Feminist Foreign Policy 3.0: Advancing Ethics and Gender Equality in Global Politics

Abstract

and the United Kingdom, have adopted gender-and feminist-informed approaches to their foreign and security policies. Sweden's feminist foreign policy was launched in 2014 and rests on the idea that gender equality is central to security and foreign policy. This article conducts an analysis of the incremental development of Sweden's feminist foreign policy. It underlines three pillars that have informed Swedish foreign policy: rights, representation, and resources. The article assesses how these three pillars have been transformed into distinct policy and practice. It makes the following three conclusions. First, Sweden's feminist foreign policy is distinguished by its working method pertaining to norm change whereby gendered practices and structures in global politics are challenged. Second, from the outset Sweden's feminist foreign policy has pursued a head-wind agenda, which reflects a readiness to confront contestation in global politics. Third, as a way of tackling resistance and promoting pro-norm equality diffusion a fourth "R" has been advanced, which stands for reality checks and research.

Feminist Foreign Policy and Gender Justice on the International Agenda

“…The emergence of these aspects in the practices of traditional and non-state actors of IR is also called the scholarship of "good states", which take the responsibility of bringing the global justice beyond their borders [Chandler 2006]. The core idea of ethical foreign policy is to guarantee sustainable, transformative change "which requires sensitivity to the needs of 'others'" [Aggestam, Rosamond 2019b]. Correspondingly, the sensitivity of the issue provides an influential platform for the imperialist West to manipulate with the agenda for global "good citizens" and identify and intervene in internal affairs of the ones identified as unethical Others, predominately where the West is interested in underdevelopment and anarchic order... for various reasons.…”

“…Despite the title "ethical", the ethical foreign policy likewise, the WPS and UNSCR 1325 has a gendered ideology. As an example, as the global "good citizens" take the responsibility to "take care" of the ones disadvantaged or oppressed, the values of ethicality refer to "care" as a maternal and innately peaceful feminine feature, "an assumption that has been contested and rejected in feminist IR scholarship" [Aggestam, Rosamond 2019b;Tafakori 2021]. This rationale once again undermines the differences between women, their unique experiences and intersectionality by putting labels of the universal category which has no distinctions in their races, material realities, gender and sexuality.…”

Feminist digital diplomacy and foreign policy change in Sweden

“…Central to this major foreign policy shift is also the feminist leadership and personal engagement of former Foreign Minister Margot Wallström (Aggestam and Bergman Rosamond 2019;Aggestam and True 2021), an internationally recognised diplomat who was the first person to hold the position as Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. As a newly appointed foreign minister Margot Wallström tweeted that "without representation, rights and resources for women we will never have peace and security.…”

“…In 2014, Sweden was the first state in the world to adopt a feminist foreign policy with the distinct goal of becoming "the strongest global voice for gender equality" (Government Offices of Sweden 2015b). The promotion of women's rights and gender equality in global politics is now central to Sweden's foreign policy practice (Aggestam and Bergman Rosamond 2016;Aggestam and Rosamond 2019;Bergman Rosamond 2020;Rosén Sundström and Elgström 2020). This article examines the ways in which Sweden has sought to promote feminist values in foreign policy practice through the conduct of digital diplomacy.…”

Gender norms, global hierarchies and the evolution of feminist foreign policy

“…Existing research on FFP has so far largely been concerned with the policy content of FFP and the ethical implications it carries (Achilleos-Sarll, 2018;Aggestam and Bergman-Rosamond, 2016, 2019a, 2019bAggestam, Bergman-Rosamond and Kronsell, 2019;Bergman-Rosamond, 2020;Robinson, 2019). There has also been much individual or comparative work on specific countries' policies (in addition to the above, see also -Brown and Swiss, 2017;Mason, 2019;Parisi, 2020;Thomson, 2020;Tiessen, 2019) as well as to countries that adopt strong normative stances towards gender in their foreign policies but do not (yet) use the word feminist to refer to them (Haastrup, 2020;Lee-Koo, 2020;Skjelsbaek and Tryggestad, 2020).…”