The Europeanisation of gender equality at the municipal level: insights from the Republic of Cyprus

ABSTRACT

The Republic of Cyprus is a small EU member state, whose domestic structures replicate a durable tradition of centralisation, limiting the overall role of local government. This work employs the vertical research dimension of top-down Europeanisation to investigate the influence of European Integration vis-à-vis the promotion of gender equality at the municipal level. It adopts a local government comparative viewpoint to analyse the adoption of the European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life by the Cypriot Municipalities (2011–present). This work utilises specific analytical frameworks (Europeanisation and Historical Institutionalism) to provide a theoretically and empirically informed analysis based on empirical data resulting from three field studies (2013, 2019 and 2021) and respective electoral data. Our research results suggest that the effects of Europeanisation, in terms of promoting gender equality, have been limited due to long-lasting formal and informal institutional restrictions.

KEYWORDS:

• Republic of cyprus
• europeanisation
• local government
• gender equality
• path dependency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

ⁱCurrently, nine municipalities and 135 communities have been displaced to the Southern government-controlled part of the island because of the illegal occupation of 37% of Cyprus by Turkish troops.

ⁱⁱRecently—March 2022—three reformist bills have been adopted that are expected to change the basic features of the Cypriot local government system. These effects, however, do not fall within the scope of this research. For this reason, this study focuses on the legal framework in effect during the time of its conduct.