This study provides a feminist critical examination of the proposal to add a language and civic knowledge requirement for citizenship acquisition and the ideas of belonging that are constructed within the proposal. The analysis has been made with Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be’-approach to policy analysis, examining what is represented as the ‘problem’ in the proposal, which assumptions and presuppositions that underlie this representation of the ‘problem’, what is silenced or unproblematized in this representation of the problem, an the potential effects that this representation of the problem can have. The analysis shows how the ‘problem’ in the proposal for language and civic knowledge requirements is represented as a ‘lack of knowledge and participation’ that’s been made possible due to a ‘lack of demands’. Further, the representation of the ‘problem’ constituting the ‘solution’ of the proposed requirements is individualized and the expected exclusionary effects of the proposal unproblematized. Finally, I argue that the representations of the ‘problem’ construct ideas of belonging which are predominantly about assessment of eligibility to be allowed entry into the ‘collectivity’ of Swedish citizenship.

Topics concerning gender mainstreaming are highly debated throughout political sciences. Studies imply that gender mainstreaming is implemented in an era of New Public Management which, according to different sources, takes away from the politics of gender equality. Due to the nature of the NPM framework, efficiency and productivity reduce gender mainstreaming to a technicality, rather than actually questioning the underlying structures of gender inequalities. In light of NPMs shortcomings in this aspect, a growing number of studies examine the possibilities Public Value Management has to offer. This framework articulates public value as the most important aspect of public administration. This study performs a policy analysis of the Swedish Migration Agency and examine how the agency deals with gender mainstreaming in terms of implementing a NPM and/or PVM oriented approach. The analysis in this paper is based on Carol Bacchi’s theoretical framework “What’s the problem represented to be?”, which helps isolate causes of the agency's problems regarding gender mainstreaming. Results of the analysis show an unwillingness to conform solely to factors such as efficiency and productivity, but controversially, the agency also heavily relies on the principles of the NPM framework. Conclusions can be made that the structural architecture of the agency prevents a full adoption of the PVM framework. / Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, Umeå Universitet

Purpose – of this study was to explore the institutional contextual factors that influence the organizational operations and their choice of talent management strategy with specific focus on inclusive talent management. The study is based on a case study of the Region Dalarna. The choice of case study was motivated by the ignorance of the contextual consideration of public sector organizations, within the talent management discourse. The researchers of this paper believe that the main findings contribute to the research field. Delimitations – of this study has been set to a single case study of Region Dalarna, a public sector organization where the healthcare operation within the organization and the employees within the HR department have been chosen as representative factors for the organizational perspective, along with the policy documents.       Design/methodology/approach – of this paper is a mixed-method approach, specifically when it comes to data collection and analysis. The secondary data, including organizational documents were analyzed with the WPR method and served as a foundation for collection of the primary data. In turn, the primary data was collected with the help of the dialogical interviews and analyzed through thematic analysis technique. Also, the theoretical framework in this research was based on already existing literature in the field. Findings – the organization’s operations and its choice of talent management strategy are influenced by multiple external and internal parties on macro, meso and micro levels. Some of them are politicians, board members, third parties and employees themselves. In addition, the researchers identified a shared perception of talent within the organization and factors that influence it. Also, the authors were able to track already implemented inclusive TM strategies within the organization’s operations as well as identify the challenges that prevent the further adoption of this approach. Practical implications – this paper can serve as a framework for other organizations in order to identify the influencing factors that impact their performance. The insights of this paper address the further development of Dalarna Region, which makes it valuable for the local community. Originality/value – the use of mixed methods in the data collection and analysis enabled researchers to confirm their findings as well as to identify the potential conflicts in the organizational context.

Studiens syfte är undersöka om det finns tendenser till dissonans mellan den svenska feministiska utrikespolitiken och handelspolitiken. Detta genom att analysera hur problem framställs i Regeringens skrivelse om feministisk utrikespolitik samt Sveriges export- och investeringsstrategi med hjälp av Carol Bacchis diskursanalytiska ”What’s the problem represented to be”-metod. Resultatet visar att det finns tecken på dissonans. Den feministiska utrikespolitiken har ett brett perspektiv på feminism med fokus på rättigheter, representation, säkerhet, normer och strukturer samt kvinnors tillgång till och deltagande på arbetsmarknaden. Detta perspektiv ska genomsyra all utrikespolitik. Export- och investeringsstrategins dominerande fokus är svensk tillväxt. Strategin berör också hållbar utveckling och jämställdhet, men då i första hand som ett medel för tillväxt. Jämställdhet i exportstrategin innebär främst att kvinnor deltar på arbetsmarknaden.

Policies are often seen as a response to existing issues, wheras in this study polices are understood as a productive process, that not only addresses a pre-existing problem, but that construct the problem through how it is represented in the policy (Bacchi, Eveline, 2010: 18). Based on this, the study examines how gender inequality is represented in a number of policies and reports from the UN Development Programme, UNDP, published between 2018 and 2021.UNDP is one of the largest entities within the international development world, and its policies has the potential to impact millions of people around the world. By asking what is the problem represented to be? (WPR) it is possible to uncover underlying assumptions on which the understanding that produces the problem of gender inequality, rests. The effects of these assumptions, implicit understandings of a problem, come to determine what is being done about it. Many policies addressing gender inequality attempt to identify how actions can be taken with less negative effect on the targeted group, mainly women, instead of asking how the policies themselves are connected to reproducing the problem (Bacchi et al. 2010: 120).   This study finds that the underlying premises of how gender inequality is represented by UNDP results in proposed actions that risk conflating women and gender, while promoting activities that at large aim to include women into existing structures, rather than being a driver for examining underlying causes of gender inequality.

Integration and immigration policies as a raised as an ‘hot topic’ in many western democracies,mostly due to an increased immigration. This has led to a debate on integration issues and howto integrate new citizens in the western societies.The Swedish government presented an inquiry on the subject of citizenship test in language andcivic skills in 2021 with an uttered aim to ‘increase the status of the citizenship and to promotean inclusive society’. This paper analyses, based on the WPR- approach, this inquiry report inregard to the purpose of the citizenship test and which problem representations that underpinthe inquiry.The inquiry report expresses a problem representation that ‘immigrants have a lack in theSwedish language and in civic skills’ which is seen as a result of ‘lack of effort’ and that it istoo easy to receive a Swedish citizenship. The ‘solution’ to this ‘problem’ is to introduce acitizenship test which tis thought to create incentives to become more ‘included’. The problemrepresentations (re)produce a ‘immigrant’s people category which need to be govern andreenforces a dichotomy of included and excluded in relation to ‘immigrants. At the same timethe scientific support in regard to create motivation for inclusion and integration by a mandatorylanguage and civic tests are contested.

Violence against women - a changing problem. A discourseanalysis how violence againstwomen is problematized and changed during three parliamentary debates.This paper will examine how domestic violence is elaborated as a problem in three differentparliament debates in Sweden. Debates from different decades, 1979, 1998 and 2021 havebeen chosen as objects of study in order to examine if there is any difference during thetimeperiods and how the problematization has developed between the chosen debates.Sweden is one of the most equal countries in the world, despite this, the country has giantproblems with domestic violence. It is therefore valuable to examine how representatives inthe parliament address the problem since they have the power to develop policies and make achange. With guidance from the WPR approach to find what the problem is represented to be,together with the theory gendercontract that will be used as a tool to examine how theproblem can be produced with stereotypical gender roles and what effects this can have. Thestudy shows that the discourse from the debates changes from being represented as a problemregarding women or a familyproblem that should be handled within the family to theauthorities responsibility to prevent and report the problem. It also shows that stereotypicalgender roles can be a part of the elaboration of the problem to develop to be a part of what isbeing problematized.

This study aims to examine how the EU constructs sex trafficking in its public policy, as well as the potential consequences of how sex trafficking is problematized. The following two policy documents presented by the Union, Directive 2011/36/EU and The EU Strategy on Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings 2021- 2025, were analyzed in order to meet the aim of this study. The method used for the analysis of the material is Carol Bacchis ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’, which will be studied within the framework of a case study. The results of the study showed that human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation is framed as a problem of insufficient legal action, a violation of human rights, and a benefiting of gender inequality, as well as a lack of effective crime prevention measures within the European Union and its member states. Victims of human trafficking are frequently depicted as coerced participants, a notion that may not always correlate to reality. The EU's problem representation reinforces gender stereotypes while ignoring and marginalizing opposing viewpoints.

Huvudsyftet med uppsatsen är att analysera den politiska diskursen rörande föräldraförsäkringen utifrån de två begreppen jämställdhet kontra valfrihet. Det studien ämnar undersöka är hur de två partierna: Socialdemokraterna och Kristdemokraterna utrycker sig i frågan rörande föräldraförsäkringen. Det material som studerats är respektive partiprogram tillsammans med debattartiklar. Genom användande av diskursanalytiskmetodologi tillsammans med Carol Bacchis WPR-approach få fram vad som inte explicit uttrycks. Undersökande av det implicita i den politiska diskursen rörande föräldraförsäkringen ämnas besvara vilka förgivettagna antaganden som ligger till grund för konstruktion av ojämställdhet i samhället. De metodologiska tillvägagångssätten resulterade i ett identifierande av tre olika teman som presenteras som en del av resultatet. Dessa teman var: Jämställdhet kontra valfrihet, barnomsorgsargument samt ekonomiska aspekter. De identifierade temana presenteras utifrån de två valda partierna och analyseras utifrån valda teorier och tidigare forskning. Det resultat som framträtt är de två partiernas olika synsätt på dualism i frågan. Medan socialdemokraterna ser jämställdhet och valfrihet som två olika motpoler till varandra, anser kristdemokraterna att de två begreppen inte står i kontrast utan kan samverka. Socialdemokraterna bygger sin argumentation på det ojämnställda uttaget av föräldraförsäkringen kring statistiska data som visar på hur kvinnor tar ut större andel av föräldraförsäkringen och motiverar kvoterad föräldraförsäkring som en reform för att bryta detta mönster. Dem anser att det är strukturer och normer i samhället som ligger bakom den ojämlika fördelningen. Det resultat som visade sig kring kristdemokraternas argumentation kring föräldraförsäkringen var den individuella familjens rätt till fria val. Dem menade att genom att låta familjen själv bestämma över föräldraförsäkringen gynnar det både kvinnan, mannen och barnen i familjen då de kan välja att dela upp det på ett sätt som ekonomiskt gynnar förhållandet.

Arktis är ett område som står inför stora förändringar. Klimatförändringarna i regionen är påtagliga och förändring måste ske snarast. Dessa förändringar lägger ljus på aktörerna inom Arktiska Rådet (AR) och vikten av att de medlemsstater som ingår i AR tar sitt nationella ansvar att utforma sin klimatpolitik med Arktis i åtanke. Syftet med denna kandidatuppsats är att analysera policydokument från Sverige, Finland och AR. De policydokument som analyseras är respektive lands senaste arktiska klimatstrategier. Analyseringen ska ta reda på hur aktörerna representerar problemen med klimatförändringar, hur strategierna skiljer sig emellan och om Sverige och Finland efterföljer de mål och strategier som AR tagit fram. För att genomföra analysen har Carol Bacchis ’What ́s the problem represented to be’ (WPR) använts. Med hjälp av WPR-verktygen ska problemrepresentationer i strategierna tas fram. En jämförelse mellan aktörerna påvisar många likheter och att deras klimatstrategier följer de riktlinjer som AR har satt ut för sina medlemsländer. Ytterligare analys identifierar olika teman som finns genomgående i strategierna och påvisar att det finns en gemensam syn på vad som är viktigt att jobba mot i Arktis. Studien är, med hjälp av resultatet, menat att fylla ut policyforskning kring Sverige och Finland i Arktis där det för nuvarande finns stora brister.