From Global to Grassroots: The European Union, Transnational Advocacy, and Combating Violence against Women

From Global to Grassroots looks at how transnational activism aimed at combating violence against women is being used to instigate changes in local practice. Focusing on the case of the European Union, this study provides empirical and intersectional feminist analysis of the transnational processes that connect global and grassroots advocacy efforts, with a particular emphasis placed on the roles played by regional organizations and networks. Over the past several decades, the complex and evolving system of EU multilevel governance has provided new venues for women's transnational activism. Despite a predominantly economic focus, the EU has undertaken various initiatives that utilize different tools of authority to combat violence against women. This book first traces the processes by which violence against women became a European Union issue, examining the role played by global movements and organizations as well as European advocates within and outside of EU institutions. Second, it explores and analyzes the different strategies that the EU has utilized to influence its member and candidate states to change their practices. Third, it evaluates the impact that these strategies have had at the local level by investigating the interaction of international and regional efforts with domestic characteristics. The regional and positional variation provided by the expansion of the EU allows comparative leverage for exploring how different strategies, power relationships, and domestic circumstances interact to provide a range of responses in member and candidate states. While other studies have emphasized formal policy change as evidence that domestic change has occurred, this study looks beyond the rhetoric to examine the extent to which violence against women is addressed, paying special attention to the ways in which different strategies may impact particular groups of women.