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Focusing on imaginaries of the ideal city is an important method to illustrate the power of ideas, imagination, representations and even visions, and how these dimensions influence the way in which cities are organized and lived. In this article, we argue that one current and important city imaginary in a Swedish context is the gender-equal city. In this imaginary, the gender-equal city becomes a symbol for the open, tolerant, bustling, safe city, a city aiming to attract the middle and creative classes. However, at the same time, the imaginary of the ideal, gender-equal city is highly ambiguous. This ambiguity will be discussed throughout the article. Based on present planning projects in the city of Umeå in Sweden, we will discuss how the imaginary of the gender-equal city is presented, filled with meaning and used in place marketing, with the overall ambition of discussing the possibilities and pitfalls of what we call the gender-equality planning strategy. The aim of the article is to study how the city of Umeå is acting to create a gender-equal city and what kind of imaginaries these practices build on. The material consists primarily of a case study focusing on projects that aim to create an equal city, and also includes analyses of policy documents and media reports. This study illustrates how imaginaries are produced through local projects and different imaginaries provide different spaces for politicizing gendered power relations. ; Imaginar la ciudad ideal, planear la ciudad géneroigualitaria en Umeå, Suecia RESUMEN Centrarse en los imaginarios de una ciudad ideal es un método importante para ilustrar el poder de las ideas, la imaginación, las representaciones e incluso las visiones, y cómo estas dimensiones influyen sobre la forma en que están organizadas y son vividas las ciudades. En este artículo, sostenemos que un imaginario actual e importante de la ciudad en un contexto sueco es la ciudad género-igualitaria. En este imaginario, la ciudad género-igualitaria se vuelve un símbolo para la ciudad abierta, tolerante, bulliciosa y segura, una ciudad que apunta a atraer a las clases medias y creativas. Sin embargo, al mismo tiempo, el imaginario de la ciudad ideal y género-igualitaria es altamente ambiguo. Esta ambigüedad será discutida a lo largo del artículo. Basado en los proyectos actuales de planificación en la ciudad de Umeå en Suecia, analizaremos cómo se presenta el imaginario de la ciudad géneroigualitaria, cómo se llena de significado y es utilizado para el márketing dellugar, con el propósito general de discutir las posibilidades y dificultades de lo que llamamos la estrategia de planificación de la igualdad de género. El objetivo del artículo es estudiar cómo la ciudad de Umeå analiza crear una ciudad género-igualitaria y sobre qué tipos de imaginarios se construyen estas prácticas. El material consiste principalmente de un estudio de caso centrado en proyectos que apuntan a crear una ciudad igualitaria, y también incluye un análisis de documentos públicos e informes de medios. Este estudio ilustra cómo los imaginarios son producidos a través de proyectos locales y diferentes imaginarios proveen distintos imaginarios para politizar las relaciones de poder generizadas. ; 在瑞典于默奥想像一座理想的城市,规划性别平等的城市 摘要 聚焦理想城市的想像,是描绘概念、想像、再现甚至是愿景的力量,以 及这些面向如何影响城市组织和生活的方式之重要方法。我们于本文中 主张,在瑞典的脉络中,当前一种重要的城市想像便是性别平等的城 市。在此般想像中,性别平等的城市成为开放、容忍、熙攘、安全城市 的象徵——一个旨在吸引中产与创意阶级的城市。但于此同时,理想且 性别平等的城市之想像是高度模稜两可的。此般模稜两可之处将于本文 通篇进行讨论。我们将根据瑞典于默奥城市当前的规划方案,探讨性别 平等城市的想像如何呈现、注入意义并应用于地方行销,并以探讨我们 所谓的性别平等规划策略的可能性与陷阱做为总体目标。本文的目标在 于研究于默尔城市如何行动,以创造性别平等的城市,以及这些实践是 建构在什麽样的想像之上。研究材料主要包含一个聚焦旨在创造平等城 市的计画之案例研究,并同时包含对于政策档案及媒体报导的分析。本 研究描绘想像如何透过地方计画进行生产,以及不同的想像如何提供不 同的空间,对性别化的权力关係进行政治化。 ; Rädsla och trygghet i ord och handling

In planning contexts, safety is often discussed from a women's perspective. An ideal site for exploring some of the key issues is Umeå, a medium-sized town in northern Sweden. Here, attention to women's fear of violence greatly increased at the turn of the century, when a single repeat offender known as the 'Haga Man' assaulted several women in the city. People's (especially women's) fear of violence came to be seriously recognised, discussed and taken into consideration in the city's planning. The present research is based on an analysis of empirical data collected in 2008, through interviews with people who in various ways work to increase safety in Umeå. The paper addresses how the informants define the problem of fear of violence in public space and the strategies they employ to address it, what could be described as the analytical-practice paradox, as the results show the difficulties of integrating gender-aware planning into planning practice.

This study analyses the responses and reactions among women in Umeå during the period of threat from the Haga Man: a serial rapist operating between 1998 and 2006, and highlights how women in this new situation handled feelings of vulnerability and fear of violence in public space. The article analyses the ways women positioned themselves in their narratives and how this could be understood in terms of how they negotiated spaces for agency within a context where public space has been represented as safe and gender-equal. Women's fear of violence is discussed in relation to Swedish gender equality discourses and contextual constructions of femininity. The research is based on empirical data collected through in-depth interviews with women in Umeå. The results show the difficulties of claiming the official position of a gender-equal femininity. The informants' ambivalence, and partly anger, in relation to a femininity they wanted but could not have also created an opportunity for critique of women's position in society and thus a challenge to a presumed gender equality that stands in the way of addressing issues of gendered power relations.

Abstract.  This article uses a discursive approach to analyze how gender equality has and is being constructed and given meaning in the context of Swedish regional policy. Drawing on Carole Bacchi's 'What's the Problem? Approach', we explore how arguments concerning the new forms of regional policy are assigning different categories of people different subject positions and, in particular, we focus on the kind of subject positions that are being given to women as a group in this context. The discourse being shaped in national policy is, however, interpreted in specific contexts. Accordingly, we compare the way this new discourse is being (re)interpreted and (re)constructed and the subject positions being ascribed to women in the regional development partnerships and growth strategies in two Swedish regions: Västerbotten and Jönköping. Finally, we draw attention to how both the form and the content of Swedish regional development policies create great difficulties for politicizing gender as a power dimension in society. We suggest that regional politics has become de‐politicized and argue for the need for it to be re‐politicized with gender included as a conflict dimension.

Under de senaste åren har frågor om trygghet tagit allt mer plats i det offentliga samtalet. Det kan handla om att otryggheten breder ut sig, att den måste bekämpas och att vi måste kunna vara trygga på gator och torg. Vissa grupper pekas ut som mer otrygga medan andra blir de som står för otryggheten. Vid en närmare granskning blir det dock tydligt att trygghet är mer komplicerat än så. Att det som är tryggt för vissa kan vara otryggt för andra. Att talet om trygghet kan betyda både hårdare straff och en längtan efter ett eget hem. Denna bok består av två delar som tillsammans tar sig an (o)trygghet från olika perspektiv samhälleliga föreställningar, politiska förändringar och ambitioner att arbeta för förändring. Bokens författare har sin hemvist i olika akademiska discipliner etnologi, folkhälsovetenskap, genusvetenskap, konstvetenskap, kulturgeografi, socialt arbete, statsvetenskap och urbana studier och ger därmed en mångfacetterad bild av vad (o)trygghet betyder i dagens Sverige

"This edited volume presents critical scholarship analysing governance practices in diverse jurisdictions in Europe and North America, at multiple scales, and in relation to several different arenas of policy and practice. The contributors address shortcomings in the mainstream literature on governance within the discipline of political science. The volume as a whole is marked by geographical and topical diversity. However, what the individual chapters have in common is that each considers whether and how gender, racialized identity, and/or other axes of marginalization are visible within the conceptualizations and/or practices of governance under discussion. Drawing together insights and conceptual tools from both feminist and post-structuralist frameworks in analysing governance practices, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and graduates who engage with feminist and/or post-structural analysis of policy and governance. It will also be of use to critical policy scholars in anthropology, geography, sociology, and womeń';s studies."--Provided by publisher.

Research has shown that the last few decades of neoliberal governing has transformed the state and its organization, but less attention has been paid to the growing practice of governments outsourcing work to private consultants. Knowledge is an important aspect of governing and we therefore use a governmentality approach to analyze consultants' knowledge production for a national government agency, through the narratives of employees. The results suggest a rationality that sees consultants as cost effective, prompt and objective observers, but that the procurement process, their external position and the buyer–seller relationship undermines quality and the will to "speak truth to power", and produces a "brain-drain" from government agencies. This may have serious consequences for governments' self-reflection, efforts at internal critique and actions. It may also reshape the political context of public administration and the accountability of governments.

AbstractIn this paper, we develop an approach for analyzing the increasingly important strand of research that deals with automated systems of governing. Such systems, which figure prominently in public policy and regulation, are designed to utilize the rapid advancement in computer technology, like artificial intelligence, with the purpose of governing something or someone. Drawing on a large sample of articles we present a comprehensive analysis of scholarly works where these systems are studied as political, rather than neutral, instruments of governing. We find that the current state of the art articulates the politics of automated systems of governing in three ways. Namely, as part of ontological, epistemological and ideological questions. We conclude that future research should investigate the complex forms of marketization nested in these systems, that it should move from theoretical examples to detailed empirical studies and that political science should get more involved with the issue.

AbstractOver the past few decades, Sweden has established itself as a "world leader" in gender equality. Alongside this development, Swedish politicians have also initiated ambitious plans that aim to establish the country as "world class" in terms of digitalization. International research shows that women and racialized groups are in a minority in the design processes, that AI facial recognition systems are built with white male faces as the norm, and that digital tools replicate racial injustices. In this paper, we are interested in if, and if so how, gender equality is articulated and thus filled with meaning in national policies on AI and digitalization. The overall aim is to discuss the potential of gender (equality) mainstreaming to challenge systems of privilege in the implementation of AI systems in the public sector. The paper analyses how gender equality is filled with meaning in national policy documents on AI and gender equality. The main findings show that gender equality is turned into a question of lack of knowledge and information, which in turn blocks out an understanding of gender equality as something that is related to gendered power relations.

The aim of this article is to examine trends of democratic backsliding associated with the long standing reform work on regional institutions and policies in Sweden. To this end, democratic backsliding is conceptualized in a different manner compared to conventional understandings. By doing so, the article highlights a missing aspect in the research on democratic backsliding that concerns how well-intended reforms designed to strengthen democratic institutions can also harbor non-democratic consequences. In Sweden, a new political arena was created when the former county councils were transformed into so-called called regions in 2019. As part of this, the regions have been assigned responsibility for both health care and regional development planning. The overall research problem to be analyzed in this article focuses on the relations between the policy objectives for democracy and regionalist ideas of economic growth that both were central concerns in the reform processes. The results highlight how the governing rationalities in the regional reform processes have changed during the period between 1990 and 2020. The original conception of creating a mini-version of a liberal and representative democracy have turned into a form of democratic backsliding privileging economic goals. The economic rationalities that permeate the political sphere today close the space for articulated different interests and opinions-a dimension that we argue is crucial for any democratic society. We draw two main conclusions: First that the neoliberal aspect of governing is missing in the analysis of democracy at the regional level, resulting in a descriptive discussion of democracy that tend to ignore the effects of the particularly strong emphasis on economic growth. Secondly, that there is a lack of a discussion on democracy that takes the regional level into account, i.e., that the sub-national level should be regarded and thus discussed as a distinctive level of democracy.