The Adoption of Feminist Foreign Policy: The cases of Chile and Sweden

A growing number of states are adopting a feminist foreign policy (FFP). Whilst this change has excited much scholarly attention, the process by which countries decide to adopt FFP remains unclear: How can we explain their journey towards the formal adoption of FFP? What factors created an environment in which these states were willing (and able) to declare their foreign policy feminist? We bring together literature on FFP and foreign policy change to identify the factors that lead to the uptake of FFP. The roles of a favorable domestic context; policy entrepreneurs; a new governing coalition; and the international context for feminism, are highlighted as having clear impact on the decision to adopt FFP. The paper focuses on two different cases: Sweden, which pioneered the idea of FFP until a rollback on its position following domestic elections in 2022, and Chile, which only adopted FFP in 2022.