The Comparative Politics of Substantive Representation: Exploring Women Foreign Policy Elites in the US, Finland and Sweden

Abstract

A series of influential studies maintain that growing emphases on matters of human security - notably the impact of non-state actors on human rights debates in international organizations and global politics generally - have gradually eclipsed traditional preoccupations with state actors and matters of state security. Little is known, however, about whether women who were appointed to senior foreign affairs roles acted as transmission belts for trans-national social movements, which pressed for action in areas including the use of rape as a weapon of war, international trafficking in women, reproductive health, and the gendered politics of transitions to democracy and other post-conflict scenarios. This paper uses the extensive literature on elected elites to develop a comparative framework for analyzing the impact of senior women appointees, generating a series of propositions to inform ongoing research on foreign affairs ministers and UN ambassadors in Finland, Sweden and the US. These countries constitute three of the only advanced democratic systems in which contemporary leaders from disparate parts of the political spectrum appointed women to peak positions in the field for sustained periods of time. The study finds women appointed by progressive parties were more likely than those from other parts of the spectrum to dedicate sustained attention to trans-national feminist goals, and Nordic appointees on average were more engaged than their US counterparts.