Previous research has demonstrated that an efficient national gender mechanism and the availability of gender expertise are two essential prerequisites in determining the success or otherwise of gender mainstreaming (GM) operation. Research has also found that the more effective alliance linking feminist bureaucrats, women’s movements, and gender studies academics, the more likely the two prerequisites will be met. Drawing on policy documents and interviews with key stakeholders in Taiwan and Sweden, this research examines through a comparative lens the above assumptions. Sweden has put GM into practice since 1994 and since then been revered as the benchmark country for GM. The Swedish government, however, has failed women’s movements’ demands of a new government agency aimed at the advancement of GM. As a result, GM in Sweden has been operated on the basis of episodic and nonsustainable projects and often dependent on feminist bureaucrats’ initiative and the help of private gender consultants to provide civil servants training programs and/or become short-term government employees. This femocrat and expert bottom-up model has avoided the drawbacks of technocratization but failed to institutionalize GM in the administrative organ. Since 2006 the central government in Taiwan has mandated all ministries to implement GM. Feminist activists in the premier-chaired National Gender Equality Committee have played a vital role in enacting and activating a comprehensive top-down and participatory democratic model of GM governance. To monitor ministries' performance a new department of gender equality under the Committee’s supervision and ministry-level gender equality committees were set up. A large range of scholars and women’s organizations have participated in the operation. However, the Taiwanese model has suffered severe issues regarding technocratization due to the absence of feminist bureaucrats, full-time gender experts, and gender knowledge needed for comprehensive implementation.
