ABSTRACT
Norway is a developed state and a model for other developing states to follow. Therefore, a decision such as making military compulsory for both genders is something that has to be understood and scrutinized, especially because it is the only European country to do so and for the fact that it covers an area that has not been so debated so far, namely women and the military.
The purpose of this thesis to find the reasons behind Norway’s decision: Why did Norway make military compulsory for women? For answering this main question two macro theories have been used: realism and gender equality and also Segal’s “Women’s Military Roles Cross-Nationally: Past, Present and Future” theory, which has also been used to answer the secondary question of: Is there an alternative to the decision? The realism theory has been used in order to analyse the security and peacekeeping hypothesis while the gender equality theory has been used in order to analyse the gender equality hypothesis. Furthermore the thesis has answered to the following questions as well: What are the views on the decision? What arguments revolve around the decision? What are the problems behind the decision?
By carefully using the collected data, after creating a historical and national context and presenting the theories, through a thorough analysis the conclusions have been drawn. None of the selected reasons stands out as a main factor for Norway’s decision, although all of them seem to have a certain level of influence. While security seems to might have the slightest effect, peacekeeping and gender equality have a higher significance. Education and norm diffusion are also acknowledged as potentially having some influence on Norway’s decision.
The views presented describe the arguments for and against the decision, which are diverse and most of the time opposite. This allowed a multiple perspective understanding of the way the decision is seen and related to the expected results.
Having the lack of gender equality and diversity as problems, an alternative to the decision, for Norway, would have been to make conscription voluntary for both genders and afterwards making the Armed Forces more appealing to women.