In the year of 2014, the new Swedish government declared itself as the world’s first feminist government. This thesis aims to study the Swedish foreign policy and thus to investigate if the declared feminist foreign policy has resulted in a changed foreign policy. By using two feminist theories; radical feminism and liberal feminism, the study’spurpose is to do a critical comparison between the governmental administration of Fredrik Reinfeldt in the years of 2010-2014, with the administration of Stefan Löfven between 2014-2018. After a recently finished first term of the feminist policy, the subject of this study is interesting in the perspective of evaluation. To investigate if the policy by fact has changed, a qualitative textual analysis will be used. Further, to analyze the foreign policy, foreign declarations from all years between 2011-2018 will constitute the material. In summary, the result demonstrates that a change in policy has appeared and can further be ascertained. Both administrations show clear features of liberal feminism. However, during the last term, between 2014-2018, the governmental policy has shown tendencies of more radical feminist elements. Although the world’s first feministgovernment has received great attention, the future of the feminist foreign policy is still indeterminate.

This thesis is a postcolonial feminist discourse analysis of Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy. Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy is unique to the world, but it is not the only case of incorporating a gender perspective as a central part of national or international politics. Feminism and gender perspectives are increasingly receiving attention and space in global politics. The Swedish case could therefore inform us about where politics are heading. Previous research on the Feminist Foreign Policy has aimed mainly at examining what it means and what challenges it likely will face. The aim of the analysis is to examine whether and to what extent the discourse of the Feminist Foreign Policy interrelates with gendered postcolonial narratives. Feminist scholars have for decades argued for the need to recognize the ways in which gendered and postcolonial structures are interrelated. Excluding either a gender or postcolonial analysis will convey only part of the problem. The method used is discourse analysis, or more specifically, critical discourse analysis. Discourse is an essential part of our social world. It is both constituted by and constitutive of how we understand our surroundings. Critical discourse analysis in particular is a useful method to illuminate power relations in society and how they are reproduced or countered through discourse. Two opposing ideal types are developed based on ideas from postcolonial theory and postcolonial feminist theory: gendered postcolonial discourse and fully feminist discourse. The ideal types are used in order to measure whether, how and to what extent the Feminist Foreign Policy interacts with gendered postcolonial discourse. The analysis looks at official documents, statements and speeches of different forms issued or produced by the foreign office. Using several texts, with varied aims and settings, the material will arguably be representative of the Feminist Foreign Policy. The results show that the Feminist Foreign Policy cannot be placed exclusively in either ideal type. The texts interrelate with gendered postcolonial discourse, reproducing unequal relations of power. Conversely, other parts of the texts are fully feminist, both transforming discourse and contributing to knowledge about what it can look like when discourse manages to avoid gendered postcolonial narratives.

In 2014, the Swedish government announced its intentions to conduct an outspoken feminist foreign policy. In the years that have followed that same government have applied legislation and policy in the refugee and asylum area that are inconsistent with some aspects of that policy. The purpose of this thesis is to lay bare some of those inconsistencies. It entails a critical analysis of the Law on temporary limitations to the possibility of being granted a residence permit in Sweden (2016:752), the EU-Turkey Deal as well as the male-network criteria. By applying a feminist legal perspective in the analysis, this thesis will highlight how these laws and policies have gendered implications. The material consists of the legislation and policies in question as well as multitude of reports and statistics aimed at illustrating the consequences of the three chosen examples. The purpose is not to present a complete view of the asylum-seeking process and the laws and policies that effects it but rather to show how the examples analysed here present inconsistencies in relation to the feminist foreign policy. This thesis also places those inconsistencies in a larger context as it poses questions on both inclusion and exclusion in the Swedish feminist ‘project’ as well as places them within the narrative of criticism aimed at the one-sidedness of the wider human rights project.

Today a growing number of countries around the world are strengthening their international work for women's rights by pursuing a feminist foreign policy. There is however no internationally accepted definition of feminist foreign policy, and feminism as a concept includes several different orientations. The purpose of this research is thus to examine and compare underlying perspectives that influence European Feminist Foreign Policy, and what this might entail. Based on a qualitative and comparative content analysis, and by using an ideal-type analytical approach as a tool of analysis, this study examines the feminist as well as human rights perspectives which form the basis of three European countries' strategic Foreign Policy documents – France, Spain, and Sweden. This research finds that the foreign policy documents, besides slight differences, are similar in both their feminist and human rights ambitions. Firstly, they all share a focus on an overall liberal feminist ambition that prioritises women's participation and economic empowerment. Secondly, they are characterized by a universalist approach to the pursuit of women's human rights, with limited space for the influence of other perspectives.

Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i den breda frågan om normativa ställningstaganden i staters utrikespolitik. Studiens syfte är att skapa en förståelse för vikten av att studera normer i kopplat till utrikespolitik, i studier som ämnar öka förståelsen för på vilket sätt normer påverkar staters utrikespolitisk. Feministisk IR och Naila Kabeers teori om stärkt egenmakt ligger till grund för teoridelen och belyser vikten av begreppen moral, genus, makt och egenmakt kopplat till utrikespolitik. Studiens resultat har påvisat att det finns ett behov av att studera normer kopplat till staters utrikespolitiska handlingsplan för att skapa en djupare förståelse för staters utrikespolitik. Genom att studera egenmakt i relation till Sveriges feministiska utrikespolitik synliggörs ett behov av att studera normativa ställningstaganden kopplat till utrikespolitiken. Detta eftersom att Sveriges utrikespolitiska handlingsplan bygger på analys och lösningar utifrån feministisk teori. Studiens påvisar ett behov av vidare studier av normers påverkan på staters utrikespolitik för att få mer kunskap om på vilket sätt normativa ställningstaganden påverkar staters utrikespolitiska analys, beteenden och beslut. / The study is based on the broad issue of normative positions in state foreign policy. The purpose of the study is to create an understanding of the importance of studying norms related to foreign policy, in studies aim at increasing an understanding of how norms affect the state's foreign policy. Feminist IR and Naila Kabeer's theory of strengthened empowerment forms the basis of the theory aspect, and highlights the importance of the concepts of morality, gender, power and empowerment linked to foreign policy. The study's findings have shown that there is a need to study norms linked to state's foreign policy action plan to create a deeper understanding of state's foreign policy. By studying empowerment in relation to Sweden's feminist foreign policy, there is a need to study normative positions related to foreign policy. This is because Sweden's foreign policy action plan is based on analysis and solutions based on feminist theory. The study demonstrates the need for further studies of the impact of norms on the state's foreign policy to gain more knowledge of how normative positions affect the state's foreign policy analysis, behavior and decision making.

The firstly explicitly adopted Feminist Foreign Policy was developed in Sweden in 2014. Since then, seven countries have so far adopted a so-called Feminist Foreign Policy. Nevertheless, no common definition of Feminist Foreign Policy has been agreed upon, nor by the States neither by the scholars. Different States have therefore adopted Feminist Foreign policies with different understanding. Recently adopted Feminist Foreign policies in Europe, France (2018), Spain (2021) and Germany (2023) have been hardly analysed against feminist perspectives and Feminist International Relations theory. To contribute to fill in in this gap the research aims at responding to the following research question: What understanding of feminism and feminist International Relations theories underpin the different Feminist Foreign Policies? The findings demonstrate that FFPs are not a unified phenomenon, they are not grounded on a common understanding of feminism and feminist theories. These three Feminist Foreign policies differ in their gender transformative ambitions, understanding of gender equality, embracement of intersectionality or appetite for inclusion and listening to marginalized groups. Diverse perspectives of feminism and elements pertaining to Feminist International Relations theory have strongly influenced the Feminist Foreign policies of France, Spain and Germany in dissimilar ways.

This study is based on Swedish feminist foreign policy and how ideas about feminist peacebuilding have found their place in international peace and conflict studies. Since World War II, traditional security policy has been dominated by liberal explanatory models and strategies to achieve a more peaceful world order, and the main elements of liberal peace include democracy, international cooperation and free trade. Feminist theory criticizes the liberal view of peace by pointing out the meaning of human security rather than national security. The purpose of the study is to depict the type of peace that the Swedish government has worked for in Colombia and intends to answer the questions, what has the Swedish government's work for peace in Colombia looked like and what type of peace, feminist peace or liberal peace, can the work describe best? By using a qualitative content analysis as a method with an analysis tool that is built based on the theoretical framework, the study aims to more deeply examine the empirical material to depict what the government’s worked looked like during the peace process. The study shows that Sweden has worked for a feminist peace in the negotiations and statements that were directly linked to the peace process, but that the traditional liberal perspective still dominates in certain areas such as trade policy. The study contributes to an increased understanding of the development of Swedish feminist politics.

In 2014, Sweden created the first feminist foreign policy (FFP). Other states have since adopted FFPs as tools to further gender equality at a time of women’s rights regressions. Following a government shift in 2022, Sweden also became the first to dismantle the framework. The policy, its implementation and revokal guide the analysis, providing an understanding of the rise and fall of Swedish FFP. This thesis expands existing knowledge of the policy and sheds light on its underexplored impact and dismantlement. In conducting a critical policy analysis of the official FFP document, this work draws upon Bacchi’s WPR approach. This study shows that the policy constructed gender inequality as a structural issue and barrier to human rights as its overarching problem. In addition, the study performs a qualitative content analysis of key governmental documents, evaluations, and media sources, based upon a framework of norm entrepreneurship, soft power, and hard power. Pursuing the FFP, norm entrepreneurship and soft power aided implementation, while hard power and arms trade caused struggles. The policy revokal was framed by a harsher political and security context, where the FFP was seen as at odds with Swedish interests and values – thereby signalling a step back from normative ambitions.

This thesis analyzes how Sweden is acting against their Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) in relation to their firearms exports to Saudi Arabia. There is plenty of previous research on FFP along with the arms trade with Saudi Arabia. Through this, feminist theory is applied to the FFP and the trade relation, with the purpose of attempting to uncover how Sweden’s actions are contradictory to their FFP. Therefore, in order to address how their actions are contradictory, the research question of this thesis is: How is Sweden acting against their FFP? This thesis utilizes a Qualitative Content Analysis to selected empirical material, news websites and international organization websites. As a result based on this analysis, Sweden acts against their FFP because they export firearms to Saudi Arabia, who violates human rights and oppresses women, and supplying a country like that with firearms legitimizes their violating and oppressing actions.

This thesis analyses the feminist foreign policies of Canada (2017), Spain (2021), and Germany (2023) through a post-colonial feminist perspective, and applying Carol Bacchi’s WPR approach as method of analysis. It aims to deconstruct the representations of gender inequality as a policy “problem” within these policies, identify the underlying assumptions, and silences of these representations. The thesis reveals that while these policies promote rhetoric of intersectional, inclusive, and transformative approaches, they often perpetuate tokenistic, top-down solutions to gender inequality.