More Than a Label, Less Than a Revolution: Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy

Sammanfattning

In 2014, Sweden became the first country in the world to declare a feminist foreign policy (FFP). This was to permeate the entire foreign service and all three areas of foreign policy: foreign and security policy, development cooperation, and trade and promotion. Since then, FFP has diffused internationally and several other countries have adopted their own versions while the new Swedish Government in 2022 announced the retraction of the FFP.

Questions at the center of the debate about the FFP include if the re-labeling of foreign policy as feminist has had any tangible effects and if the policy has made a difference for the extent and methods of Swedish gender equality work. This report explores these questions, focusing on the bilateral implementation of the policy. Based on a variety of methods and large amounts of data, it concludes that the FFP, indeed, constituted more than a label. Overall, the gender equality activities of Swedish public agencies and embassies clearly increased as a result of the FFP. Moreover, the feminist term signaled raised ambitions and pushed the integration of Swedish aid, trade, and security policy. However, due to weak steering and guidance, implementation was incomplete and uneven across foreign policy areas, public agencies, and embassies.

We hope that this report will find its audience among the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, embassies, Sida and riksdagen, as well as policy makers and the general public interested in feminist foreign policy in Sweden and abroad. The study has been conducted with support from a reference group chaired by Sara Johansson de Silva.

The authors are solely responsible for the content of the report.