FEMINISTISK UTRIKESPOLITIK PÅ PAPPER? En studie av genus i Sidas miljö-, klimat- och jämställdhetsstrategier 2010–2028

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how gender is conveyed and integrated in Sweden’s environmental and climate development cooperation at the strategic policy level, and to what extent these understandings can be considered transformative from a feminist perspective. Using Feminist Foreign Policy Analysis (FFPA) research, the study analyses Sida’s strategic policy documents for environmental and climate development cooperation before, during, and after the period of Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy (FUP).The study is based on a qualitative, time-comparative document analysis of Sida’s environmental and climate strategies from 2010 to 2026, complemented by gender equality strategies from 2018 to 2028. An original analytical framework is introduced, inspired by Cohn and Duncanson (2025) and Tiessen (2025), which distinguishes between problem framing, instrumental gender integration, and transformative feminism in gender integration.The findings reveal continuity in environmental and climate strategies over time. Gender is primarily framed through problem framing and instrumental integration, with limited attention to power relations or structural inequalities. No consistent evidence of transformative feminist perspectives is found in environmental and climate strategies. In contrast, transformative gender understandings appear in gender equality strategies during the period when FUP was active, although these are unstable and later replaced by more instrumental approaches.Overall, the study identifies a clear gap between feminist policy ambitions and the strategic governance of environmental and climate development cooperation, contributing to existing research by highlighting how feminist foreign policy is constrained at this sector-specific policy level.