For more than a decade, an increasingly sophisticated literature has charted the effect that the EU has on LGBTI rights in its own member and accession states. This book is the biggest step yet toward a new frontier, one that looks at the EUs impact on such rights far beyond its borders. Written by an expert on the inner and outer workings for the EU, and the varied positions of the member states, Thiel makes sense of the Janus-faced nature of EU foreign policy on LGBTI rights. He looks critically at the normative implications of such norm promotion, while not throwing out the simultaneous importance of an LGBTI foreign policy that activists could have only imagined some decades ago. Taking seriously the empirics and the process, this critical reading shines a light on the potential of softer social mechanisms of changeas opposed to hard conditionalitythat should guide IOs in refining the ways they seek to make a positive impact in the world, as well as identifying their limits in doing so.
Phillip M. Ayoub, Associate Professor at Occidental College, USA, and author of When States Come OutThis book is a significant addition to the literature on the EUs human rights policy. Thiel critically analyses the EUs attempts to diffuse norms of LGBTI rights, in Europe and beyond, and exposes the weaknesses in both internal and external LGBTI rights promotion. Importantly, he demonstrates that the EUs policies can backfire, and generate contestation by external actors, which in turn can damage the rights of LGBTI people on the ground. He calls for a more reflective and intersectional EU practice, within a broader foreign policy prioritising support for democracy.
Karen E. Smith, Professor and Head of the Department of International Relations at LSE, UKThe European Unions International Promotion of LGBTI Rights
This book critically analyzes the European Unions promotion of LGBTI rights in the international arena. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex rights are heavily contested across the globe, with over 70 countries criminalizing same-sex relations and at least 10 imposing the death penalty.
The book details how the EU, based on different member state positions, attempts to jointly formulate and implement guidelines for the external promotion of LGBTI rights. It also problematizes the various normative and policy-based Eurocentric prescriptions to further these rights. Drawing on an international political sociology framework infused with queer theoretical thought, the author investigates the apparent normative tensions emerging from Europes promotion of LGBTI rights as liberal human rights and the ensuing pushback by culturally and politically conservative states. He examines the compatibility of EU institutional and member states conceptions of LGBTI rights and the more general question of the EUs normative agenda-setting power on the world stage. He then explores the external policy areas in which LGBTI rights promotion is formulated and diffused namely in development and foreign aid, in enlargement and neighbourhood policies, and in other international organizations. In conclusion, the author suggests viewing the contention surrounding LGBTI rights within broader governance contexts, and thus reimagining rights promotion in a more holistic manner.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of LGBTI and Human Rights, European Politics, and International Relations.
Markus Thiel is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the Green School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University, Miami. He also directs FIUs EU-Jean Monnet Center of Excellence. His research interests are the political sociology of the EU and European Politics more generally, Identity Politics and LGBTI Politics.
Routledge Studies in Gender and Global Politics
Series Editor: Laura J. Shepherd, University of Sydney, Australia
This series aims to publish books that work with, and through, feminist insights on global politics, and illuminate the ways in which gender functions not just as a marker of identity but also as a constitutive logic in global political practices. The series welcomes scholarship on any aspect of global political practices, broadly conceived, that pays attention to the ways in which gender is central to, (re)produced in, and is productive of, such practices.
There is growing recognition both within the academy and in global political institutions that gender matters in and to the practices of global politics. From the governance of peace and security, to the provision of funds for development initiatives, via transnational advocacy networks linked through strategic engagement with new forms of media, these processes have a gendered dimension that is made visible through empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated feminist work.
International Womens Rights Law and Gender Equality
Making the Law Work for Women
Edited by Ramona Vijeyarasa
Gender and Political Apology
When the Patriarchal State Says Sorry
Emma Dolan
The European Unions International Promotion of LGBTI Rights
Promises and Pitfalls
Markus Thiel
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Gender-and-Global-Politics/book-series/GGP
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2022 Markus Thiel
The right of Markus Thiel to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Thiel, Markus, 1973 author.
Title: The European Unions international promotion of LGBTI rights : promises and pitfalls / Markus Thiel.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Routledge studies in gender and global politics | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021010134 (print) | LCCN 2021010135 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367514396 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367516185 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003054627 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Gay rightsEuropean Union countries. | Gay rightsInternational cooperation. | Sexual minoritiesCivil rightsEuropean Union countries. | Sexual minoritiesCivil rightsInternational cooperation. | European Union.
Classification: LCC HQ76.8.E85 T45 2022 (print) | LCC HQ76.8.E85 (ebook) | DDC 323.3/264094dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010134
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010135
ISBN: 978-0-367-51439-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-51618-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-05462-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003054627
