Protection beyond Borders: Gender Cosmopolitanism and Co-constitutive Obligation

Sweden's self-identity is that of a state sensitive to the protection of women's rights and security, within and across borders. This process is here defined as one of gender cosmopolitanism, which rests on a dual commitment to the protection of women. The piece is informed by an understanding of national borders as porous social constructs, the juridical significance of which can be set aside in consideration of the needs of distant other women. This thesis will be sustained through a deconstruction of the co-constitutive intertextual relationship between Sweden's dual commitment to the combat of gendered violence at home and abroad. The article is situated within thin cosmopolitan interpretations of global obligation across borders. However, such approaches frequently offer gender-blind analysis of global moral dilemmas and, given this, it is important to consider feminist scholarship on ethical obligation. Ethics of care scholarship provides useful insights into the benefits of adopting a relational ontology. However, to fully grasp the ethical underpinnings of gender cosmopolitanism, we need to engage with feminist scholarship that is sympathetic to universal claims. A key argument developed throughout the piece is that feminism provides a good basis for the problematisation of borders as sites of social, political and economic inclusion and exclusion. The last part of the article offers a discursive analysis of two sets of official documents on Sweden's protection of women from gendered violence, drawing upon broad feminist critical reflection. It is argued that Swedish gender cosmopolitanism is constituted within universalism, while being firmly grounded in typically national preferences for gender equality. This is indicative of the employability of cosmopolitanism as a moral platform for the analysis of specific states' problematising of borders as sites of inclusion and exclusion.