Gender in International Relations

1518 Words4 Pages

International relations (IR) is the study of relationships among countries. As an academic field it uses normative theory to provide a conceptual framework with which the discipline can be analyzed. These theories can be divided into two fields. The first, positivist/rationalist, focuses on state-level analysis to determine causal explanations of why or how certain phenomena occur. Things that are important to this type of theory are state interactions, size of military forces, balance of power, etc. The second field, post-positivism, rejects the idea that the social world can be studied in an objective and value-free way. This field focuses on constitutive questions about important components of IR. Post-positivism looks to include broader interpretations of international relations to include concepts like class and gender. Gender is an important theoretical concept of IR because women’s experiences continue to be excluded from its study. The positivist and state-centered way the discipline is constructed makes these aspects the basis for ‘mainstream’ international relations. It is under this framework that gender hierarchies privilege men’s knowledge and experiences over those of women. As a result, IR is a masculinized sphere of activity in which definitions of concepts like sovereignty, war, foreign policy, etc adhere to masculine and gendered interpretations and exclude the potential women’s experiences have to shape the discipline. Therefore, a more inclusive approach to mainstream international relations theory is necessary, one that abolishes the traditional construction and definition of key concepts. For these reasons, I will be looking at literature surrounding the gender debate in IR in order to determine if we were to...

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...tion, diplomatic agreements, and public policies. The traditional security paradigm refers to the realist construction of security, where the main actor is the state. This paradigm is based on the idea that international stability is maintained when state security is maintained. It also relies on the anarchist balance of power, a military build up, and the absolute sovereignty of the nation-state. The construction of the IR state as sovereign gives it a monopoly of legitimate violence, which appropriates security to a militarized defense of the state and its interests (Pettman). Individuals participate in war because they are part of the system and the underlying cause for war is the international system because there is nothing (no overarching security mechanism) to prevent them. Man is seen as the natural aggressor in war, and the wider definitions of violence and

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