Implementing change initiatives in organisations is particularly challenging when these threaten established norms and status hierarchies. This paper examines expressions of resistance when sexual harassment is addressed in the Swedish police, and analyses how such resistance can be understood in this context. The data consists of field studies and 65 interviews within the Police Authority and Police Academies in Sweden. The results show that sexual harassment is attributed to a few individual 'rotten apples' or framed as a 'generational issue', and thus not seen as a collective and organisational concern. The resistance strategies seek to protect an appreciated sexualised banter in the organisation, and criticise the tone, allocated resources, and attribution of responsibility in initiatives against sexual harassment, in particular an explicit gendering of the issue. The resistance moreover contributes to individualise and externalise sexual harassment and avoid accountability. The article discusses the implications of resistance practices for the organisation's efforts to prevent sexual harassment and suggest that resistance must be acknowledged and addressed when implementing change initiatives. This is particularly important when change is perceived as challenging positive aspects of work culture and involves accountability for misconduct.

One gender dimension of corruption that has recently received increasing attention is sexual corruption, sometimes called sextortion – i.e. abuse of power in exchange for sexual gain. This article discusses the implications of the general scarcity of specific legislation. In particular, given the lack of recognition of sexual corruption as corruption, we argue that victim-centered campaigns, focused on awareness-raising, reporting and victim empowerment, run the risk of causing further harm to victims. To coherently move forward with policy-making and legislating, we propose a definition of sexual corruption that is firmly anchored in the abuse of entrusted power. We illustrate this argument with an example of the criminalization of sexual corruption in Tanzania, where the legal framework clearly distinguishes sexual corruption from monetary forms of bribery. In bribery cases, both parties are liable, whereas in cases of sexual corruption only the actions of the person in a position of entrusted power are criminalized. We conclude that while action against sexual corruption is sorely needed, initiatives must be responsive to existing definitions, societal awareness, and the legal status of sexual corruption.

Sworn police officers have a duty to report any legal offence that comes to their attention, and refraining from reporting constitutes misconduct. This article discusses the implications of the duty to report for handling sexual harassment within the Swedish police force. The discussion is based on interviews with police officers and on testimonies from the 2017 #metoo call from Swedish police. We show that the duty to report contributes to silence about experiences of sexual harassment, since reporting might initiate a legal process and break ‘the blue code of silence’. The duty to report implies an approach to sexual harassment along a criminal logic, focusing on legal classification, documentation of proof, and witness tampering. This criminal logic individualizes sexual harassment, raises the bar for what is interpreted as harassment, and closes off alternative approaches to prevent organizational factors that enable harassment.

We propose a new definition of sexual corruption – focusing on the abuse of power by those entrusted with it, and broad enough to address every form of sexual corruption.

Avslöjandet att en av landets högsta polischeferanmälts för grova brott skakar omPolismyndigheten. Organisationen har sedantidigare visatbrister i hur misstänkta övergrepphanteras och utreds. Polisens anmälningspliktförstärker tystnadskulturen, skriver Silje Lundgrenoch Malin Wieslander som forskar om sexuellatrakasserier inom polisen.

This chapter analyses two court cases in Sweden and Norway in which men with positions of entrusted power were convicted of making their services conditional on sexual favours. This is known as ‘sextortion’. The chapter shows how the verdicts from the District Courts in both countries took into consideration the perpetrators’ abuse of entrusted power and the victims’ positions of dependency, which enabled undue exploitation. However, the verdict from the Swedish Court of Appeal introduced a discussion of consent and applied a ‘reverse sextortion logic’, arguing that since the victims were dependent on the services of the perpetrator, they effectively ‘consented’ to the sexual acts. The chapter argues that an analytical framework of sextortion necessitates a shift in focus from the question of the consent of the victim to the perpetrator’s abuse of entrusted power and, through this, manages to recentre the perpetrator’s responsibility for the abuse. Furthermore, the chapter analyses how a Nordic self-image characterised by ‘exceptionalism’ – including aspects of gender equality, othering of sexual violence, and a non-corruption culture – prevents acknowledgement of the abuse of power. Such a self-image protects perpetrators that operate from the core of national belonging, contributing to the invisibility and impunity of their crimes.

Many acts of sexual harassment, violence and abuse include quid pro quo elements: A teacher who demands ‘sex for grades’. A civil servant who offers a job candidate an internship in exchange for sex. A border official who asks women migrants to pay with their bodies to be able to cross a border. A manager who offers a promotion in exchange for a sexual favour. These are all examples of ‘sextortion’. 

Sextortion occurs when a person with entrusted authority abuses this authority to obtain a sexual favour in exchange for a service or a benefit that is within their power to grant or withhold. Thus, sextortion is an abuse of power and it is simultaneously an act of sexual violence and of corruption: sexual conduct involving coerced quid pro quo (this for that) and a corrupt conduct in which the currency is sex.

The paper theorizes and conceptualizes sextortion as an abuse of power which has elements of both corruption and gender-based violence, and which cannot be analysed without incorporating both. We ask how the fact that the currency is sex changes the dynamics of the transaction and our understanding of corruption. We also argue that the fact that sextortion is an exchange involving a sexual transaction is key to understanding its consequences and invisibility. In cases of sextortion, the perpetrator can often rely on the coerced sexual transactional aspect to imply consent.  From the point of view of the victim, shame, stigma and fear make it unlikely that sextortion will be reported. Sextortion thus goes beyond corruption and cannot be fully understood, or tackled, without also seeing it as a form of gender-based violence.