Eurobarometer Surveys: Another history of European Gender Equality Policy
Résumé
This article analyses Eurobarometer surveys as full-fledged instruments of the European gender equality policy since its emergence in the 1970s up until 2018. These surveys bring new data which allow re-analysing the history of the gender equality policy, focusing on how public opinion is of interest to policy-makers and how they use the results of these polls. The article shows that Eurobarometer surveys and the appeal to the “voice of the citizens” have always had a legitimising function for gender equality, but that the purposes of this legitimisation have changed over time. Recently, in a context of low citizen support for the EU political system, surveys have been integrated into the day-to-day routine of gender equality policy-making, but they are also used by the European Parliament to reassert the shared values of the EU.