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.

This paper takes its point of departure in the skewed attention towards the ‘protection’ of women rather than the ‘participation’ of women when talking about ‘Women, Peace &Security’ (WPS) in the UN Security Council. Given the centrality of Sweden, as the first country in the world with a feminist foreign policy, this thesis fills a gap in the current research as it investigates whether this skewed attention was reflected during Sweden’s time as a non-permanent member in the UNSC 2017-2018 or not. A quantitative content analysis of 318 Swedish statements in the UNSC 2017-2018 conducted in this paper shows an overall result where Sweden mentions women in the context of participation more frequently than protection. This outcome is further explained by three Government Officials active during Sweden’s time in the UNSC, as resulting from the Swedish strategy and the feminist foreign policy. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate a change in how frequently Sweden refers to participation over protection between 2017 and 2018; the strategy of attaching larger focus to participation is significantly clearer the second year. The interviewees explain that this was due to the increased experience in the UNSC and increased credibility for Sweden among the other member states. The current stage of the conflict or peacekeeping operation in question, i.e. in the country of discussion in the UNSC, was also considered as a large part of the strategy, suggesting the nature of the conflict to be of importance for the results and hence relevant to analyze in future research on the attention payed to participation versus protection in the UNSC.

The field of international development cooperation has experienced an increasing demand for result-driven management over the last decades. However, a clear consensus of the meaning of ‘ results’ is often lacking in initiatives and projects for social change. As the field functions throughout myriads of contexts and cultures, the demand of results therefore brings upon issues of definitions and discourse, as well as underlying values. The goals and strategies set out to achieve certain results are influenced by assumptions that define the problem definition of the targeted issue. A hierarchy in international development, the so-called aid chain, is determined by who provides funding for cooperation projects. The flow of top-down funding is shown to be accompanied by a flow of top-down policies, that are further accompanied by underlying values, problem definitions, and assumptions. This study inquires whether different notions, assumptions, and problem definitions on gender equality across cultures in the aid chain might disturb result-reporting in international projects. Departing from a postcolonial perspective, the content and discourse of the Swedish feminist foreign policy and steering documents from an Indigenous women’s organization in Guatemala are analysed and compared. Seeing policies and policy-making as a significant communicative tool and practice in the field, this study shows how results, goals, strategies, problem definition and assumptions correlate to each other in result-reporting in international development cooperation projects.

A variety of research has been done on why it is important to include local women in peace processes to gain a more sustainable peace. Despite this, there is a limited amount of information and research about women mediation networks and their aim to empower local women peacebuilders. This research explores how women mediation networks can support and empower women in conflict resolutions in relation to the Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. By using semi-structured interviews and literature analysis, a case study of the Swedish Women’s Mediation Network will be conducted. The analysis of the Swedish Women’s Mediation Network, reveals that the network mainly works with the representation of women and uses capacity-building to empower women in other regions. This research brings more awareness to the Women Mediation Networks and their mission to increase the number of women in peace processes.