Var tog politiken vägen? Om regionalpolitik, jämställdhet och statens förändrade former

Abstract

This article analyses the relationship between how politics is organised and the potential for politicising gender, and discusses how feminist theory of the state could be used in order to understand this relationship. Regional policy, and especially regional partnerships as an established way of doing politics at the regional level, is used as an example of new forms of organising politics. Constructions of gender equality in regional policy is scrutinised as a way of analysing how gender is (or is not) politicised in this policy field. As a theoretical backdrop the definition of politics is elaborated as an ongoing process where the dimension of conflict is necessary and where place is seen as constituted through power. The author argues that new, seemingly inclusive, ways of organising politics also could work in an excluding manner. Further the author shows how demands for including gender equality doesn’t go further than the ambition of ”balancing in” women. Thus gender is not made into a political dimension. These processes are framed within a theoretical understanding of changes in politics from “government” to “governance” in a neo-liberal political culture, and analysed with post-structural feminist theorising of the state emphasising the need of seeing the state as complex, while still having privileges as a political actor.