Introduction

How is feminism conducted in everyday foreign policy and what feminist routines do foreign policy actors practice? We know that men have long been doing foreign policy in homosocial environments ranging from golf courses, saunas and billiard rooms to hotel lobbies, smoking corners, banquets and bars (Nair, 2020). Since women (less so non-binary people) entered foreign policy institutions in the 20th century, it becomes important to understand how their contribution to diplomacy has changed the everyday practice of foreign policy (Aggestam and Towns, 2018). Practice is defined as the routine and innovative everyday behaviours that enable both continuity and change.

In recent work on International Practice Theory (IPT), we learn, for example, that because of the changes in women's status in foreign policy institutions, the understanding of a diplomatic spouse has started to transform (Standfield, 2022). For instance, the male-homosocial practice of playing golf has lost momentum in certain parts of the world because women as foreign policy actors are not interested in reproducing the traditional practices of their male counterparts (Nair, 2020). Given these changes, it is worth asking whether feminist practices of foreign policy are emerging and, if so, what they entail?

Drawing on International Relations (IR) feminist scholarship, this chapter shows how feminist practices of foreign policy involve an inclusive dialogue based on partner-oriented listening and respect for difference (Park-Kang, 2011; Robinson, 2011), self-reflective listening and attentiveness to positionality (Ackerly and True, 2008; Harcourt et al, 2015), and collaborative engagement in ‘third spaces’ (Nnaemeka, 2004; Kamaara et al, 2012). I argue that traditional practices of foreign policy can enable and constrain feminist practices of inclusive dialogue aimed at achieving empathetic cooperation in global politics (Sylvester, 1994). I thus look at how traditional foreign policy and new feminist practices coexist in everyday encounters of foreign policy actors and how these practices influence each other.

The chapter aims to contribute to IPT scholarship that has not comprehensively considered the role of gender and feminisms in foreign policy practice (Pouliot, 2008; Bueger and Gadinger, 2015; Bremberg, 2016). This neglect has led IPT to focus more on conflict than cooperation ignoring the role of social structures, such as gender, sex, class, race and others in shaping international interactions (Nair, 2020).

Introduction

Transnational feminist networks (TFNs) have been crucial to formulating and diffusing gender equality norms (True and Mintrom, 2001). They have advanced legislation and policies to uphold women's rights (Weldon and Htun, 2012), reinforced shared ideals of gender equality (Moghadam, 2005) and affirmed identity-solidarity among women globally (Alvarez, 2000). Feminist networks organize locally, nationally and transnationally and coalesce around various issues, from economic policy to environmental justice. More generally, feminist networks engage in collective action to contest patriarchal social, economic and political power structures and norms (Tarrow, 2011; True, 2024).

Feminist networks are manifestations of social networks that describe social and political problems using a gender and power-critical perspective (Tarrow, 2011; Krinsky and Crossley, 2014). Social networks ‘coordinate their efforts, pool their resources and act collectively’ (Krinsky and Crossley, 2014: 2). These networks use different strategies, such as framing, to create shared meanings and make sense of their reality (Benford and Snow, 2000). By framing collective understandings of injustices and inequalities, feminist networks lay the groundwork for initiatives (see Tarrow, 2011; Caiani, 2023). Hence, feminist networks extend their engagement beyond the descriptive realm to one that encompasses actionable demands and solutions.

Transnational networks connect organizations and ties across borders ‘through common ways of seeing the world … and contentious relationships with their targets’ (Tarrow, 2011: 241). Moghadam (2005: 4) defines TFNs as structures that ‘unite women from three or more different countries around a common agenda’. TFNs played a particularly relevant role in international politics during the 1980s and 1990s, when they lobbied states to guarantee and expand women's human rights and achieved concrete policy outcomes (Moghadam, 2005). The recent proliferation of feminist foreign policies has put feminist-informed foreign policy and governance at the forefront of international politics once again. With the diffusion of feminist foreign policy, what is the role of TFNs in advancing feminist-informed foreign policy and governance? This chapter seeks to answer this question.

One of the main criticisms of TFNs is that the shift in focus from the local to the transnational oversimplifies local complexities. For instance, Markland (2020: 20) argues that ‘combining global, regional, national and sub-national spaces can undermine and/ or mask existing social forms whose function cannot be reduced to a greater whole’. Transnational activism is critiqued for diminishing sense of place and flattening differences based on national origins and identities (Conway, 2017).

Introduction

Any discussion of ‘gender perspectives on X’ or ‘feminist approaches to Y’ must acknowledge and respond to the extreme precarity of the historical moment in which we live; to fail to do so is suicidal, and ecocidal. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2022), we have only until 2025 to end the rise of greenhouse gas emissions, and only until 2030 to halve them, if we are to have a chance of avoiding the most catastrophic effects of climate disruption. Even in 2023, we’ve already seen climate breakdown feedback loops intensifying faster than climate scientists had modelled or predicted (for example, the collapse of Atlantic currents, see Readfearn, 2023; Spratt, 2023; Zhong, 2023). At the same time, ecosystem decline proceeds at a staggering pace – a million species are now threatened with extinction, due not only to the climate crisis, but to the ways humans have also destroyed natural habitats, polluted air, land and water, and over-exploited nature's animal and plant life. Sir Robert Watson, Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), warns that ‘[t] he health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide’ (IPBES, 2019).

For this careening towards catastrophe to continue unabated, all that needs to happen is for all of us – including feminists – to just go on doing what we have done before, doing the work we have always done, in the ways that we have always done it. It is wildly irresponsible to let that happen.

Foreign policy, as it is conceptualized and practised, is a prime example of the ‘doing-things-as-we-have-always-done-them’ that has now become disastrously inadequate to and inappropriate for our tenuous historical present and our even more tenuous future. It is a policy realm whose centre, around which all else spins, is national self-interest. Even though states’ foreign policies may commit to a vision of a better, fairer, more peaceful world, their principal aim is always to advance their national security and prosperity through military strength and economic growth.

Introduction

In the past decade, feminist and pro-gender foreign policies have emerged across a range of countries as an ethical alternative to traditional foreign policy practices driven mainly by security and national interests. Rather than reproducing narrow definitions of these security interests, which tend to sediment prevalent global inequalities, feminist-informed foreign policies seek to further equality, justice and collective security through a transformation of the global gender order (Aggestam and True, 2020). Despite the growth of war and conflict in global politics, scholarship on gender and feminist approaches to foreign policy has rarely addressed the increasing militarism and militarization of state foreign policies. To address this gap, we ask where and how defence is addressed in feminist-informed foreign policies. The chapter calls for greater attentiveness to feminist scholarship on war as experience, just war theory, pacifism and self-defence to develop a more robust ethical content of pro-gender and feminist foreign policies. We argue that the lack of examination of military and defence policy in existing pro-gender and feminist foreign policies is a silence echoed in feminist scholarship.

We posit that defence is a core part of most states’ foreign policies,1 including those states which have adopted pro-gender and feminist approaches to foreign policy. Defence refers to activities focused on the protection of the state from external attack, whereby a range of institutional and material capabilities (the armed forces and the military) are employed to defend the nation against war. Importantly, defence

is distinct from security, which can be defined more broadly and holistically to focus beyond (just) the state, to include the individual and thus can include a range of issues, such as the environment. It is therefore possible to see why defence with its support for realpolitik can come into tension with feminism, which seeks to challenge such state-centred approaches. (Wright, 2024 )

This chapter analyses the relationship between feminist and pro-gender foreign policy on the one hand, and military and defence on the other by engaging with feminist ideas on just war, war as experience, pacifism and self-defence (Ruddick, 1995; Hutchings, 2019). We argue that for foreign policy to be transformative, it must also encompass the broad compass of a state's foreign policy concerns, including defence.

Introduction

The rise of digital disinformation as a threat to liberal democracies confronts the role of gender relations in foreign policy in new ways. The acceptance of ‘gendered disinformation’ as a foreign policy issue signals a gender-informed understanding of digital disinformation as a security concern. Digital disinformation campaigns that emanate from hostile actors around the world deliberately fuel misogyny, stereotypes and biases to manipulate public opinion and voting behaviours. These campaigns thereby intersect with and overlap public debate. Gendered disinformation is often successful because it resonates with the domestic contestation of gender norms. The construction of gendered disinformation as a security concern thereby implicates the sensitive relationship between disinformation and public opinion. The rise of gendered disinformation in the realm of foreign policy therefore challenges the status of gender norms in the liberal order by exposing the vulnerabilities of domestic polarization over gender equality. This chapter aims to introduce gendered disinformation as a foreign policy issue, and to discuss how studying this phenomenon may draw from previous scholarship on gender and feminism in foreign policy.

Digital disinformation, the diffusion of false information on digital platforms with the intent to deceive, strategically targets the foundations of democratic discourse and public deliberation by exploiting societal division around contested norms. It is a valued foreign policy instrument because it allows actors to exploit socio-political cleavages to spread confusion, amplify conflicts and further divide societies. Gender identities and norms have proven particularly susceptible to this form of manipulation (Bradshaw and Henle, 2021). Disinformation narratives gain traction in online networks when they resonate among audiences by connecting with local narratives, myths or identities (Schmitt, 2018). Digital disinformation thereby insects with and amplifies the known effects of online gender-based violence, such as the silencing and censoring of voices (Suzor et al, 2019). Disinformation campaigns, often favoured by autocratic regimes or groups and their allies, thus further weaponize sexist narratives within domestic debates as part of a foreign policy strategy (Di Meco and Brechenmacher, 2020). Analyses of foreign interference in democratic elections have demonstrated how prominent female candidates like nominee Hillary Clinton in the US presidential election of 2016, are disproportionally targeted through disinformation campaigns that exploit stereotypical and biased attitudes in voters (Jensen, 2018; Nee and De Maio, 2019).

Introduction

Foreign policy is a male-dominated field. Traditionally, foreign policy has centred around the security and national interests of states, largely neglecting women's needs and perspectives in responding to peace and conflict situations (Bell, 2019: 418). The burgeoning scholarship on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) has documented how women are disproportionately affected by war, violence, displacement and poverty, but usually excluded from decision-making processes and peace negotiations (United Nations Security Council, 2003; Davies and True, 2019; Newby and O’Malley, 2021). Yet foreign policy on peacemaking has been slow to adopt a pro-gender approach that recognizes the different roles and experiences of women and men in conflict and post-conflict contexts, and that supports the participation and empowerment of women at all levels of diplomacy. There has been a growing call for reinvigoration of foreign policy to meaningfully implement existing international instruments, such as WPS, and prioritize gender equality in peacemaking efforts. In this chapter, I argue that by prioritizing the voices and experiences of women and other marginalized groups, foreign policy can be transformed into a powerful tool for promoting gender equality and empowering peacemaking efforts around the world.

Pro-gender approaches to peacemaking are essential for achieving sustainable and inclusive peace, but they face many challenges and limitations in foreign policy. Gender approaches refer to the ways of incorporating gender perspectives and promoting gender equality in all aspects of peacebuilding, from conflict prevention and resolution to post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. Peacemaking is the process of negotiating and implementing agreements to end or prevent armed conflicts, involving official and unofficial actors at different levels. Foreign policy is the set of goals and actions that a state pursues in its relations with other states and international actors, often influenced by domestic and global factors. Despite the adoption of the WPS agenda by the United Nations Security Council, which recognizes the importance of women's participation and protection in conflict resolution and peacebuilding and the growing pro-gender norms in foreign policies, there is still a gap between rhetoric and reality in many peacemaking contexts.

There is a gap in foreign policy about promoting gender meaningfully in peace processes. Karen Smith (2020: 131) argues that foreign policy analysis (FPA) has generally left out the sex of the decision-maker and the gendered nature of the decision-making process.

Introduction

Gender is now a foreign policy issue on which some states are trying to lead, to promote either pro-or anti-gender norms (see Aggestam and True, 2021: 318). Over the past decade, a growing number of countries have pledged to adopt a feminist foreign policy while, at the same time, in other countries, authoritarian governments have rolled back gender equality norms (Chenoweth and Marks, 2022). In this chapter, we ask what drives some states to espouse a feminist foreign policy and others to lead an anti-gender movement? To answer this question, we focus on state leadership on gender and foreign policy, that is, states leading on pro-and anti-gender foreign policies in the international realm. As part of the explanation for state leadership, the chapter considers the role of political leaders advocating for these policies within states.

Leadership matters in foreign policy. We define leadership as being in the vanguard (Zhukova et al, 2022: 198). Through leadership, states seek prestige to bolster the country's image and status in international affairs (see Towns, 2010), but also their domestic legitimacy. Displaying leadership is a way for states to try to shape the international normative and institutional context, thus establishing their international status for years to come, and ‘locking in’ corresponding domestic policies. Furthermore, political leadership entails defining and clarifying goals for a group, and then bringing the group together to pursue those goals (Keohane, 2020: 236). Thus, state leadership with respect to feminist foreign policy means not only clarifying it as a goal and mustering the resources to pursue it but also setting an example for other states and leaders to follow.

Pro-gender equality state leadership may include the explicit adoption of the label feminist foreign policy, which adds a new quality to the pursuit of foreign policy goals. Many states have pro-gender equality foreign policies, but only a few have declared they are pursuing a feminist foreign policy. Aggestam and Bergman Rosamond (2016: 323) suggest more generally that ‘adopting the “f-word” … elevates politics from a broadly consensual orientation of gender mainstreaming toward more controversial politics, and specifically toward those that explicitly seek to renegotiate and challenge power hierarchies and gendered institutions that hitherto defined global institutions and foreign and security policies’.

Introduction

This chapter examines the ongoing challenges of and possibilities for renewed thinking in feminist development policies, highlighting the significance of decolonial feminism for guiding future development policies. Feminist development policies are at a critical juncture: they offer the potential to advance a new vision for international development yet fall short in rhetoric and substance for tackling persistent global challenges. Among the enduring challenges in international development are: the failure to address the needs and priorities of the poorest and most marginalized (including women and gender non-conforming individuals) with limited impacts on tackling inequality and poverty; accountability to donors and donor nations, rather than local communities where aid is meant to have the most impact; and insufficient strategies for addressing emerging and compounding global crises that lead to heightened insecurities for the most marginalized. Climate change, pandemics, food insecurity and the growing number of conflicts around the world are examples of crises we currently face, and our limited capacity to address these crises reduces our capacities for meeting global commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Meanwhile, new aid actors are entering the global arena with their own political relationships and distinct development strategies that further limit our progress in meeting our global commitments for a sustainable, equitable and just world.

This chapter begins with an overview of persistent and emerging challenges in foreign aid policy and international assistance. The second section considers the impact of feminist development policies, drawing on critical feminist analyses of current feminist development policies: Canada's 2017 Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) and Germany's 2023 Feminist Development Policy (FDP), with additional examples of foreign aid priorities from Sweden and Australia. The main themes emerging from the analysis of contemporary feminist development policies include neoliberalism and the instrumentalization of women's labour for other political and economic outcomes; the significance of intersectional feminist priorities and the need for clearer definitions of feminism; and strategies for translating policy to practice including funding allocations, monitoring and evaluation, and the potential for inside activists to enact feminist principles. The challenges outlined in this critical evaluation of feminist development policies highlight their current limitations, opportunities for innovation in practice, and the importance of a decolonial feminist vision for addressing the realities of contemporary development challenges and the complexity of compounding global crises.

Introduction

For over a century, feminists have advocated for women's participation in decision-making on war and peace to achieve a more just global order. There is today a growing recognition among states that promoting gender equality and the Women, Peace, Security (WPS) agenda as part of their foreign policies is not only useful for foreign aid and international development, but that such developments may also contribute to climate change policies to keep global warming below 2°C, to more inclusive trade, the stability of alliances, the prevention of conflict, terrorism and pandemics, and ultimately, the achievement of sustainable peace. At the same time, other powerful governments are contesting these ideas and fiercely resisting such foreign policy change. How can feminist scholarship advance the field of foreign policy analysis to understand contemporary foreign policy actions and challenges? A decade after states first adopted explicit pro-gender equality norms and/ or feminist foreign policy strategies, feminist and gender scholarship is now beginning to take off in the field of foreign policy analysis (FPA).

The overarching aim of the book is to provide the latest state-of-the-art in the study of gender, feminisms and foreign policy, and to advance the emerging subfield of feminist foreign policy analysis (FFPA). The volume presents new theories, novel concepts and empirical knowledge for this growing field of scholarship. It builds on innovations in feminist International Relations theory and FPA, both dynamic bodies of scholarship within International Relations (IR). Feminist IR theory is distinguished by its ‘plural and interdisciplinary theoretical orientation and multilevel approaches to method and empirical analysis’ (Aggestam and True, 2020: 147); while FPA is ‘multi-layered and conceptually complex, examining the many agents and institutions, cultures and identities, interests and perceptions that influence foreign policies’ in domestic politics and the international realm (Kaarbo and Thies, 2024: 2). In advancing FFPA, the book encompasses both feminist analysis of avowedly ‘feminist foreign policies’ and new feminist analyses of foreign policies on trade, defence, environment, disinformation, peacemaking and international development assistance. Moreover, it critically explores how diverse and contested gender and feminist approaches and strategies are put into practice across a range of countries’ foreign policy.

Gender and feminist strategies in foreign policy are often based on alternative understandings of power. Power politics does not guarantee peace nor can states bring about security and prosperity alone.

Introduction

Power is a critical concept in International Relations (IR) and central to all feminist work, including feminist approaches to foreign policy. Feminists demonstrate that the conduct of foreign policy is a hyper-masculine performance where states pursue national security and economic gains through ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power. This, in turn, constrains pro-gender norms (Aggestam and True, 2020) and alternative approaches to foreign policy that centre, for example, care, welfare and redistribution (Achilleos-Sarll, 2018; Robinson, 2021a). Unpacking the conduct, practice and effects of foreign policy, feminists demonstrate how foreign policy is deeply gendered all the way down. Despite these critical insights, feminist IR and foreign policy analysis (FPA) rarely engage in conversation (for exceptions, see Hudson and Leidl, 2015; Aggestam and True, 2020). While both mainstream and critical strands of FPA conceptualize power differently, the former more concerned with power understood as the material capabilities of states while the latter proposing a more variegated understanding, drawing into the analysis power as relational, ideational and normative, gender remains a blind spot for both (Hudson, 2005; Achilleos-Sarll, 2018; Aggestam and True, 2020). However, for feminist scholars gender is ‘intrinsic to the meaning of power itself’ (Aggestam and True, 2020: 154), seen as a ‘primary way of signifying relationships of power’ (Scott, 1988: 1067). This includes drawing attention to ‘how power operates in areas where most non-feminists deny there's any power at work’ (Enloe, 2013), as well as emphasizing that power is always relationally produced (Tickner, 1995; Sylvester, 1994). Feminism is therefore both a critique and reconceptualization of power.

If feminists understand power qualitatively differently to mainstream approaches, then the question arises whether feminist foreign policies also rest on alternative understandings of, and approaches to, power and thereafter foreign policy. This chapter therefore investigates how the concept of ‘power’ is ‘put into discourse’ (Shepherd, 2008) in feminist foreign policy. I ask what conceptualizations of power (and by extension what feminisms) are articulated within the discourse of feminist foreign policies and what are the constitutive political effects thereof. While feminists have assiduously unpacked the feminist-informed documents that have been produced by states since Sweden launched its avowedly ‘feminist’ foreign policy in late 2014 (for example, Thomson, 2020; Parisi, 2020), and often point to frequent mentions to power, and particularly empowerment, within these policies, seldom is the concept of power and its multiple strands the primary focus of analysis.

Introduction

Like other external policy domains, mainstreaming gender in the context of trade requires political leadership, that is, the willingness to include gender equality as an objective of trade policy. It demands an understanding of the link between domestic consumption and global production chains. This process is dependent on both expertise in gender mainstreaming and an institutional architecture prepared to accept the challenge posed by feminist critiques of foreign policy objectives and practice (Eveline and Bacchi, 2010; EIGE, 2019). Whereas feminist political economists have long demonstrated the gendered impact of trade policy (Garcia, 2021; Hannah et al, 2020), policy makers and practitioners have lagged in applying these insights to policy-making practice and strategy (True, 2009).

Trade is an interesting area of foreign policy in so far as it establishes a direct link between the personal, in which social reproduction largely occurs, domestic economic and social policies and global politics. As a policy domain, trade has also been traditionally defined by competition and advantage without much consideration for the social and historical context within which many trade agreements have been signed and international trade policy has been defined (Watson, 2016). The challenge for gender scholars has been to centre these connections, or interactions, to expose the hierarchies of power that support global economic structures. International trade policy is just one of the policy domains through which these hierarchies become normalized and reified. For instance, one of these hierarchies is the assumed neutrality of trade as a field of practice that is implicitly outward-facing, underpinned by the pursuit of state interests, and driven by the logic of competitive advantage. In the face of these global hierarchies, centering social reproduction to understand the impact of trade on socioeconomic relations thus becomes particularly challenging.

This chapter explores the contributions of feminist approaches to foreign policy analysis that centre the continuum between social reproduction and global trade. It argues that the insights stemming from this policy domain help us to understand the nexus between domestic and international politics in shaping foreign policy. Specifically, the chapter, like the rest of the chapters in this book, starts from the assumption that trade, as all other areas of foreign policy and external action, is gendered even though it has been frequently portrayed as gender-neutral or gender-free. These omissions are not what sets trade apart from other domains of foreign policy.

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.