Gender politics in Sweden is considered unique because gender policies (jämställdhet) are integrated into national politics and politicised both in the public and the private sphere. The Swedish case is therefore considered a role model by many feminist scholars.

This view has been criticised by both post modern feminists and public administration scholars. Critics imply that the increased immigration and more heterogeneous population have led to a new challenge for state institutions. The Swedish model, with its universal welfare solutions, lacks the ability to recognise differences within groups. Universal solutions that treat everyone the same is no longer the most just way to treat people.

The growing use of goal orientation in Swedish public administration has increased the civil servants discretion in the implementation process, and thereby the space for differentiated treatment. This thesis aims to study the civil servants that implement gender policies in every day practice. It is focused on their interpretations of gender and gender equality and how this affects their exercise of authority. The thesis is a case study of two authorities in a heterogeneous area – the northern part of Botkyrka.

By using a two-fold theoretical approach and combine two perspectives, feminism and a policy analysis, the study analyses how the front-line bureaucrats handle the tension between the universal welfare politics and the demands of the immigrants. The first theoretical approach presents two different feminist perspectives: one that values economic redistribution and one that find it more fair to recognise differences between women. The second approach introduces theories on implementation that makes it possible to study how interpretations have an impact on the exercise of authority in front-line bureaucracies.

The main result of the study is that the front-line bureaucrats’ interpretations differ from the national gender politics. They have a more differentiated view of women than the universal Swedish gender politics. The study also shows that front-line bureaucrats tend to attribute negative cultural factors to immigrants. These prejudices find their way through the bureaucracy, into the public administration and the exercise of authority.