Why have minority women in France had more success in gaining access to formal political power than minority men? By analyzing data on the inclusion of minority men and women in national-level politics in France from 2002 until 2022, this research aims to understand patterns in both descriptive and substantive minority representation in France. Here, I propose that minority women’s rise to power has been anything but accidental and is the deliberate consequence of a system cognizant of the need to diversify politics, but institutionally and ideologically underprepared to do so. Because Republican assimilation obviates the formal recognition of minorities in the public sphere, politicians have strategically opted to include minority women in greater numbers than minority men on national electoral party lists and in Cabinets in order to satisfy the de facto requirement of minority representation in the ‘‘safest’’ way possible. More specifically, I propose that politicians across the ideological spectrum often consider minority women ideal candidates specifically for their ability to serve a uniquely dual political purpose. On the one hand, minority women are visible enough to satisfy the basic need for minority descriptive representation. On the other hand, minority women are also deemed more ‘‘assimilable’’ than men and therefore not too ‘‘visible’’ to actively threaten Republican ideals or alienate conservative voters. Finally, if minority women are favored precisely because they promise not to dramatically rattle the status quo, this paper suggests that their increasing political presence will not be accompanied by an increase in substantive policy representation of minorities in France.

Kosovo’s narratives meticulously reiterate the historical justice of locals’ stories giving prominence to its national identity in a predicament. As peacebuilding processes are chiefly imposed externally, negative hybrid form of peace prevails amid ethnic exclusionary politics, which incongruously impede current power dynamics. Notably, the juxtaposition of liberal and illiberal norms is referred to as hybridity along the continuum. Yet, international responses and negotiated settlements frequently fall short of rejuvenating a lasting peace, enforcing instead a ‘no war, no peace’ state in MacGinty’s terms. In this vein, the present paper will rely on Heathershaw’s portrayal of peacebuilding discourses beyond a mere praxis, but as ‘a tri-partite international discursive environment — peacebuilding-via-democratic reform, civil society and statebuilding’. In reference to this, this study will scrutinise the current state of peace in Kosovo through Wodak’s triangulated Discourse-Historical Approach, which assumes the omnipresence of constant asymmetric relationships between various social actors. By dissecting on how the international community, particularly European Union and its involvement through EULEX as a key security policy initiative, enforced peacebuilding and, simultaneously, European Integration efforts, the study will reveal how eminent discursive strategies, like antagonising, delegitimisation, positive representation of the monolithic ‘people’, articulate the vast presence of negative peacebuilding rhetoric and intersection with Kosovo’s domestic discourses. This rhetoric, evident in the parliamentary speeches, media coverage, and other public texts, signals the persistence of anti-establishment feelings coupled with other recurred themes in Kosovo.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between female representation in the leadership structures of independent fiscal institutions (IFIs) and a country’s fiscal performance. Using an original, hand-collected dataset of 18 European IFIs from 2012 to 2020, we document that a higher share of women on IFI boards is correlated with better fiscal outcomes. The mechanisms at play may be related to their higher risk aversion, lower attractiveness to competitive environments, and greater caution relative to their male counterparts, giving rise to less optimistic budget forecasts and more realistic fiscal recommendations, which in turn may lead to a more prudent use of public resources by the government. In the same vein, women have been observed to prioritize the future more than men, and this forward-looking perspective can translate into more prudent budget management and long-term policy planning when women hold public office. In addition, we find that gender diversity contributes positively to better compliance with the numerical fiscal rules of the Stability and Growth Pact, but with a one-year delay. Also, we analyze how different thresholds (20%, 25% and 40%) for the proportion of women on IFI boards are related to improved fiscal aggregates. The results show that the 20% threshold yields statistically insignificant results, and for the other two thresholds, the estimated coefficients are significant, especially for the 40% threshold, which also has the largest magnitude. Our results have critical policy implications in the context of the current review of the European fiscal framework, pointing to the need for the existence of some minimum standards for IFIs to increase their effectiveness, with a focus on institutional governance.

Contemporary Germany is often noted for its reluctance regarding patriotic displays and nationalist identification. While right-wing movements continuously challenge this perception, the question of national identification also poses an issue for white, progressive Germans. I discuss how they navigate this tension in an interview setting and examine when and why they take up “European” as an alternative identifier. I argue that supranational belonging serves as an ostensibly “nicer” ethnoracial label by avoiding German racial dynamics and obscuring European ones.
Drawing on a critical discourse analysis of 69 semi-structured interviews with white Germans without a “migration background”, I examine their identification with and rejection of the label “German” and specifically analyse ten accounts where “European” is proposed as the preferred identifier.
I argue that “European” is presented as an innocent term, not weighted down by association with national socialism and white exclusivity like “German.” It affords my white interviewees postracial distance from historical and current German racisms and ‘bad’ right-wingers. However, its supposed inclusiveness also obscures European legacies of racist violence and racialisation. Self-identification as European, then, retains racial exclusiveness but allows for cosmopolitan deniability.
By situating my study within the growing body of critical race research in continental Europe, this paper contributes to understanding race and whiteness on the continent. Specifically, it calls for a more critical examination of how Europeanness is mobilised to negotiate national identity in supposedly postracial and progressive settings.