4 АНОТАЦІЯ
This study aims to determine the role of local self-government and public administration in the context of comprehensive defense, taking into account the gender component of the state policy of Ukraine. For a long time, the issue of involving women in important state processes, in particular those related to the sphere of security and defense, was not given much attention due to a number of different reasons, including gender stereotypes. However, the European integration movement of Ukraine created the conditions for reviewing the existing legal framework, the issue became particularly relevant during the war, when a significant number of issues related to ensuring decision-making in the sphere of defense and security in the context of decentralization were assigned to local self-government bodies and newly formed military-civilian administrations. The study conducts a qualitative analysis of the current legislation regulating the issue of comprehensive defense within the competence of local self-government bodies and local self-government bodies, and provides data from expert surveys of local self-government bodies and local self-government bodies at the local level to identify the practice of applying the norms stipulated by the legislation, and the obstacles faced by officials and politicians. The paper identifies opportunities that remain for increasing women’s engagement at the local level in issues related to comprehensive defense in recent years, especially since the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022.
Keywords: defense, comprehensive defense, public administration, local government, gender equality, Russia’s war against Ukraine, Ukraine.
The research was conducted by the CSO "Expert Resource Gender in Detail" as part of the project “Gender Mainstreaming in the Context of Comprehensive Defence”, funded by the grant “Best Practices of the Swedish Gender Approach as a Tool for Empowering Ukrainian Women to Implement Sustainable Reforms and Promote Ukraine’s European Integration”, with financial support from the Swedish Institute and in partnership with the Swedish International Liberal Centre.
The project draws on gender mainstreaming practices within Sweden’s comprehensive defence system and represents the first attempt in the Ukrainian context to explore the possibilities of implementing a Swedish-style comprehensive defence strategy in Ukraine while simultaneously integrating a gender perspective across key sectors, including the economy, care work, the armed forces, civil defence, governance, information policy, and the volunteer movement.
The project’s concept author and project lead is Tamara Zlobina, PhD in Philosophy and Head of the CSO "Expert Resource Gender in Detail".
Project mentors and reviewers of the analytical reports:
Olena Strelnyk, Doctor of Sociological Sciences
Hanna Hrytsenko, Gender Expert
Project managers: Alyona Hruzina, Halyna Repetska
