The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) recognized a need for external help to implement a gender perspective in their project on improving air quality in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) extending from 2018-2022, which this thesis is a contribution to. To collect empirical material for the analysis, a cluster interview was conducted on site in Sarajevo with female representatives from ten CSOs working with gender equality nationally, in addition to a household survey targeted at six different cities in BiH through social media with the help of SEPA’s partnering ad agency network. The empirical findings of this study hence consist of local representations of problems regarding gender equality and its links to environmental issues, which were subsequently used to put the goals and problem representations present in the Swedish Foreign Service action plan for feminist foreign policy 2019-2022 and the Strategy for Sweden’s reform cooperation in the Western Balkans and Turkey 2021-2027 in context. This was specifically done with the help of Carol Bacchi’s policy analysis approach “What’s the Problem (Represented to be). Throughout the analysis, it became evident that there was a gap between the discourse of gender equality problems on site in BiH versus how gender equality problems were represented in the analysed Swedish policies steering the project. It also became evident that there was a gap between the horizontal goals of gender equality in these policies, and the resources available at SEPA for the actual implementation.  The conclusion of the analysis implicates the occurrence of shortcomings in Swedish reform cooperation when mainstreaming gender into environmental policies, and that this could potentially lead to efforts reproducing and entrenching gendered and socio-economic inequity.  By exemplifying the relevance of implementing a context-based gender perspective in this specific case, this thesis is hoped to encourage improving the prerequisites for mainstreaming gender into all international reform cooperation projects and applying the Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy accurately.

Bakgrund: Organisationskultur är ett begrepp med olika definitioner och eftersom en kultur inte går att mäta krävs det istället tolkningar för att förstå organisationskulturen. Denna studie grundas på två svenska myndigheter, Försvarsmakten och Polismyndigheten, vars kulturer är präglade av historia och tradition. Båda myndigheterna beskriver att de befinner sig i en kulturförändring. En planerad förändring av rådande organisationskulturen kan utspela sig olika beroende på interna och externa faktorer. Jämställdhetsintegrering i myndigheter är en strategi som regeringen har beslutat ska implementeras i statliga myndigheter, vilket innefattar att ett jämställdhetsperspektiv ska integreras i alla nivåer inom verksamheten. Jämställdhetsintegrering tolkas som ett försök till kulturförändring då rådande strukturer, normer och värderingar i organisationskulturen måste synliggöras och hanteras för att jämställdhetsperspektivet ska kunna implementeras på alla nivåer. Syfte: Studien syftar till att öka kunskapen om hur chefer inom två svenska myndigheter tolkar organisationskulturen och en planerad förändring av den. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ metod genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med åtta respondenter, fyra från Försvarsmakten och fyra från Polismyndigheten. Slutsats: Chefer inom både Polismyndigheten och Försvarsmakten ser på sina respektive organisationskulturer på liknande sätt. De båda studerade myndigheterna ser i vissa fall på sina organisationskulturer som variabler, möjliga att förändra och påverka genom ledarskap. I andra fall ses organisationskulturerna på som rotmetaforer, där förändring sker genom påverkan från samhället och när medarbetare socialt interagerar med varandra. Då svaren går åt olika håll kan det konstateras att de båda studerade myndigheterna hamnar någonstans mittemellan de båda synsätten. / Background: Organizational culture is a concept with different definitions and since a culture cannot be measured, interpretations are required instead to understand the organizational culture. This study is based on two Swedish authorities, the Swedish Armed Forces and the Swedish Police Authority, whose cultures are characterized by history and tradition. Both authorities describe that they are in a cultural change. A planned change in prevailing organizational cultures can take place differently depending on internal and external factors. Gender mainstreaming in authorities is a strategy that the government has decided to implement in government agencies, which includes that a gender equality perspective must be integrated at all levels within the business. Gender mainstreaming is interpreted as an attempt at cultural change as prevailing structures, norms and values in the organizational culture must be made visible and managed for the gender equality perspective to be implemented at all levels. Purpose: The study aims to increase knowledge of how managers within two Swedish authorities interpret the organizational culture and a planned change in it. Method: The study was conducted with a qualitative method through semi-structured interviews with eight respondents, four from the Swedish Armed Forces and four from the Swedish Police Authority. Conclusion: Managers within both the Swedish Police Authority and the Swedish Armed Forces view their organizational cultures in a similar way. The two studied authorities in some cases see their organizational cultures as variables, possible to change and influence through leadership. In other cases, organizational cultures are seen as root metaphors, where change takes place through influence from society and when employees socially interact with each other. As the answers go in different directions, it can be stated that the two studied authorities end up somewhere in between the two approaches.

This study examines the Swedish Basketball Federations work with Strategy 2025 as a means for gender mainstreaming. The aim of this study was to examine how the Federation constructs gender equality within their organization and how that becomes evident in their daily work. The aim was also to investigate which opportunities and challenges emerges during this process. By analyzing project documents as well as other documents related to the organizations gender policy and interviews, the study investigates how the concept of gender equality is understood and implemented. The analysis of the material was inspired by Carol L. Bacchi’s method “What’s the problem represented to be?”. The method examines which problems are explicitly presented as well as what is left as ‘unproblematic’. This is meant to identify which and if there are any silences within the problem description. The study exposes a construction of gender equality based on quantitative measures and within a future perspective, as something that will be achieved over time. And through Strategy 2025 two dominant problem representations emerge. These problem representations are an unequal representation and a gendered view on coaches and recruitment. The results indicate that gender mainstreaming becomes an administrative routine as a result of gender equality being understood as a qualitative measure.

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

This is a case study on the gender mainstreaming work that has been done in the youth club of Västra Hamnen in the municipality of Malmö. I chose to focus on the activities in this specific youth club since it’s described as one of the more successful ones in the field of gender equality. I’m focusing on gender mainstreaming from an intersectional point of view because I want to find out if the activities that are being done lead to equal and equivalent results for all youths regardless of gender, ethnicity, appearance and other background variables. Through analysing municipal policy documents, interviewing staff and observing activities in the youth club, I’ve been able to conclude that the intersectional approach is absent. There’s a lack of intersectionality in both the policies that frame the municipal work in this field and the actual work that is done in the youth club. The gender mainstreaming work is primarily based on gender analyses focusing on the sex category: woman and man. Other aspects are excluded which leads to different consequences for those youths who are affected by more categories than only gender. Due to this the youth club is hindered from creating equivalent activities. In order to change this there’s a need to highlight how the variable sex interacts with other background variables and what kind of power structures are created when different categories are crossed in different ways. Only then it’s possible to get an overall picture of the complexity of the issue and to identify tools that are needed to create equality for all those different youths that the club is for.

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.

Previous research indicates that gender mainstreaming is difficult to apply. Obstacles such as lack of political will, cultural and institutional resistance, lack of understanding, clashing perspectives and priorities, as well as insufficient resources, are most often cited as the cause. This study, against the background that these obstacles are founded in institutional contexts, intends to use feminist institutionalism to analyze state authorities' ideas about gender mainstreaming through the analysis of values, descriptions, and prescriptions. The results show that analyzed authorities are consistent in their basic ideas and values, where the strategy is taken seriously and seen as important. The annual reports are prepared in an operational manner, which shows action and progress. The result indicates that there is a general lack of prescriptions.

The struggle for an equal society in terms of equal rights, opportunities, and obligations has long been fought in Sweden and has resulted in Sweden emerging as one of the world most equal societies according to UN rankings. This paper attempts to, with the knowledge of Sweden´s pre-eminence on the equality rankings, to examine why the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) remain a male-dominated workplace, despite decades of stated equality aims. There is thus a question left unanswered as to the nature of this apparent discrepancy. This paper aims to examine the nature of this discrepancy, what has been done to implement equality and what challenges lie ahead for the SAF on the issue of gender equality. Through a theoretical base primarily consisting of an institutional disposition this paper uses a qualitative text analysis study of the public material which is available regarding the SAF´s gender equality work, mainly the official appropriations documents for the SAF, as well as the annual reports from the SAF to the government. Gender and equality have been studied in the past in numerous political science journals both in the context of western armed forces in general and the SAF in particular. Remaining is a need for more research problematising the concept of gender equality within the armed forces and in its relationship to the government, which this paper attempts to explore. Indications indicate that the challenges the government and the SAF must face involve defining what they mean by equality as well as clarifying what the policy objectives are as there is a risk that the implementation of the policy will fall completely or partially if they remain abstract, unclear and/or contradictory.

Equality is one of the most debated topics of our time. In Sweden, the work on gender equality has been shaped by the strategy of gender mainstreaming since 1994. Gender mainstreaming not only affects the undertaking of gender equality issues at the national level, but also at the local level. Despite this, there is limited knowledge regarding the implementation of gender mainstreaming in municipalities, particularly from perspectives other than feminist ones. Therefore, this study focuses on the implementation of gender mainstreaming in three Swedish municipalities and also highlights the potential impact of organizational culture on gender equality efforts. The thesis is a multiple case study that aims to study the extent to which municipal organizational culture influences the implementation process. This aim is formulated based on previous research in this field, which suggests that organizational culture affects implementation processes. The organizational culture in the municipalities is extensively examined through the lens of capability to change. The research questions are answered through text analysis of gender equality policies and interviews with officials in each municipality. The findings of this thesis show that organizational cultures in municipalities have the potential to influence the implementation of gender mainstreaming in different stages of the implementation process. The study identifies differences in the organizational capability to change, both within and between the municipalities. The study also finds that certain aspects of the municipalities’ organizational culture can affect the implementation of gender mainstreaming. Additionally, the study has found that both management models and path dependency may be factors that impact gender mainstreaming efforts, even though this was not the primary focus of the study.

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