The Emergence of a Dutch Feminist Foreign Policy: On the Co-construction of a New Policy Framework

Abstract

On the 5th of May, 2022, the Dutch ministers of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Hoekstra and Schreinemacher announced that the Netherlands would adopt a Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP). This adoption of an FFP is part of an international trend that started with Sweden in 2014. This thesis contributes to the growing body of literature on FFPs by exploring the Dutch FFP as a case study. It analyses the contexts and factors that have driven the process of the adoption and development of the Dutch FFP and the risks involved in this process. It demonstrates how feminists inside of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have used their position to advocate for feminist approaches and have taken on a leading role in the development of the FFP. Additionally, it finds that these feminist insiders are part of and supported by a larger feminist cooperative constellation with feminist experts and actors in civil society. The push for the Dutch FFP was made possible by the international context of an FFP trend, in which the Netherlands takes part to maintain its status and be seen as a norm entrepreneur. If the FFP merely functions as a label for this status, however, it risks playing into problematic gendered global hierarchies. If not undertaken in a reflexive manner, the Dutch FFP could therefore contribute to power imbalances rather than restoring them, thereby defeating its own purpose.