Introduction: Governing Gender Equality Policy in Changing State

This chapter introduces the topic of this book, the governance of gender equality policy in a changing Nordic welfare state and locates the book in previous research on gender and governance and outlines its empirical and theoretical contributions in this research. The chapter introduces the book’s focus on specific public governance trends that are diffused transnationally by international institutions and expert organisations and that adopt to local political, economic and institutional settings. It introduces four public governance trends that are the focus of this book: strategic governance, a shift from welfare to workfare, economic governance and public finance management reforms and evidence-based policy. It also introduces Finland as the context of this book.