The Transformative Potential of Feminist Foreign Policy: The Case of Sweden

ABSTRACT Sweden describes its feminist foreign policy (FFP) as strategically illuminating structures of gender inequality by incorporating a feminist perspective in all areas of foreign policy, analytically and practically. This study scrutinizes the transformative potential of Sweden’s FFP discourse. Feminist scholarship argues for recognizing interrelations between gender and postcolonial structures; stressing gender hierarchies as contextual and contingent on various power structures. Using critical discourse analysis, we analyze documents, statements and speeches produced within the Swedish FFP in relation to postcolonial feminist theory. We find that a large part of the Swedish FFP discourse reproduces essentialist discourse informed by colonial legacies, but with a new feminist label. There are, however, signs of an emerging reformed discourse that strives to transform postcolonial power structures, taking intersectionality into account. This emerging discourse contributes to an understanding of how a feminist foreign policy could be articulated and practiced to become truly transformative.