Negotiating Equality and Diversity in Europe -: transnational challenges to European citizenship

European integration and increased migration has challenged theories of equality, diversity and rights attached to the nation state. Research demonstrates that European nation states face similar problems with regard to issues of migration in spite of differences in national histories, institutions and culture. In their efforts at addressing these challenges, scholars have proposed post-national and trans-national frames, which attempt to expand citizenship, democracy and social justice beyond the nation state and the supra-national EU-level.
European integration and the adoption of the Mastricht Treaty has also put relations between gender and other inequality creating categories on the agenda within the member states and the EU. The chapter addresses the intersections of gender equality and ethno-national diversity across Europe focusing on the interactions of actors in democratic politics in the national and supranational EU arena. It thus proposes to apply the intersectionality approach to the EUropean situation as a methodological way of dealing with diversity, above all class, race and gender. The method also allows including additional differences, e.g. religion, nationality and sexual orientation. (cf. Siim and Mokre eds. 2013). This concerns issues of national and EU citizenship as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the European Public Sphere, which is understood both as an arena to negotiate national and supranational politics as well as a space for political articulations of those who are legally excluded from many other political rights. In this way, the chapter employs intersectionality as a methodological approach to study hitherto mostly separated research strands on, diversity, citizenship and the European Public Sphere through an the empirical analysis.