Comparing the Europeanization of Multiple Inequalities in Southern Europe: A Discursive-Institutionalist Analysis

Abstract

The EU and the member states have progressively developed a legal and institutional framework for dealing with inequality, and in the past decade they have intensified their political treatment of multi- ple inequalities (Van der Vleuten, 2007; Bell, 2002). In this chapter we explore the Europeanization of the political treatment of inequality in three Southern European Countries (SECs), arguing that, although EU influence has been crucial in introducing the political treatment of inequalities in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the different ways in which Europe ‘hits home’ depend on the specific domestic context, which influences the type of equality policy implementation, social learning, and political usage of the EU that occurs in these countries.