Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy in the Making: Ethics, Politics, and Gender

Citation:

Aggestam, Karin, and Annika Bergman-Rosamond. 2016. “Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy in the Making: Ethics, Politics, and Gender.” Ethics & International Affairs 30 (3): 323–34. 

Authors: Karin Aggestam, Annika Bergman-Rosamond

Annotation:

Summary: 
"In this essay, we argue that the launching of a “feminist” foreign policy is distinct for two reasons. First, by adopting the “f-word” it elevates politics from a broadly consensual orientation of gender mainstreaming toward more controversial politics, and specifically toward those that explicitly seek to renegotiate and challenge power hierarchies and gendered institutions that hitherto defined global institutions and foreign and security policies. As Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström has noted, “It’s time to become a little braver in foreign policy. I think feminism is a good term. It is about standing against the systematic and global subordination of women.” Second, it contains a normative reorientation of foreign policy that is guided by an ethically informed framework based on broad cosmopolitan norms of global justice and peace. The content of Sweden’s feminist foreign policy is still in the making, and is currently focused on incremental change in two areas: (1) international agenda-setting through a gender-sensitive lens that allows for the reframing and mobilization of international policy action; and (2) normative entrepreneurship, which is guided by an ethically informed framework of cosmopolitanism and human rights that seeks to shape global developments in a gender-sensitive direction" (Aggestam and Bergman-Rosamond 2016, 323). 
 

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, International Organizations, Justice, Rights, Human Rights

Year: 2016

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