'Doing Good'? Interpreting the normative underpinnings of Sweden's foreign policy

Abstract

This study seeks to contribute to the literature on ethical foreign policy through an empirical analysis of normative ideas guiding Sweden’s foreign policy since the 1960s. Drawing on normative theory, the study challenges the conventional distinction between and meaning of ethics and national interest in the foreign policy domain. Conceptualizing the state as an actor whose decision-makers are making an effort to pursue foreign policy in the interests of distant others, we are able to study the possibilities and pitfalls of ethical foreign policymaking on its own terms. Building on a theoretical framework coupling constructivism and foreign policy analysis (FPA) I generate a typology of two divergent normative directions in Swedish foreign policy tradition; active internationalism and Europeanized liberal internationalism. Applying the typology to a case study of Sweden’s current government (a coalition of the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party), I analyze the extent to and ways in which tradition has informed the government’s human rights-based, and more specifically women’s rights-based foreign policy.