Towards inclusive Europeanization: rethinking the EU’s approach to gay rights promotion in Poland and Croatia

dc.abstract.en	This thesis examines how the Europeanization of gay rights has unfolded in Poland and Croatia between 2003 and 2023, arguing that these trajectories reflect not linear convergence but a dynamic pattern of contested transformation. While EU conditionality catalyzed legal reforms—particularly in anti-discrimination policy—these changes did not lead to stable social acceptance. Instead, they produced mixed results, as EU norms became entangled with national identity discourses, religious ideologies, and postcolonial anxieties. Through a comparative case study design, this research investigates how similar EU standards generated divergent domestic responses, shaped by distinct historical legacies and political cultures. Drawing on postcolonial theory and concepts such as leveraged pedagogy, homonationalism, and cultural hegemony, this thesis demonstrates how legal compliance often coexists with symbolic resistance, and how backlash may be structurally embedded in the process of Europeanization. The concept of contested transformation captures this simultaneity of adaptation and retrenchment, reframing legal reform and cultural opposition not as opposing forces but as mutually reinforcing dynamics situated within asymmetrical relations between Western Europe and the postsocialist semiperiphery. In both Poland and Croatia, gay rights became politicized as markers of modernity, prompting nationalist and populist actors to frame EU norms as external threats. By foregrounding the emotional, symbolic, and path-dependent dimensions of norm diffusion, this thesis contributes to Europeanization scholarship and highlights why resistance arises not in spite of normative ambitions, but because of the hegemonic frames through which they are advanced. The findings call for a more dialogic and context-sensitive approach to equality promotion—one that treats difference not as disruption, but as a foundation for democratic coexistence in Europe.
dc.affiliation	Uniwersytet Warszawski
dc.affiliation.department	Wydział Nauk Politycznych i Studiów Międzynarodowych
dc.contributor.author	Laakkonen, Niklas
dc.contributor.promoter	Zheltovskyy, Vadym
dc.contributor.reviewer	Tosiek, Piotr
dc.contributor.reviewer	Zheltovskyy, Vadym
dc.date.defence	2025-06-24
dc.date.issued	2025
dc.date.submitted	2025-06-16
dc.identifier.apd	237952
dc.language	en
dc.language.other	pl
dc.publisher	Uniwersytet Warszawski
dc.rights	ClosedAccess
dc.subject.en	Europeanization
dc.subject.en	contested transformation
dc.subject.en	gay rights
dc.subject.en	European Union
dc.subject.en	Central and Eastern Europe
dc.subject.en	postcolonial theory
dc.subject.en	homonationalism
dc.subject.en	leveraged pedagogy
dc.subject.en	cultural hegemony
dc.subject.en	Poland
dc.subject.en	Croatia
dc.title	Towards inclusive Europeanization: rethinking the EU’s approach to gay rights promotion in Poland and Croatia
dc.title.alternative	W kierunku inkluzywnej europeizacji: Przemyślenie podejścia UE do promowania praw osób homoseksualnych w Polsce i Chorwacji.
dc.type	MasterThesis