About us / Centres

The Institute of Contemporary History

Dela

Graphic element for the Institute of Contemporary HistoryThe Institute of Contemporary History (Samtidshistoriska institutet) is a multi-disciplinary research institute at Södertörn University.

We focus on current issues in society and political culture,  such as parties and institutions, power shifts, global governance, the role of civil society, gender politics, trends in public administration, and the history of the Baltic Sea area.

Gender and local - Genre et locale

This comparative research project was based on a case study and involved seven EU states - Belgium, France, Finland, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden. Its purpose was to locate the possibilities of change resulting from women's increased participation in local government.

The research project intended to bring out the effects of the gendered composition of elected political bodies and women's dynamic contribution to the fate of the community.

In order to do this the project examined:

  1. women's current place in decision making and the reasons for sex inequality in political representation;
  2. the impact of the informal political sphere (NGOs etc.) on the decisions of elected representatives as well as women's role in this type of activity;
  3. the effects of shifts in the forms of government (weight of inter-communal bodies, interaction between local and EU level) and the way in which these influence gender relations.

Coordination

The research project was coordinated by Professor Jacqueline Heinen, University of Versailles St-Quentin-en-Yvelines and at Sciences Po, Paris, France.

Research

Research was carried out by research teams in seven European countries: Belgium, France, Finland, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden. The Swedish team was in charge of the website.

Presentation of the project (in French, with English abstract)

presentation_genderandlocal.pdf

 

Final report

The final report is written in French and was published in 2004. It can be downloaded here:

rapport_final_1.pdf

rapport_final_2.pdf

 

Guide to the integration of gender equality in local government policies

A guide to the integration of gender equality in local government policies was published in six different languages (English, French, Dutch, Italian, Finnish and Portuguese).

You can download the guides from the page to the right.

Updated by Clare Barnes 2011-10-18. Content manager Mari Gerdin.

Content