Gender Mainstreaming in the Swedish National Action Plan to Implement Agenda 1325

Abstract: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 has been hailed as a groundbreaking achievement. It was the first time in which the Security Council addressed women’s issues and a gender mainstreaming strategy was through the agenda introduced to the security domain. National Action Plans or NAPs have been developed in conjunction with the agenda to legitimise, spread and speed up the implementation process. Gender mainstreaming is a contested strategy and “Resolution 1325” have been criticised regarding its fixed, one-dimensional conceptualization of gender and its lack of transformative power for women’s agency. Through a critical discourse analysis of the two Swedish NAPs, this thesis finds substance for such critique. The gender mainstreaming strategy in the NAPs predominantly refer to Swedish aspects rather than local initiatives in peacebuilding efforts. The concept of gender is narrow and fixed, including only women and men, who are victimised on biological grounds in due to, gender assumptions of women being passive and men referred to as violent. The gender mainstreaming strategy within the NAPs emphasise mainstreaming rather than gender equality and women are added to a masculine, neoliberal structure without a political element. The thesis concludes by confirming existing literature concerning Agenda 1325, that the objectives in the NAPs needs to be broadened to cover issues of militarization, arms trade and hegemony to be able to combat gender inequalities.