Introduction

This book has examined the rise of pro-and anti-gender equality norms and feminist principles within and across foreign policy. Studying the foreign policies of selected countries and diverse foreign policies including trade, defence, peacemaking and the environment, we have sought to advance knowledge of how and why diverse gender and feminist approaches and strategies are put into practice. The overarching objective of this book has been to foreground a new subfield of research, feminist foreign policy analysis, which is situated in the intersection of feminist International Relations (IR) and foreign policy analysis. Building on recent efforts to integrate foreign policy analysis in the study of IR and calls for new types of integrative explanations to address the disruptions and new challenges in foreign policy, we argue that the time is now ripe for theoretical innovation in foreign policy analysis. As part of that endeavour, we have advanced a theoretically informed comparative framework for gendering foreign policy, seeking new empirical knowledge to explain why states adopt new and varying foreign policy norms and practices, including avowedly ‘feminist’ ones (Aggestam and True, 2020; 2021; 2023). Harnessing the insights of feminist international theory as well as IR scholarship on leadership and norm entrepreneurship, transnational networks, foreign policy orientation and state identity, and different conceptions and projections of power is vital for understanding continuity and change in foreign policy in an increasingly contested and turbulent global political order. To further develop the subfield of feminist foreign policy analysis we also need more systematic cross-national studies that examine different foreign policies and conduct comparative institutional analyses of pro-and anti-gender equality foreign policies. With the same feminist foreign policy analysis framework, we can also examine and track progress, contestation and backlash against pro-gender norms in foreign policy.

Juliet Kaarbo and Cameron Thies (2024: 11) recognize that there is little work that connects foreign policy analysis to learning from developments in feminist theory, practice theory, postcolonialism, ethics and so on. Yet, as we have argued elsewhere, synergies are to be found particularly between foreign policy analysis and feminist theory (Aggestam and True, 2020). Feminism is a key theoretical tradition to which foreign policy analysis can connect (Kaarbo and Thies, 2024: 11) and foreign policy analysis can benefit from feminism's interrogation of gendered leadership, ethics and IR feminist empirical exploration of networks and non-state actors in foreign policy.