Equality Policy in Comparative Perspective

The main aim of this course is to familiarize students with how the abstract principle of equality is turned into policy and practice in Europe and beyond. Starting from what equality means as a basic legal principle and right in modern democratic systems, the course moves on to present and critically analyze the policy visions, policy approaches and policy tools used to put equality into practice.The literature to which the course refers is interdisciplinary in nature with some texts of political philosophy, and legal theory, but mainly political science and policy theory writings. The course looks at all grounds of inequality but especially at race and ethnicity, gender and disability, and devote special attention to the intersection between different inequality axes. It focuses primarily on policy practice in Europe and North America.

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The course will look at all grounds of inequality but especially at race and ethnicity, gender and disability, and devote special attention to the intersection between different inequality axes. The course will focus primarily on policy practice in Europe and North America. Students will be encouraged to bring documents, issues and cases from the policy environments with which they are most familiar.

The structure of the course will be fourfold, with each section being tackled over several classes.

1. In a basic conceptual overview we will discuss the theoretical foundations of concepts such as equality, equality of opportunity, equality of results and procedural equality.

1. Readings will explore the equal treatment, the equal opportunity and preferential treatment, and finally the mainstreaming approaches, and also the relations among these approaches. Specific attention will be paid to the broadening of the concept of equality from the narrow formal equality approach characteristic for the post WWII years to an increasingly accepted notion of substantive equality. Our main purpose here will be to shed light on some of the theoretical discussions behind these approaches, but also to look at how they translate in practical policy measures and tools and what are the policy dilemmas that they generate.

1. Readings and discussions will look at some of the specificities of the three main grounds of inequality discussed in the course: race and ethnicity; gender and disability and present some contested and specific policy issues in relation to each. We will also specifically address the problem of intersectionality between inequality grounds and the specific policy issues brought up by it.

1. Topics in this section will look at the main policy-making levels on which equality policy is conceptualized and implemented, and the actors instrumental in this process: international and regional intergovernmental ones, state level and at non-governmental ones, both national and transnational. Our purpose here is to discuss specific equality related policy processes including the importance of transnational diffusion of norms, the role of intergovernmental, transnational and national actors in this process, but also the role of national enforcement, regulatory and implementation agencies specific to dealing with equality issues.