Governance och genus- en pilotstudie om att analysera ett nutida stadsvetenskapligt begrepp från ett genusperspektiv

Following essay discusses the possibilities of using a gender perspective when studying local governance within a Swedish context. Governance is an international concept used to describe a more lose, informal and network based way of doing politics The main purpose for conducting this essay is that traditional theoretical frameworks used in the study of local politics are not enough to fully conceptualize the complexity of our changing political environment. After a broad summing up of what had been done in the recent decades within Swedish political science on the topic of local politics and gender I came to the conclusion that so far nothing had been written on governance. The next step was therefore to conduct a pilot study to cover the subject matter of governance and gender. The study was based upon interviews with five female politicians in Malmoe city. Results showed that governance, in terms of informal networks did exist, and had influence over the local politics. Some of the networks were male dominated. From a gender perspective, the shift from government to governance raises new questions concerning democracy and inclusion. The pilot study shows the complexity of the concept and the difficulties of performing such research, but it also gives some insights that will help further studies. Key words: gender, governance, local politics, Malmoe, network. Nyckelord: genus governance, lokal politik, Malmö, nätverk