemente e
alistamiento voluntario; la antipatía del estricto gobierno de los
optimates contra la facultad que los censores tenían de dispone
libremente de los puestos de senadores, que en realidad solo de
hecho eran vitalicios; y sobre todo la circunstancia de habe
encomendado la formación del censo a los municipios que constituían
la unión de todos los ciudadanos del Reino, circunstancia que fue la
necesaria secuela de la transformación del antiguo derecho de
ciudadano de la ciudad romana en el derecho de ciudadano del Reino
El censo del Reino desde entonces no pudo ser nada más que una
reunión de estos particulares registros municipales, y al aflojarse la
administración imperial y faltarle la unidad en lo penal, la reunión
dicha, que no dejaba de reportar alguna utilidad práctica, hubo de
interrumpirse; por otra parte, la intervención que en la administración
del patrimonio de la comunidad correspondía a la censura en la época
republicana fue trasladada a un cargo especial que funcionaba
constantemente, y la composición del Senado y del orden de los
caballeros se apoyó en bases distintas de aquellas en que se apoyaba
mientras los censores funcionaron.
CAPÍTULO VII

la edilidad

La palabra aedilis no puede significar otra cosa sino el maestro


doméstico y dueño de los edificios; ahora, nosotros no sabemos con
seguridad cuál fuera el valor jurídico de esta denominación, ni e
género de asuntos cuyo desempeño se encomendara originariamente
a los funcionarios a los que se aplicaba. Había tres categorías de
ediles, que no deben ser considerados, según sucede con las diversas
preturas, como miembros de una misma magistratura con distinta
competencia, sino como funcionarios diferentes, elegidos ya con este
carácter en los Comicios, a saber: los aediles plebis o plebeii, los
cuales se originaron, juntamente con el tribunado de la plebe (págs. 89
y 90), de las luchas de clase; los aediles curules, instituidos como
magistrados de la comunidad patricio-plebeya, juntamente con los
pretores, el año 387 (367 a. de J. C.), y los cuales recibieron su
nombre de la silla curul o jurisdiccional que se les concedió y que no
tenían sus colegas; los aediles plebis Ceriales, instituidos por e
dictador César, que funcionaron desde el año 711 (43 a. de J. C.), y
cuya denominación provino de la inspección oficial que los mismos
estaban obligados a verificar sobre las distribuciones de grano a
pueblo.
Cada una de estas clases de ediles comprendía dos de ellos
número que continuó invariable. Tanto los ediles plebeyos como los
ceriales fueron siempre tomados de la plebe. La edilidad curul, si la
tradición no miente, fue en un principio instituida como cargo patricio
sin embargo, ya en el segundo año se permitió también a los plebeyos
el acceso a ella, pero, a fin seguramente de no turbar la concordia
dentro del collegium, se dispuso que los años impares de Varrón
fuesen ediles dos patricios, y los años pares dos plebeyos, hasta que
en el siglo VII de la ciudad fue accesible el cargo a las dos clases po
igual; en tiempo de Augusto, los patricios fueron excluidos, o más bien
exentos, de la edilidad de que se trata.
En la jerarquía, los ediles plebeyos, mientras existieron ellos solos
ocupaban un puesto detrás de los tribunos del pueblo, y eran con
relación a estos lo que los cuestores con respecto a los cónsules. A
establecerse la edilidad curul, se le dio un puesto fijo en la serie de los
magistrados de la comunidad, entre la cuestura y la pretura, por bajo
de esta y por cima de aquella, lo cual se hizo extensivo, aun cuando
acaso gradualmente, a la edilidad plebeya: ambas clases de funciones
fueron, sin embargo, potestativas en la época republicana, de manera
que el que las ocupaba entraba a formar parte de la serie jerárquica en
el lugar indicado, pero también podía no aceptarse el cargo. Por ley, la
posición de la edilidad plebeya era inferior al tribunado del pueblo
pero con el tiempo esta relación hubo de cambiarse, siendo
considerada la dicha edilidad como más alta que el tribunado; y, en
efecto, lo regular era que cuando alguno desempeñaba sucesivamente
ambos cargos, el desempeño de la edilidad viniera en pos del de
tribunado, cosa que podía hacerse perfectamente, porque ambos
cargos eran potestativos, no obligatorios. Ya hemos dicho (pág. 191
92) que Augusto dio este último carácter tanto a los puestos de edi
como a los de tribuno del pueblo; de suerte que una vez que los
plebeyos consiguieron el acceso a la pretura, fue requisito para
desempeñarla el haber ocupado antes alguno de los seis puestos de
edil o alguno de los diez de tribuno.
Los dos ediles curules eran elegidos en los Comicios patricio
plebeyos por tribus, bajo la dirección de un cónsul o de un pretor, y los
ediles plebeyos, al menos los dos más antiguos, eran elegidos en la
asamblea plebeya reunida por tribus, bajo la dirección de un tribuno
del pueblo.
Ninguna de las tres edilidades ejercía sus funciones más que
dentro del distrito de la ciudad.
La duración anual era aplicable a las edilidades, lo mismo que a
consulado y al tribunado del pueblo. Los ediles curules, y
probablemente también los cuatro plebeyos, al menos en los tiempos
posteriores, entraban en funciones el mismo día que los cónsules.
De los derechos honoríficos correspondientes a los magistrados, se
concedieron a los ediles curules el uso de silla jurisdiccional o curul y
la praetexta, mas difícilmente se les permitieron lictores. Los ediles
plebeyos estuvieron privados de los derechos de referencia
igualmente que los tribunos de la plebe (pág. 288).
No tenemos datos suficientes para conocer cuál fuese la
competencia originaria de la edilidad. Es de presumir que los ediles
sirvieran en general de auxiliares a los tribunos; que en un principio
protegieran y defendieran a los plebeyos contra las injusticias de que
fueran víctimas, quizá principalmente en materia de prestaciones
personales, y que luego les correspondiera custodiar en el templo de
Ceres, bajo la inspección de los tribunos, los documentos escritos que
garantizaban los derechos de la plebe, prestar auxilio con sus manos
en las acciones de pena capital a los tribunos, los cuales no disponían
de cuestores ni de lictores, y aun presentar por sí mismos, ante la
asamblea de los plebeyos, las acciones en que se reclamasen multas
o expiaciones pecuniarias. El mismo juramento por el cua
garantizaban los plebeyos la inviolabilidad de sus tribunos servía
también de escudo a la inviolabilidad de los ediles. Mas la edilidad
originaria pudo después convertirse en un cargo de inspección y
policía, y por eso es por lo que, cuando más tarde se añadió a ella la
edilidad patricio-plebeya, empezó a tener existencia la doble función
de la policía de mercados y vías, de un modo análogo sin la meno
duda a lo que era la agoranomía helénica. Aquella parte de dicha
policía que implicaba ejercicio de jurisdicción debió reservarse a los
ediles curules, pues los quasi-colegas plebeyos no tenían legalmente
carácter de magistrados. La jurisdicción concedida a los ediles que
eran magistrados de la comunidad, del propio modo que las insignias
otorgadas a los mismos, están demostrando que esos ediles
participaban del imperium, y por tanto, que en cierto sentido se les
conceptuaba como colegas menores de los magistrados supremos
esta posición jurídica de los mismos se ve bien claramente en la
organización municipal, donde los dos magistrados supremos y los dos
ediles se consideran como colegas, si bien de desigual rango, bajo la
forma del quatorvirato. Mas en las organizaciones propiamente
romanas, probablemente por la razón de que aquí al lado de los ediles
curules estaban los ediles plebeyos, la edilidad no llegó a adquirir la
consideración a que acabamos de referirnos, sino que continuó
formando parte de la serie de las funciones subordinadas. — A la
inspección de las fiestas populares, materia comprendida
necesariamente en la competencia de policía de los ediles, se añadió
después la delegación o encargo hecho a estos para que ejecutaran
ellos mismos tales fiestas y la concesión a los propios ediles del dinero
público destinado a ellas; así se explica que ambas edilidades llegaran
a adquirir posteriormente gran importancia política y que fueran muy
codiciadas, dado caso que este era el camino legal para hacer gastos
en provecho de la multitud y atraérsela para las elecciones. — No
podemos decir cuál fuese el fundamento de la facultad que todos los
ediles tenían, no solamente de imponer multas y hacer embargos, sino
también de ejercitar el derecho de convocar la ciudadanía, propio de
los magistrados supremos, y defender ante ella sus sentencias o
decisiones en el caso de que en la materia dicha hubiese el edi
traspasado los límites de su competencia y se hubiese interpuesto
provocación; pues los ediles, en ninguna otra ocasión sino en esta
podían convocar ni los Comicios ni el Senado. Acaso lo que produjera
el resultado de que se trata fuera la participación de los ediles
originarios en la justicia plebeya; pero más verosímil es que esta
acción para defender ante los Comicios las multas impuestas no
tuviera su base en una competencia especial concedida a los ediles
sino en la cláusula añadida a numerosas leyes penales de la época
republicana, en virtud de la cual, todo magistrado que tuviese
atribuciones para hacer uso de la coerción debía ser en genera
competente para exigir las penas pecuniarias a que hubiera
condenado y para defender su sentencia condenatoria ante la
ciudadanía, facultad de que luego hicieron uso preferentemente los
cuatro ediles, que fueron los llamados a ello por ser la más baja de las
categorías de los magistrados.
CAPÍTULO VIII

la cuestura

La denominación dada a los cuestores no puede ser explicada


léxicamente sino refiriéndola a la función penal que los mismos
hubieron de desempeñar (quaerere); y como esta función adquirió su
particular carácter después de abolida la Monarquía, claro está que e
origen de la cuestura difícilmente se remonta más allá de la República
lo probable es que naciera cuando esta, y precisamente por haberse
mermado las facultades de la realeza el cambiarla en consulado. La
tradición enlaza también, no en verdad el origen de la cuestura, pero s
el de la provocación obligatoria en el procedimiento criminal que la
cuestura implica, con la supresión de la Monarquía, y la circunstancia
de que no existieran cuestores al lado del dictador demuestra que
aquellos eran incompatibles con los magistrados que poseían pleno
imperium, y que si nacieron fue como una limitación de este.
El número de los cuestores dependía de su condición de auxiliares
de la magistratura suprema, si bien no era este número enteramente
igual al de los funcionarios que ocupaban aquella magistratura. Esa
igualdad únicamente podría aplicarse a los tiempos más antiguos
pues en los posteriores, por una parte, a cada cónsul le fueron dados
varios auxiliares de los que nos ocupan, y por otra parte, los pretores
que tenían limitado el ejercicio de su función al distrito de la ciudad
carecieron de cuestores. Así, en el año 333 (421 a. de J. C.) se
concedieron a cada cónsul dos cuestores, uno para el desempeño de
su cargo en la ciudad y otro para el desempeño de sus funciones
militares, y luego, en 487 (267 a. de J. C.), fueron instituidos cuatro
puestos más de cuestores para ayudar a los cónsules a administrar la
Italia; de suerte que el número total de cuestores se elevó a ocho
Cuando poco tiempo después se instituyeron magistrados supremos
para regir los territorios ultramarinos, se dispuso que al lado de cada
uno de esos magistrados había de funcionar un cuestor; sin embargo
lo probable es que este principio no se respetara sino en parte a
introducir nuevos puestos de cuestor, sucediendo más bien por eso
que los magistrados hicieran uso de la facultad que les daba su
imperium militar para crear, a falta de cuestores elegidos por los
Comicios, procuestores con iguales funciones que aquellos (pág. 250)
Sila ordenó que el número de los cuestores que anualmente habían de
ser nombrados fuera de veinte; el dictador César autorizó para
doblarlo; Augusto abolió nuevamente esta autorización
conservándose durante el principado el número antes dicho: pero
todas estas disposiciones se dieron más bien que con el objeto de que
hubiera cuestores suficientes para el desempeño de las varias
atribuciones inherentes al cargo, con el propósito de que, una vez que
la cuestura se consideró legalmente como el puesto que daba ingreso
en el Senado, fueran cubriéndose por semejante procedimiento las
vacantes que en este existieran.
Como la cuestura tuvo desde un principio, lo mismo que e
tribunado militar, el carácter de puesto auxiliar, es claro que desde
antiguo se permitió a los plebeyos ocuparla. Esta permisión fue
aplicable aun a los puestos de cuestor magistrado, probablemente
desde los comienzos, y con toda seguridad después que el número de
los cuestores se duplicó.
Del mismo carácter de función auxiliar que desde su origen tuvo la
cuestura, se desprende que el lugar que esta ocupara en la jerarquía
de los magistrados había de ser el último; luego que se formó una
serie fija de magistraturas, el cargo de cuestor era el primer paso de la
carrera política, de donde provino posteriormente la importante
consecuencia de que los cuestores adquirían derecho a ser senadores
vitalicios.
Ya se ha advertido que la cuestura nació como un cargo auxiliar de
la magistratura, por lo que en un principio los cuestores eran
nombrados libremente por los cónsules, o sea por los magistrados a
quienes habían de prestar su auxilio. No sabemos cuándo comenzaría
a ser limitado este libre nombramiento por la obligación de interroga
previamente a la ciudadanía; lo probable es que a la época de
decenvirato los cuestores se convirtieran de puestos auxiliares en
magistrados. La interrogación para el nombramiento se dirigía a los
Comicios patricio-plebeyos congregados por tribus, y claro está que
quien la hacía eran los cónsules, y por excepción los pretores.
Bajo el respecto de la extensión territorial, las funciones de los más
antiguos auxiliares de los magistrados eran tan ilimitadas como las de
la misma magistratura suprema; el cuestor funcionaba en un principio
lo mismo que el cónsul, primero en el distrito de la ciudad y luego en e
campo de la guerra. Pero cuando el número de los cuestores aumentó
los puestos de los que funcionaban en la ciudad fueron encomendados
a personas distintas de las que funcionaban en el campo militar. A
partir de este momento, los dos cuestores encargados del desempeño
de los negocios de la ciudad se denominaron quaestores urbani, para
distinguirlos de los demás.
Con respecto a la duración del cargo, son también aplicables a los
cuestores las mismas reglas que se han dado para la duración de la
magistratura suprema, advirtiendo solo que en la época en que los
cónsules entraban en funciones el 1.º de enero los cuestores tomaban
posesión de su cargo el 5 de diciembre anterior (pág. 221), y claro está
que a los cuestores que funcionaban fuera de Roma les eran
aplicables las reglas relativas a la prorrogación del cargo (pág. 168).
El cuestor no disfrutaba de ninguno de los derechos honoríficos
concedidos a los magistrados (pág. 231 y siguientes); ni siquiera tenía
imperium propio ni potestad coercitiva, como los magistrados; en cierto
sentido, aun en los tiempos posteriores se le consideró más como
auxiliar que como representante de la comunidad.
Tocante a la competencia, es preciso, ante todo, examinar la
cuestión de si a cada uno de los magistrados supremos le pertenecían
o no cuestores propios, y después hay que determinar la esfera de
asuntos encomendados a la gestión de estos.
La misma esencia de puesto auxiliar que corresponde al que nos
ocupa está diciendo que cada particular cuestor se hallaba
estrechamente ligado a un particular magistrado supremo; teniendo en
cuenta esta manera de ser la cuestura en sus orígenes, es como
podemos explicarnos que el cuestor provincial estuviera como
adherido al gobernador o presidente de la provincia, adherencia que
únicamente existía en los organismos romanos, y que hasta estuvo
reconocida legalmente. Mas debe advertirse que no sucedía esto sino
cuando la magistratura suprema funcionaba sin las trabas de la
colegialidad; así, en el régimen de la ciudad, y hasta en el itálico, aun
cuando es cierto que los cuestores funcionaban como magistrados
subordinados de los cónsules, también lo es que en los tiempos
históricos no se ve que cada cuestor fuera el subalterno de cada
particular cónsul; es más: aun en el régimen de la ciudad, la tendencia
a hacer que los cuestores limitaran en el ejercicio de sus funciones a la
magistratura suprema se manifiesta sobre todo por la circunstancia de
que, así como cuando los cónsules se ausentaban de Roma
desaparecía por fuerza su superioridad personal inmediata sobre los
cuestores, así también la sumisión personal de estos a aquellos fue
suprimida, bien de derecho, bien de hecho, aun mientras los referidos
cónsules permanecían en la capital.
La esencia de puesto auxiliar que corresponde al de cuestor parece
exigir que la competencia de estos fuera tan amplia, a lo menos
originariamente, como la de los cónsules; sin embargo, solo en cierta
medida puede decirse que la realidad respondió a esta exigencia. E
cuestor intervino, sí, desde su origen, en una gran variedad de
asuntos, mas en manera alguna en todos los consulares; por e
contrario, aun en el régimen de la ciudad, los cuestores fueron ajenos
a las funciones de los cónsules y estos a las de aquellos. En la
jurisdicción para resolver asuntos privados, que fue en un principio la
función más esencial de los cónsules dentro de la ciudad y que luego
pasó a los pretores, no tuvieron jamás los cuestores intervención
alguna; sí la tuvieron, en cambio, en el ejercicio de la coerción y en los
juicios criminales, en tanto en cuanto estos se hallaran sometidos a la
provocación a los Comicios, del propio modo que la tuvieron en la
administración de la caja de la comunidad: pues por la ley misma
habían sido exceptuadas estas dos funciones de ser desempeñadas
directamente por los magistrados supremos. En las demás funciones
del régimen de la ciudad, se ve clara la índole auxiliar de la actividad
de los cuestores; sobre todo se sirvieron de estos los magistrados
supremos para cumplir las obligaciones que sobre ellos pesaban con
respecto a los extranjeros huéspedes de la comunidad. Los mismos
principios se aplicaban al imperium militar; pero como aquí no estaba
admitida la provocación, para lo que más servía el cuestor al jefe de
ejército era para administrar la caja de la guerra, para lo cual era hasta
jurídicamente indispensable (página 251). Pero, además, en este
orden se hizo libre y discrecionalmente un gran uso de la actividad
auxiliar, funcionando de hecho regularmente el cuestor como el más
elevado de todos los oficiales sometidos al jefe de la campaña
también podía encomendársele por delegación o mandato e
desempeño de otros asuntos, aun el ejercicio de la jurisdicción. En los
correspondientes capítulos del libro siguiente hablaremos de todas las
demás materias confiadas a los cuestores: del juicio criminal cuestorio
cuyos funcionarios, que eran los dos cuestores más antiguos, se
llamaban quaestores parricidii; de la administración de la caja de la
comunidad; de la participación de los cuestores en la administración
de Italia y de las provincias. Sobre el empleo de los cuestores como
auxiliares del príncipe, de los quaestores Augusti, no a los asuntos
provinciales, pero sí a los de la ciudad, puede verse el capítulo
consagrado al estudio de los subalternos del emperador.
CAPÍTULO IX

los demás magistrados ordinarios


de la república

Además de las magistraturas de la República hasta ahora


examinadas, hubo, sobre todo al final de aquella, una serie de cargos
de rango inferior y de subordinada importancia política, cuyo estudio
detenido no corresponde a la presente exposición. La actividad auxilia
fue la que dio origen predominantemente a los mismos. Parece que a
finalizar la República era costumbre, y aun acaso precepto legal, exigi
que antes de ser nombrado cuestor un individuo hubiera ocupado
tanto uno de los puestos de oficiales militares pertenecientes a esta
clase de auxiliares, como un cargo civil de la misma especie. En la
época del principado se distinguieron desde luego estos puestos de
oficiales de los cargos públicos de elección comicial; por el contrario
los funcionarios civiles de esta categoría, llamados con el nombre
común de vigintisexviros, y posteriormente, después de la supresión
de algunos de ellos, con el de vigintiviros, se consideraron como e
grado precedente a la cuestura que daba derecho a ser senador.
Los puestos de que se trata eran los siguientes:
En la esfera del mando militar se prescribió, desde el año 392 (362
a. de J. C.), que una parte de los tribunos militares fueran nombrados
por los Comicios. El número de estos puestos fue en un principio de
seis, y posteriormente de veinticuatro; pero, por un lado, esta cifra
hubo de sufrir variaciones; por otro, y principalmente, el número tota
de tribunos militares varió también, según varió el de las legiones
mandadas por cada seis de aquellos. Al comenzar el principado
parece que estos tribunos militares nombrados en los Comicios
dejaron primeramente de prestar servicios efectivos, y luego fueron, en
general, abolidos.
Para la jurisdicción criminal hubo tres funcionarios (tres vir
capitales), encargados desde luego de la inspección de las prisiones y
de la ejecución de las sentencias de muerte cuando estas se
ejecutaban dentro de la cárcel, a lo cual se añadió después cierto
servicio de seguridad, sobre todo nocturna. La institución misma se
remonta al siglo V, pero la elección en los Comicios no se extendió a
estos puestos quizá hasta un siglo después.
Con respecto a la jurisdicción en general, de los lugartenientes que
al pretor le correspondía instituir en Italia, los cuatro destinados a
Capua y la Campania fueron nombrados en los tiempos posteriores
por los Comicios. Augusto suprimió este quatuorvirato cuando la
lugartenencia pretorial llegó a hacerse inútil por haber adquirido los
municipios facultades jurisdiccionales.
Para lo tocante a la judicación, ya desde bien pronto se había
establecido para las causas relativas a la libertad un collegium
permanente de decenviros (decemviri litibus iudicandis), que realmente
hacía el servicio de Jurado; pero después que en la época republicana
se hizo extensiva a los miembros de este collegium la elección en los
Comicios, se les consideró como magistrados, consideración que
siguieron teniendo durante el principado, si bien su competencia fue
distinta ahora de la que tenían antes, pues ahora se convirtieron en
guías o directores de las causas de herencias, cuyo conocimiento se
hallaba encomendado al alto tribunal de los centunviros. Además, los
triunviros capitales antes mencionados se aplicaron también a los
pleitos civiles, por un lado, como auxiliares para la percepción de las
multas e indemnizaciones procesales, y por otro, para conocer en
funciones de jurados de ciertas demandas que, aun cuando tenían po
la ley la consideración de civiles, en realidad eran penales.
La limpieza de las calles estaba encomendada, bajo la superio
dirección de los ediles, en la ciudad a cuatro, y en los arrabales a dos
funcionarios; estos dos últimos fueron suprimidos por Augusto, a
consecuencia de la nueva organización dada a las vías itálicas.
La acuñación de moneda en la ciudad, que en la primitiva
República parece haber estado sustraída a la competencia de los
magistrados ordinarios y haberse verificado siempre en virtud de
disposiciones extraordinarias, hubo de encomendarse en la última
época republicana a tres funcionarios especiales (tres viri aere argento
auro flando feriundo).
CAPÍTULO X

los magistrados extraordinarios


de la república

Magistrados extraordinarios, o sea, magistrados nombrados por e


procedimiento corriente, de cooperación y concurso entre la
magistratura y la ciudadanía, pero solo en casos particulares, podía
haberlos por tres conceptos: primero, los nombrados para e
desempeño de asuntos que no entraban en la competencia de ningún
magistrado ordinario, y que, por lo mismo, se conceptuaban como
derechos reservados a la comunidad; segundo, los nombrados para e
desempeño de negocios ordinarios, pero que, por alguna causa
fundada, no podían desempeñar los magistrados a quienes estos
negocios estaban atribuidos, y tercero, los nombrados para modifica
la constitución de la comunidad en general. La primera de estas
categorías de magistrados, es, sí, de índole extraordinaria, pero, en
principio y teóricamente, se halla contenida en la misma esencia de la
organización de la comunidad; la segunda supone una violación, y la
tercera una suspensión del orden existente en la comunidad.
Los cargos públicos extraordinarios de la primera categoría se
refieren a aquellas funciones que la comunidad no ha delegado en
general en ninguno de sus representantes, y para cuyo desempeño se
necesita en cada caso particular un acuerdo de la comunidad misma
Puede ocurrir que al tomarse este acuerdo de crear una magistratura
extraordinaria se designe también la persona o personas que han de
ocuparla; lo regular era, sin embargo, que no coincidiese aque
acuerdo con el acto de la elección del correspondiente magistrado
sino que se limitara a ordenar que tal elección se verificase. En el más
antiguo sistema republicano — pues para el monarca difícilmente
existió esta limitación — el procedimiento excepcional de que se trata
hubo de aplicarse: por un lado, a los procesos por motivos políticos
(perduellio); por otro lado, a las donaciones gratuitas de terrenos de la
comunidad, ora se hicieran estas donaciones a un dios (duoviri aed
dedicandae), ora a los ciudadanos o a las agrupaciones que formaban
la confederación (magistrados agris dandis adsignandis). También
solían acordar los Comicios la elección de magistrados especiales
para el desempeño de algunos otros importantes asuntos que
excedían de la competencia de la magistratura, v. gr., para la
celebración de tratados de paz, para garantizar los préstamos hechos
por la caja del Estado a los particulares, y aun para la acuñación de la
moneda antes de que se crearan magistrados permanentes al efecto
a todos estos magistrados extraordinarios les daba reglas el pode
soberano sobre el modo de desempeñar sus cargos.
Si el establecimiento de magistraturas extraordinarias para e
desempeño de los asuntos sustraídos a la competencia de los
magistrados ordinarios era conforme a la Constitución, y los Comicios
al crearlas no hacían más que usar de las atribuciones que les
correspondían, en cambio, la comisión de negocios propios de una
magistratura ordinaria a magistrados extraordinarios era una violación
del derecho, supuesto que de esta suerte se mermaba y reducía e
derecho de una magistratura ordinaria, y esto, en rigor, no podía
hacerlo ni siquiera la misma comunidad popular. Sin embargo, lo que
se acaba de decir solo es aplicable, en verdad, a los magistrados
supremos, pues para el desempeño de aquellos negocios que
corresponden a la competencia de los censores y de los ediles, como
son las grandes construcciones, las medidas relativas a los mercados
de grano y a las distribuciones del mismo, y en general todos los
asuntos encomendados a auxiliares y subalternos, se elegían con
frecuencia curadores especiales, sin que en tal determinación de
pueblo se viera una violación de la Constitución. Pero cuando se
trataba de actos fundados en el imperium del magistrado, no se
consentía que se encomendara la ejecución de los mismos sino a otro
magistrado a quien, por la Constitución, le estuviera reconocida la
facultad de desempeñarlo. Con respecto al imperium de la ciudad, e
único acto en contrario de lo que se dice fue el establecimiento de
duunviros, dotados de poder consular, y que, como los cónsules
tenían facultades para elegir a los cónsules: tal sucedió el año
después del asesinato del dictador César; pero esto, que fue una
excepción, tanto por la época en que se hizo como por la manera de
verificarse, confirma la regla general. — En el régimen de la guerra se
manifestó también el gran rigor de la disciplina política a que Roma
debió exclusivamente su grandeza y su poder, respetando el principio
dicho, si bien en este orden era difícil, y a menudo hasta peligroso
respetarlo como se respetaba en el régimen de la ciudad. La vez
primera que nosotros sepamos se faltó a tal principio, y es de presumi
que la primera que en realidad fue infringido, fue el año 538 (216 a. de
J. C.), durante la guerra de Aníbal, cuando en circunstancias políticas
verdaderamente singulares, se confió el poder consular a M. Marcelo
Esta delegación fue, por lo demás, solo parcial, por cuanto e
funcionario de que se trata poseía ya, adquirido por la vía ordinaria, e
imperium pretorio; a partir de este momento, fue frecuente conceder a
pretor el título, y en parte también las insignias de la más alta
magistratura suprema, dado caso que los dos cargos de cónsul y
pretor eran esencialmente iguales. El praetor pro consule no se
oponía, pues, al principio referido más que formalmente; ahora, la
violación efectiva de ese principio, mediante la concesión del imperium
militar a un ciudadano privado, una vez solamente tuvo lugar en la
época propiamente republicana, y también durante la guerra de Aníbal
cuando el año 543 (211 a. de J. C.), bajo impresiones personales y
políticas aún más graves que las del caso anterior, confiaron los
Comicios el mando militar en España al hijo del caudillo militar que en
la misma España y en guerra contra los cartagineses acababa de
morir, esto es, al joven P. Escipión, que no ejercía cargo público
alguno. Pasó más de un siglo antes de que se volviera a conceder un
mandato semejante, como se hizo durante la oligarquía de Sila con e
joven Pompeyo, el año 673 (81 a. de J. C.). La carencia, originada po
la torpe organización de Sila, de un mando militar ordinario cuya
competencia fuera de carácter general, según lo había sido la de los
antiguos cónsules, hizo inevitable la institución de magistrados
extraordinarios encargados de perseguir a los piratas; el imperium de
esta clase, establecido el año 687 (67 a. de J. C.), le fue también
confiado a un simple particular, al mismo Pompeyo. Estos mandos
militares extraordinarios, conferidos por los Comicios y fundados
legalmente en el pleno poder de estos últimos, fueron los que, por su
propia índole y por la época en que de ellos se hizo uso, sirvieron de

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