IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jcmkts/v60y2022i4p885-902.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dead Ends and Blind Spots in the European Semester: The Epistemological Foundation of the Crisis in Social Reproduction

Author

Listed:
  • Rosalind Cavaghan
  • Anna Elomäki

Abstract

This article provides new perspectives on the persistent hierarchy between ‘social’ and ‘economic’ goals in European Union's (EU) economic governance. We operationalize insights from feminist economics and political economy to analyse the agenda‐setting documents of the European Semester – the Annual Growth Surveys (AGS) – showing how the much‐debated integration of social goals into the European Semester is fundamentally constrained by mainstream economic epistemologies. These epistemologies misrepresent interrelationships between the productive economy and the reproductive labour needed to maintain it. Using interpretive policy analysis, we show how multiple concepts and measurements used to conceptualize policy goals and impacts within the AGSs, coalesce to systematically misrepresent reproductive labour as a ‘social’ activity, an irrelevance, or a cost, rather than a macroeconomic input. This restricts the possibilities of enhancing the social dimension of the European Semester, in ways conspicuously ignored by the existing literature, which are of heightened salience in the wake of Covid‐19.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosalind Cavaghan & Anna Elomäki, 2022. "Dead Ends and Blind Spots in the European Semester: The Epistemological Foundation of the Crisis in Social Reproduction," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 885-902, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:60:y:2022:i:4:p:885-902
    DOI: 10.1111/jcms.13288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13288
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jcms.13288?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marilyn Power, 2004. "Social Provisioning As A Starting Point For Feminist Economics," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 3-19.
    2. Rosalind Cavaghan & Muireann O'Dwyer, 2018. "European Economic Governance in 2017: A Recovery for Whom?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(S1), pages 96-108, September.
    3. Paul Copeland & Mary Daly, 2018. "The European Semester and EU Social Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(5), pages 1001-1018, July.
    4. Ian Manners & Richard Whitman, 2016. "Another Theory is Possible: Dissident Voices in Theorising Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 3-18, January.
    5. Anna Elomäki & Johanna Kantola, 2020. "European Social Partners as Gender Equality Actors in EU Social and Economic Governance," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 999-1015, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muireann O'Dwyer, 2022. "Gender and Crises in European Economic Governance: Is this Time Different?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 152-169, January.
    2. Janet Spitz, 2010. "CEO Gender and the Malt Brewing Industry: Return of the Beer Witch, Ale-Wife, and Brewster," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 39(1), pages 33-42, April.
    3. Sara Stevano & Rosimina Ali & Merle Jamieson, 2021. "Essential Work: Using A Social Reproduction Lens to Investigate the Re-Organisation of Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Working Papers 241, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    4. Astrid Agenjo‐Calderón & Lina Gálvez‐Muñoz, 2019. "Feminist Economics: Theoretical and Political Dimensions," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 78(1), pages 137-166, January.
    5. Valentinov, Vladislav, 2023. "Stakeholder theory: Toward a classical institutional economics perspective," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 188(1), pages 75-88.
    6. Peter Bohmer & Savvina Chowdhury & Robin Hahnel, 2020. "Reproductive Labor in a Participataory Socialist Society," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 755-771, December.
    7. Christoffer Kølvraa, 2016. "European Fantasies: On the EU's Political Myths and the Affective Potential of Utopian Imaginaries for European Identity," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 169-184, January.
    8. Andrea Doucet & Janna Klostermann, 2024. "What and How are we Measuring When we Research Gendered Divisions of Domestic Labor? Remaking the Household Portrait Method into a Care/Work Portrait," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 29(1), pages 243-263, March.
    9. Lee, Frederic, 2011. "The making of heterodox microeconomics," MPRA Paper 30907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Sabine Saurugger, 2016. "Sociological Approaches to the European Union in Times of Turmoil," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 70-86, January.
    11. Gill Allwood, 2020. "Mainstreaming Gender and Climate Change to Achieve a Just Transition to a Climate‐Neutral Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(S1), pages 173-186, September.
    12. Rao, Smriti, 2008. "Reforms with a Female Face: Gender, Liberalization, and Economic Policy in Andhra Pradesh, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 1213-1232, July.
    13. Faruk Ülgen, 2015. "Social Provisioning and Financial Regulation: An Institutionalist-Minskyian Agenda for Reform," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 493-501, April.
    14. Bernhard Zeilinger, 2021. "Die Wirkmächtigkeit des Europäischen Semesters und ihre Auswirkung auf die Interessensvertretung durch Arbeitnehmer:innenverbände," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 231, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    15. Ranjula Bali Swain & Supriya Garikipati, 2019. "Microfinance in the Global South: Examining Evidence on Social Efficacy," Working Papers 201908, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    16. Elena CAMILLETTI & Zahrah NESBITT‐AHMED, 2022. "COVID‐19 and a “crisis of care”: A feminist analysis of public policy responses to paid and unpaid care and domestic work," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 161(2), pages 195-218, June.
    17. Valerie J. D'Erman & Daniel F. Schulz & Amy Verdun & Dennis Zagermann, 2022. "The European Semester in the North and in the South: Domestic Politics and the Salience of EU‐Induced Wage Reform in Different Growth Models," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 21-39, January.
    18. Hanaček, Ksenija & Roy, Brototi & Avila, Sofia & Kallis, Giorgos, 2020. "Ecological economics and degrowth: Proposing a future research agenda from the margins," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    19. Owen Parker, 2016. "Teaching (Dissident) Theory in Crisis European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 37-52, January.
    20. Nelson, Julie A., 2009. "Between a rock and a soft place: Ecological and feminist economics in policy debates," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 1-8, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:60:y:2022:i:4:p:885-902. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-9886 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.