Gender and Race in European Economic Governance

An original study of European economic governance that demonstrates how gender and race play essential roles in generating both legitimacy and coherence for individual economic policies and the overall economic governance system.

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The dominance of certain groups in policy-making and the silence around race and gender in economic policy-making is commonplace to the point of being unremarkable. This book makes what has been unremarkable into something very remarkable. Any analysis of economic governance that ignores gender and race is inherently partial and such exclusion is itself an act of power, one that stabilises dominant ideas and prevents their contestation. This book shows how to overcome such limited analysis, and highlights how an analysis that takes account of the roles played by gender and race enables a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of economic governance in the EU.


By focusing on the constitutive nature of racialized and gendered ideas in the narratives and reforms of the late 2000s, Muireann O’Dwyer offers an original study of European economic governance. She shows how an intersectional analysis can be used to answer key questions, in particular through demonstrating how gender and race play essential roles in generating both legitimacy and coherence for individual economic policies and the overall economic governance system.


The book draws upon empirical work focused on key policy documents and examines significant discourses of the regime of economic governance: that of the European economic sphere, that of expertise and knowledge, and that of a particular growth model that has to come to dominate European economic policy. It also connects this analysis to broader debates about European integration, and it serves as a practical demonstration of the application of intersectionality to economic policy.