Sweden has for many years been recognized as a model of gender equality, in particular in relation to its high proportion of women in elected decision-making bodies. Since the mid-1990s, the Swedish Parliament and the Government have comprised roughly the same number of women and men. In addition, in 2017 the boards of public administration were made up of 51 percent women and 49 percent men, and among the chairs of these boards 49 percent were women. gender balance in leadership positions has improved significantly over the last ten years.
Applying a feminist institutionalist perspective in combination with implementation theory, this paper analyses the implementation of special measures such as party quotas and soft quotas in political parties as well as the adoption of national gender equality objectives in public administration order to achieve gender balance in positions of power, including the Parliament, the Cabinet and public administration. It is argued that in order to understand women’s and men’s access to positions of power it is central to study the complex processes in which informal rules and norms, in combination with formal institutions, work in enabling or hindering ways. A major conclusion is that the ways in which central policies are implemented at local levels, and the extent to which the implementation is successful or not, depends on three key components: capacity, comprehension and will.
