Zugl.: Hamburg, Helmut-Schmidt-Universität, University der Bundeswehr, Diss., 2007.

Rapidly spreading in popularity over the past fifteen years, gender mainstreaming has been adopted worldwide by state, supra state and international organizations as the "most modern‟ policy for ensuring gender equality. Yet, there is general agreement that it has not succeeded in achieving its radical potential. In this thesis, I bring together policy literature on bureaucracies, the civil service, and gender mainstreaming with work done on gender, work and organizations as a way to better understand the partial success and uneven implementation and institutionalization of what is supposedly a transformational agenda. To date, gender scholars have underplayed the "stickiness‟ of gender and its effects upon actors and everyday practices in political and state organizations. I argue that the "stickiness‟ of gender in organisations presents a formidable obstacle to the implementation and institutionalization of gender mainstreaming. I also argue that insufficient attention has been paid to the "embodied costs‟ of actors who act as internal gender mainstreaming advocates both in terms of the costs to the individuals and the impact of these costs on the prospects for the successful implementation and institutionalisation of a radical change agenda. Through an ethnographic examination of the Scottish Executive from 2006-2007, I probe the analytic question framing this thesis: what happens to the radical potential of gender mainstreaming during its implementation and institutionalisation in governmental bureaucracies? Using the sociological method of institutional ethnography, I provide evidence of ways that continued reliance on highly committed individuals and everyday bureaucratic practices continue to limit the radical success of gender mainstreaming at the Scottish Executive. I contend that the radical promise of gender mainstreaming is hindered because it is a strategy which must work within the confines of fossilised norms manifested in masculinist bureaucracies and because it is paradoxically predicated on changing bureaucratic norms through the use of the same bureaucratic practices it attempts to transform. By examining the everyday experience of "doing‟ gender mainstreaming in the case of a sub-state government in the UK, the Scottish Executive, I trace the ways that the radical promises of the gender mainstreaming agenda become diluted. The thesis examines challenges to the gender mainstreaming agenda and adds to wider discussions about the plausibility of gender mainstreaming‟s radical potential. In addition, my thesis moves forward methodological discussions in feminist politics by demonstrating the possibility of using institutional ethnography in political science as an effective way to operationalise, analyze and link multiple levels of politics from a gendered perspective. My analysis of local experiences of gender mainstreaming provides insight into the international trend of gender mainstreaming because it takes seriously the experiences of individuals who work within organizations, the role of organizations in limiting change agendas, and the international context within which the mainstreaming strategy unfolds.

I den svenska politiken är arbete av avgörande betydelse för människans liv då det ska förhindra utanförskap och inverka positivt på människans fysiska och psykiska hälsa. I och med detta har arbete fått en stor roll även i integrationspolitiken. Den 1 december 2010 reformerades mottagandet av nyanlända invandrare och Arbetsförmedlingen fick överta huvudansvaret för etableringsarbetet. Syftet med denna reform var bland annat att främja jämställdhet och öka kvinnors sysselsättning. Trots detta är nyanlända invandrade kvinnor bland de som står längst ifrån arbetsmarknaden. Nu efterfrågas mer jämställdhetsintegrering. En metod som väckt skilda åsikter vad gäller dess omvandlande potential kontra dess förmåga att i själva verket befästa normer. För att undersöka jämställdhetens närvaro i etableringsuppdraget, och vilka effekter den får för kvinnorna har en kritisk policyanalys, med diskurser i fokus genomförts. Hur formar politiken jämställdhet och individer genom policy då kön inte är den enda diskrimineringsgrunden? Genom att studera jämställdhetsdiskurser som cirkulerar i etableringsuppdragets policydokument, samt i intervjuer med myndighetsanställda på arbetsförmedlingen. Visade resultaten i studien att istället för att jämställdhet hade den omvandlande effekt som den ofta förknippas med, var det begreppet jämställdhet som omvandlades från ambition till projekt då det skulle gå från policy till handling. Risken finns då att strukturer fortgår och kvinnornas förutsättningar förblir samma.

This study explores the relationship between two orthodoxies in contemporary development: gender mainstreaming and participatory development. Specifically, this study examines whether these two strategies stand in conflict, in theory and in practice, where the donor agency the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) serves as the empirical case. Discourse analysis was conducted to examine whether the conflict can be discerned in Sida’s written suggestions for how to work with gender mainstreaming in development cooperation. To add nuance and depth, interviews have been carried out with Sida staff members to gain broad perspectives on the potential conflict. This study argues that the conflict can be discerned based on the underlying principles of gender mainstreaming and participatory development. While this study also provides a first attempt to illustrate how the conflict manifests itself in practice, future research is needed to establish the conflict’s empirical appearances. However, this study contributes with valuable indications of the conflict’s appearance and manifestation in practical development efforts that Sida is engaged in.

Gender mainstreaming is accepted by many national and international agencies and Non-governmental organization, as an effective strategy for promoting gender equality. Many researchers widely agree that essential but can also lead to poverty eradication, human development and general economic growth everywhere but more specifically in Africa.   This just shows the importance at a global level of gender equality and any strategy towards achieving it.     The main aim of this thesis is to assess how gender mainstreaming as a strategy and approach has led to gender equality within the Swedish Cooperative Centre-Viagroforestry  project-Kisumu (SCC-VI). It is based on exploring how gender mainstreaming works on a day-to-day basis in the project area. To collect relevant information, a detailed background review of Swedish Cooperative Centre-Viagroforestry  project was done; field staff were interviewed with the help of a predesigned semi -structured question guides and focused group discussions were conducted with different farmer groups involved in the project.     The interviews and the focused group discussions were later transcribed as part of analysis. The focus group discussions, which were conducted in Luo, were translated to English. The main finding was that as a project, SCC-Vi is committed to mainstreaming gender in its activities, however the staff had limited skills for mainstreaming. Similarly, it was clear that focus was mostly put on numbers/quantitative  aspects as opposed to the qualitative aspects of equality. The conclusion drawn here is that mainstreaming may lead to gender equality, but its success highly depends on how the process is implemented and whether there is adequate knowledge about the structural causes of inequality and skills the staff have to do it. From this research however, it was not possible to show that gender mainstreaming has led to equality.

The main aim of the thesis is to investigate the process of the legislative reforms in Turkey between 1998 and 2005 in the context of gender mainstreaming. To illustrate the process, descriptively, the actors behind the amendments in the Turkish Constitution, Civil Code, Penal Code, Labor Law and the Law on the Protection of the Family are investigated based on the &ldquo / Gender and Development&rdquo / approach. The thesis exposes that international organizations (EU and UN), women&rsquo / s activism and state are incredibly influential in the process of the legislation stage of gender mainstreaming. The legislation stage of gender mainstreaming has been almost eventuated in Turkey, however, the second stage, which is institutionalization stage, has just started to be implemented.

The strategy of gender mainstreaming was implemented as a policy tool with its objective of achieving gender equality and benefitting both women and men. But it has been seen that the strategy had the tendency to present and focus only on one side of the gender coin, which are women and girls. Men and boys are hardly mentioned in gender related issues and appear as hazy background figures, which have further resulted in serious consequences for women and men, as well as the relationship between them in relation to gender equality efforts. This research analyzes the existing literature within the field of gender and development in order to comprehend the complexity surrounding gender equality concerning the policies with gender mainstreaming and its impact on women, men, and on the relationship between them. To increase the reliability of the research, an analytical model in the shape of a triangle was constructed to illustrate the symmetric correlation between gender policies, and their impact on women and men. The results of the research showed that with its main focus on women’s issues and empowerment, policies with gender mainstreaming appear to contribute to negative and threatened responses from men towards women’s increasing power. This is in relation to men’s sense of exclusion and disempowerment. The results further indicate a potential backlash in the objective of gender equality where men’s negative reactions can be seen to hamper women’s ability to perform their advanced role in households and communities, which further exacerbate the efforts of achieving equality.

Die Dissertation stellt eine Grundlagenarbeit zur Theorie und Praxis von Engendering Budgets (Gender Budgets, Geschlechtergerechte Budgetpolitik) dar. Aufgrund der Aufarbeitung vielfältiger, vor allem auch unveröffentlichter Quellen wird ein aktuelles Bild über die Praxis von Engendering Budgets gezeichnet. Im Mittelpunkt des Interesses stehen dabei die folgenden Forschungsfragen: Inwieweit kann Engendering Budgets einen Beitrag zur Transformation der Geschlechterverhältnisse (und politischen Prozesse) leisten? Worin besteht das Konzept und das Potential von Engendering Budgets als gleichstellungspolitisches Instrument zur Transformation der Geschlechterverhältnisse? Ausgehend von der Klärung der Konzeptionen Gender Mainstreaming und Engendering Budgets werden die ökonomischen Grundlagen und Referenzpunkte in der feministischer Ökonomie und in Ansätzen des "Engendering Makroökonomie" herausgearbeitet. Darauf aufbauend geht es um die Praxis des Engendering Budgets, im Rahmen derer ein detaillierter Überblick über Initiativen in zahlreichen ausgewählten Ländern bzw. Regionen - neben anderen werden Beispiele aus Australien, Südafrika, Tansania, Großbritannien, Kanada und der Schweiz eingehend dargestellt und analysiert - gegeben wird. Darüber hinaus wird die Rolle internationaler Organisationen bei der Entwicklung und Verbreitung von Engendering Budgets beleuchtet. Vor dem Hintergrund der vielfältigen praktischen Erfahrungen und theoretischen Überlegungen werden Voraussetzungen und Bedingungen zur Umsetzung von Engendering Budgets im politischen Prozess herausgearbeitet. Dabei wird deutlich, dass Engendering Budgets einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Transformation der Geschlechterverhältnisse und Politikprozesse leisten könnte. (Autorenref.)

How do municipalities and county councils work with gender mainstreaming? What tools are used and which are the conditions and obstacles in the working process? Gender mainstreaming has been an official strategy in Sweden since 1994. In all policy decisions at all levels, a gender perspective shall be integrated. This will ultimately have an impact on the citizen level. The essay shows that despite the fact that the strategy has been official for 21 years, it is not used everywhere. I examine how the county council and municipalities in the county of Västmanland are working with gender mainstreaming. In Västerås, there is much work going on, on the basis of the strategy. While in other municipalities, no work at all can be found. Within the framework of gender mainstreaming, the municipalities and the county council are using a set of tools. There is talk about several conditions and obstacles in the work with gender mainstreaming, where knowledge is a recurring element. This makes the study particularly interesting when we get an insight of how much the work within gender mainstreaming can be separated for each municipality.

This thesis locates itself in wider developments in gender theory and examinations of the state’s production of gender inequality. It responds to two research problems in existing literature. Firstly, scholars have developed increasingly complex theorisations of the social construction of gender and the state’s role in it. This body of research has shown how gender blindness and gender bias in state policies produce inequality and how gender structures priorities, hierarchies and roles within state organisations. Fully operationalising these insights has, however, thus far proved difficult. Secondly, whilst existing research provides a nuanced picture of these multiple dynamics involved in the state’s reproduction of gender inequality, we cannot yet fully account for the processes through which these dynamics are maintained. As a result, our explanations of how change could be achieved are also under-developed. This thesis uses gender mainstreaming (GM) implementation as a model to explore these research problems, examining the processes underlying the ‘disappointing’ policy outcomes which existing analyses of GM implementation have documented (Bretherton 2001, Daly 2005, Mazey 2000). Whilst these existing studies provide an essential starting point, this thesis argues that many have applied an implicitly rigid or rationalistic approach to policy analysis, highlighting the disparity between the intended and actual outcomes of GM. This kind of approach fails to operationalise our understanding of the construction of gender as a process and a constantly renegotiated phenomenon. It also fails to exploit the research opportunities which GM implementation provides. To enable such an analysis, this thesis draws together literatures from policy studies, particularly interpretative policy analysis (Colebatch 2009, Pressman and Wildavsky 1984, Yanow 1993) and science and technology studies/the sociology of knowledge (STS/SK) (Latour and Callon 1981, Law 1986) to apply an understanding of policy implementation as a process of negotiation, where we analyse how policy is interpreted, understood and enacted, on the ground. This perspective emphasises how local responses to strategic policy demands emerge through collective processes of interpretation, which are heavily affected by pre-existing policy assumptions, activities and practices (Wagenaar 2004, Wagenaar et al 2003). These concepts are used to operationalise the concept of gender knowledge (Andresen and Doelling 2002, Caglar 2010, Cavaghan 2010, 2012, Doelling 2005) to investigate how shared (non)perceptions of gender inequality are institutionalised and perpetuated, whilst competing notions are marginalised. Thus developed, the gender knowledge concept enables us to grasp and analyse (non)perceptions of the gender inequality issue; the evidence or ways of thinking which underpin them; and the processes, materials and persons involved in institutionalising them to the exclusion of competing perceptions. This approach therefore operationalises the notion that gender and gendering is a process and connects the ‘genderedness of organisations’ (Benschop and Verloo 2006, Rees 2002) to gendered policy outputs. Examining ‘what is happening’ when GM is implemented in this manner provides an opportunity to identify mechanisms of resistance, i.e. the processes through which the production of gender inequality is maintained. By corollary, examining ‘successful’ incidences of GM implementation provides empirical examples of how change has occurred. The project thus aims to produce theoretical insights which can be extrapolated to a wider understanding of the perpetuation of the state production of gender inequality.