Part 1: Gender and International Relations

First, Elisabeth Olivius, Jenny Hedström and Zar Mar Phyo analyze the implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. They identify key challenges in post-war states that take authoritarian turns, like Myanmar. Namely, these countries may prevent the most vulnerable women (e.g., ethnic minority and/or rural women) from participating in reconstruction and ultimately impede attaining a lasting peace. 

Second, David Scott and Malin Ronnblöm examine whether and how international development aid can help actors pursue feminist goals. They show that domestic women’s organizations need to comport their projects to the technocratic and administrative logics of international funders, which may in turn water down and depoliticize organizations’ long-term, more transformative goals.

Third, Jennifer Thomson offers an analytic framework to understand the recent popularity of feminist foreign policy initiatives. Thomson argues that countries adopting feminist foreign policies (like Sweden, Canada, and Mexico) use this step to signal their adherence to international norms like modernity and liberalism. As such, they leverage gender equality values to gain importance on the global stage.  

Fourth, Anne-Kathrin Kreft, Birgitta Nilasson and Ann Towns find that gendered patterns in ambassador appointments persist, even in supposedly egalitarian countries like Denmark and Sweden. Women remain less likely to receive ambassador posts to economically-significant countries and less likely to serve as ambassadors in countries involved in conflicts. 

Explore the other themes in the EJPG Student Reading List

LGBTQIA+ politics and policies

Gender equality and public policy 

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