Women and Leadership in Peacekeeping Operations: a Swedish Approach

Abstract: Even after the introduction of the UNSCR 1325 and subsequent resolutions, women’s leadership in the context of the WPS Agenda remains very low, despite the clear stance of the UN towards a support of an increased participation of women in peace and security processes. The aim of this thesis is to specifically address women’s leadership in the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) in the framework of peacekeeping operations, looking at the way the gender perspective is applied in the SAF through the introduction of the Handbok Gender, adopted in 2016. Since the focus of this research is on women, the theoretical perspective utilised as reference point is feminism and specifically a feminist constructivist approach with an institutional focus. Mixed research methods have been applied in order to collect the data, while the main centre of attention of this project has been a critical discourse analysis of the mentioned gender policy. Sweden has been chosen as case study because of the relevance of its singular feminist policies (Wallström’s statement that Sweden is pursuing a feminist foreign policy is a clear example), nevertheless the conclusions appear to be quite contradictory because even in a country which officially identifies as feminist women’s leadership in peacekeeping operations is very low.