Over the last decade, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)1 people have become an ever more salient and controversial topic in international politics. LGBT rights are increasingly considered a litmus test for a countryâs broader human rights record. As Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, so eloquently articulated:
The status of the LGBT community is a good litmus test for the status of human rights in society more broadly, precisely because it is such a vulnerable minorityâsimilar to the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Where the rights of LGBT people are undermined, you can be sure that the rights of other minorities and critical members of civil society will soon also be in jeopardy.2
The monitoring of these rights has become not only a powerful tool for leverage in the hands of international advocacy groups, but also a topic of direct political contestation, both within and among countries. In international relations, politicians have increasingly referred to the subject of LGBT rights in their criticism of other countries. One of the most visible examples was the speech by President Barack Obama on July 25, 2015, in Kenya (see Holmes and Scott 2015). Obama said:
With respect the rights of gays and lesbians, I have been consistent all across Africa on this. I believe in the principle of treating people equally under the law [âŠ] and that the state should not discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. [âŠ] When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, thatâs the path whereby freedoms begin to erode, and bad things happen.
While Obamaâs address was applauded by international LGBT non-governmental organizations (NGOs), it was strongly condemned by Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. He replied by relegating LGBT rights to the realm of culture:
The fact of the matter is Kenya and the United States share so many values: common love for democracy, entrepreneurship, value for familiesâthese are some things that we share. [âŠ] But there are some things that we must admit we donât shareâour culture, our societies donât accept. It is very difficult for us to be able to impose on people that which they themselves do not accept. This is why I repeatedly say for Kenyans today the issue of gay rights is really a non-issue.
Kenyattaâs response to Obama is an interesting example of what some authors have called resistance to âhomonationalismâ. Jasbir Puar (2007, 2013), who coined the term, defines homonationalism as âa facet of modernity and a historical shift marked by the entrance of (some) homosexual bodies as worthy of protection by nation-states, a constitutive and fundamental reorientation of the relationship between the state, capitalism, and sexualityâ (Puar 2013, p. 337). Homonationalism thus describes a historical moment in which states can advance their exceptionalism or modernization by demonstrating their tolerance of homosexuality, which is contrasted with âhomophobic othersâ. Furthermore, there is no way to opt out from homonationalism; like modernity, Puar (2013) argues, it can only be resisted or re-signified. In other words, homonationalism structures global politics, as gay-friendliness becomes a key factor in assessing a countryâs modernity which cannot be escapedâa country will be judged on its gay-friendliness regardless of whether it believes in LGBT rights. Opponents can resist this historical moment only by depicting LGBT rights as a Western, non-universal concept, or they can attempt to re-signify it by linking the meaning of modernity to so-called traditional values.
Similar instances of homonationalism and resistance to it can be found in geographical areas closer to the European Union (EU). Take, for example, the recent developments in Russia and Ukraine. Since 2012, Russia has engaged in âa conscious and consolidated effort to build a âsexual sovereigntyâ of the nationâ (Makarychev and Medvedev 2015, p. 51), which has had strong implications for the politics around LGBT issues not only in Russia, but also in countries in its sphere of influence. In 2013, President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill prohibiting âhomosexual propagandaâ. With this and other laws, Russia aims to reenter the world stage by providing an alternative political and cultural model against the Western EU- and US-led model (Ayoub and Paternotte 2014). In this alternative model, Russia promotes âtraditional valuesâ and seeks to defend âauthenticâ national cultures, whilst resisting democratic and âmodernâ values imposed from abroad. LGBT rights in this model are a powerful symbol. The clash between the two opposing models was highly visible in Ukraine when the country was about to sign an association agreement with the EU in 2013. In the run-up to this event, posters were put up in the streets of Kiev with the slogan âAssociation with the EU means same-sex marriageâ. In his Ukraine Diaries, the Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov (2014, p. 17) noted, âIn Kiev, this propaganda campaign is considered laughable, but I am afraid that in the east and in the provinces, people will naively believe that universal conversion to homosexuality is the condition imposed by Europe on Ukraine for the signature of the treatyâ. Alexey Pushkov, the chair of the Dumaâs foreign affairs committee, tweeted that signing the association agreement would mean that Pride parades would be held instead of parades for Victory Day (in Birnbaum 2015).
The events in Ukraine show that LGBT rights have become increasingly salient in the relations between the EU and the countries in its close proximity, and have provided a fulcrum for political contestation. Association with the EU is often equated with support of same-sex marriage by opponents, and the EU similarly gauges countriesâ modernization by examining their stance on LGBT rights. For example, (former) EU Commissioner FĂŒle (2014) called the 2014 Pride in Belgrade a âmilestone in the modern history of democratic Serbiaâ. And Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Tanja Fajon said, âAfter three last-minute bans over the last three years, this year, the Serbian government will have the opportunity to right these wrongs. The values of tolerance and diversity that will be highlighted this Sunday are European, and Serbia fully belongs in Europeâ.3
These examples are striking, in that they clearly demonstrate that LGBT rights have acquired important symbolic value in EU politics and discourseâe.g. Pride parades, for example, can now serve to illustrate a candidate countryâs endorsement of European normsâyet such symbolic politics stands in stark contrast to the amount of actual EU power and EU legislation in this field. The EUâs acquis on LGBT rights is rather limited.
The aim of this book, therefore, is to disentangle the symbolism from the actual advances on the ground and to more precisely determine the influence of the EU on LGBT rights in former or current âenlargement countriesâ. Specifically, we ask the question: what is the impact of the EU enlargement on the political and legal contexts in which these LGBT people live and claim rights? Today, a little over a decade since the first Eastern EU enlargement, we believe it is high time to analyze the impact of this process in the newer member states in Central Europe, as well as to take stock of the lessons learned for the Western Balkans.
Conceptual Background of the Book
In this book, we strive to offer a balanced, thorough, well-investigated, and accessible picture of the state of affairs in LGBT rights and activism in Central Europe and the Western Balkans by providing not only thoughtful reflections, but also a wealth of new empirical findingsâarising from legal and policy analysis, large-scale sociological investigations, and country case studies. The authors use different theoretical concepts from institutional analysis, the study of social movements, law, and Europeanization literature. In their chapters, they analyze such issues as the tendency of nationalist movements to turn âsexual othersâ into ânational othersâ, the actions and rhetoric of church actors as powerful counter-mobilizers against LGBT rights, and the role of the domestic state on the receiving end of EU pressure in the field of fundamental rights. The chapters offer the reader insight into emerging Europe-wide activism (Have activists been able to utilize the new European opportunity structure arising from the EU enlargement process to buttress their activism?), into the politics of activism in domestic contexts, and into the complicated relationship between activism and the larger LGBT community (Do highly visible forms of activism such as pride parades manage to connect to and unite âLGBT communitiesâ?).
Although we did not ask the contributors to use a specific theoretical approach in their chapters, insights from the literature on âEuropeanization via Enlargementâ are a central theme throughout the book.4 Europeanizationâ is often conceptualized as
processes of (a) construction, (b) diffusion, and (c) institutionalization of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, âways of doingâ, and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the EU policy process and then incorporated in the logic of domestic (national and subnational) discourse, political structures, and public policies. (Radaelli 2003, p. 30)
More simply, it refers to the process of transferring the EUâs policies, institutions, rules, beliefs, and values to other countries (Bulmer 2007). Rational choice institutionalism (RCI) and sociological institutionalism (SI) (Börzel and Risse 2003; Grabbe 2006; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005) explain why third countries comply with EU rules and norms. Both perspectives start from the premise that the EU has existing standards that third countries must adhere to. The RCI perspective argues that third countries comply with EU rules when the benefits outweigh the costs of domestic change. This is also the reasoning behind the conditionality principle of the EU, in w...