The role of gendered norms and politics in the shaping of sustainable transport planning in Swedish municipalities

This paper addresses the theme of local political tensions in climate-related politics in a crucial area for climate mitigation - the transport sector, which is responsible for a third of all carbon emissions. Much of the decarbonization of the transport system is expected to happen at the local level and we study municipal decision-making on sustainable transport planning in Sweden. Our discussion is based on a qualitative case study of eight Swedish municipalities that have shown to perform well on sustainable transport. We are interested in the norms that shape decision making in these municipalities and how they relate to gender on the one hand and to politics and political tensions on the other. Gender is relevant because sustainable and low-carbon transport choices, i.e., cycling, walking and public transport, are also the preferred transport choices of women thus, with a potential to be a win-win strategy. Transport planning in Swedish municipalities is strongly connected with the views and agendas of the political parties represented in the Technical Committees (TC) responsible for transport planning. That is, decision makers in TCs are actors with political agendas that operate with certain norms and shape decision making. Norms affect sustainability work (Hultman, 2016). In particular, policy making and planning is guided by entrenched norms that effect policy by providing the conditions for action (Kulawik, 2009). In recent studies of Swedish municipal transport planning, Kronsell et al (2020) and Dymén et al (2017) point out that gendered norms play an important role in how sustainability is shaped, understood and conveyed in practice. For instance, they show that feminine sustainability norms contain and promote a more holistic, inclusive and just view of sustainability which in turn is connected with the promotion of more sustainable transport choices and behavior. We rely on theoretical work on ideal types of gendered sustainability to study what kind of norms have influenced eight Swedish municipalities' (sustainable) transport policies 2015-2020. The analysis is based on 13 semi-structured interviews with local politicians (10) and civil servants (3), a qualitative text analysis of 699 documents and protocols from decision making meetings in municipal committees responsible for transport planning (Technical committees) including vision and strategic documents that span 2015-2020 from eight municipalities in Sweden. The material was coded and analyzed with Atlas.ti software. This paper contributes to better understanding how gender and political ideals relate to municipal decision-making on sustainable transport planning. We elaborate on whether and how gendered sustainability norms are used and integrated into actual decision making, what role gendered norms play in conflicts of priorities within transport politics and planning, and what implications this has for sustainable transport planning in Sweden. The results point at the ways in which gendered norms together with political agendas and priorities, different interpretations and understandings of sustainability and ways to achieve it, can impact the development of sustainable transport system on municipal level.