Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research PDF

Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research Author(s): Terrell Carver Source: The Brown Journal of World Affairs , Fall/Winter 2014, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Fall/Winter 2014), pp. 113-126 Published by: Brown Journal of World Affairs Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24591034 JSTOR is...

Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research Author(s): Terrell Carver Source: The Brown Journal of World Affairs , Fall/Winter 2014, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Fall/Winter 2014), pp. 113-126 Published by: Brown Journal of World Affairs Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24591034 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Brown Journal of World Affairs This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research Terrell Carver rroressor or Political Iheory University of Bristol, UK Given that international relations research is focused on the state in relation to what are traditionally regarded as manly activities—war, conflict, defense, rivalry, weaponry, strategy, geo-politics, and the like—it is something of a mystery why the relevance of theoretical and empirical work on men and masculinities is regarded as a new idea. To understand why that is, we need to draw a contrast between IR as it has developed from the 1920s to date, and its self-constructed pre-history in terms of classical theorists and their concerns. We also need to see the way in which masculinity is not the symmetrical opposite of femininity as human behavior, but rather a conceptual construct that works quite differently in relation to gender and gendering.1 Once we have proceeded through those analytical steps, it will become apparent why the study of men and masculinity is not only regarded as a new idea in IR, but also why the study of masculinity is not popular among mainstream scholars, even though by nu merical majority and in terms of professional influence they are men. Until recendy, mainstream concepts and concerns in IR ignored or excluded gender as a relevant topic altogether. Even after some 30 years of feminist inter ventions and critiques within the IR community, gender itself is still positioned Terrell Carver is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol, UK. He has published extensively on sex, gender, and sexuality, most recently on the entry for those topics in A Handbook of Gender in World Politics, ed. J. Steans et al. (forthcoming), a conversation on 'Militarized Masculinities' with Aaron Belkin in International Feminist Journal of Politics 14, no. 4 (2012), and the 'Afterword' in the textbook Gender Matters in Global Politics, 2nd ed., ed. L. Shepherd (2015). He also publishes extensively on Marx, Engels, and Marxism, and has a two-volume study of the "German ideology" manuscripts in press (forthcoming). Copyright © 2014 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs Fall/Winter 2014 volume xxi, issue i This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Terrell Carver as alternative and marginal. In introductory texts, gender is often listed as alongside Marxist, green theory, or post-colonial approaches.2 And even in tion to feminism, the study of men and masculinities—for arguably very g reasons—often appears as something of an add-on to women-centered st rather than a central focus for intellectual inquiry or political action.3 This paper thus presents a paradox. IR as a discipline in the twentieth a twenty-first centuries deals with what are considered manly concepts in a m way, as I will show below. But even when gender as an analytical concept app it references, as a rule, women's concerns and interests, both those relating topics and issues stereotypically associated with women and those relati what actually happens in international politics when women are noticed studied. IR as a modern discipline studies stereotypically masculine subjects, as conflicts, wars, and diplomacy, and therefore actors who are overwhelm male. However, IR research barely recognizes gender as an analytical con and it treats the study of masculinity as a new idea. This article will resolv paradox by presenting an asymmetry between masculinity and feminin performative concepts.4 It will also explain why most male researchers avoid gender studies and, in particular, masculinity studies entirely. Performattvity and Hierarchy Performativity means that terms such as masculinity and femininity reference no other factuality than the reality of performing masculinities and femininities. These performances—with which we are all familiar—are stylized repetitions of stereotypical modes of dress, deportment, speech, and behavior that tell us who is a man and who is a woman. These social practices are culturally and histori cally—even individually—highly variable and always malleable. Masculinity and femininity are, thus, not a binary pair of summary concepts applicable to Masculinity and femininity are, thus, human behavior in rektion 10 sexual difference. Rather, sexual difference not a binary pair of summary con- in bodies u madc meaningfu| and cepts applicable to human behav- Significant only in relation to the divi. ^ - ,.rr sion of humanity into a gender hier iour in relation to sexual difference. , , r... archy that puts men and masculin into a position of superiority. Individuals experience their ow sufficient repetitions and institutional disciplines—as both n and personal to themselves. This view of gender does not start with bodies and sexual p THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research it presume that behavior proceeds naturally from particular bodily organs or sex hormones.5 Rather it proceeds from a pervasive and powerful structural hierarchy that allocates power—political, economic, and otherwise—far more to men than to women and rewards masculinity far more than femininity. Even when individual women, in particular circumstances, contradict the premise that masculinities are exclusively in and of male bodies, this only proves the rule. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher revelled in her well-attested masculine rudeness and ruthlessness, and male leaders rarely, and then only briefly, admit to a feminine side by crying in public, as Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke did on television. Female world leaders and business executives are standardly received as honorary men in countries and situations where segregation by sex is the norm. Masculinity rules, even when men do not. The origins of men's studies—as a feminist-inspired, gender-critical enter prise:—lay mainly in men's experiences recounted in coming-of-age narratives, often in a context of conscripted national service. However, these ethnographic accounts also take in normalized practices of bullying and male-hierarchy build ing, not forgetting compulsory sports and macho heterosexuality. As a process of character formation, masculinity is located not so much in bodies as in the disciplines and practices that form bodies and minds into a certain mold.6 Masculinity is in the head, as much as anywhere else—and in order to get it there, it has to be incorporated within, and be visible as, a set of social institutions and practices, both educational and physical. Most of masculin ity is located in marching around in groups, not in individual genitalia at all. Those body parts are what qualify someone to be selected (or not) for successive processes of masculinization. While men may think that genitals are literally and symbolically central to masculinity, they are mostly not on display, and not that often tested or inspected. Rather they are merely referenced through attire, metaphor, and bravado.7 Thus, masculinity not only works to confer power on men over women, but also to empower masculinized individuals and groups over feminized ones, and to create power hierarchies of men over men, as well as some masculinities over others.8 However, it also presents the masculine individual as the generic representation of humanity, or to put it another way, the generic human subject is—albeit covertly—male and masculine. Generic Subjects and Gendered Men The generic human person is a very familiar figure, appearing variously as "the in FaLl/WiNTER 2014 VOLUME XXI, ISSUE I This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Terrell Carver dividual," the "person," and—until quite recently—as "man" or "he," under in a de-gendered sense as referring to anyone irrespective of sex. Feminis attacked such locutions as sexist and masculinist, indeed hypocritical, b they seem to refer to anyone and everyone without regard to sex, but in and in practice refer only to men. Feminists have concomitantly debated and whether language use itself is related to effective political action and change. Beyond charges of misrepresentation and erasure, feminist analys revealed a covert exercise of gender-power in both everyday and academic course. This is the case because common discourses—about individuals, pers and humanity as such—presume a male and masculine subject-position is, a speaker whose knowledge is authoritative and a "doer" whose deeds ar important ones—disclaimers notwithstanding. Discourses that were apparently about men very often turn out to pr further claims about women and the family, thus revealing that the auth not arguing from a general perspective but rather from a masculine one. the generic, human "individual" or de-gendered "man" locution was on parently de-gendered, whereas in reality, the presumptions and argument covertly gendered. The generic human individual is thus man-shaped rath woman-shaped. In this way, discursive practice can be shown to be a m to, and creator of, hierarchies of power that are produced and institution in and through gender. Gender, in this view, is not merely a binary, but importantly, a hierarchy.9 Men and masculinity have an advantage, while w and femininity do not. The next analytical step is to reveal that men—writing as men and ab men—also deploy overtly gendered presumptions and locutions, couche miliarly male-sexed terms such as father, husband, brother, and even "best and "the lads," both of which descend to colloquial usage. This self-gender selective and highly moralized. In the instances just mentioned, the relatio and practices are presumed to be good, benign, normal, and necessary verbally marked to the contrary. This overt, but morally approbatory invo of gender, is also defined by its less obvious othering: rapist, criminal, mur hooligan, delinquent, tyrant, war-monger, and the like. In those cases, the ent is presumed to be male; a female referent would be deemed unusual. O put the matter in another way, it is a fact that men vastly outnumber wo in these negative categories, and exceptions therefore need to be clearly st This does not, however, generate an empirical argument that women and f nine persons are repositories of moral goodness, simply because males evin dominant masculinities outnumber them in morally opprobrious categ the brown journal of world affairs This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research Instead these facts generate a puzzle about the relationship between masculinity and human individuals that men are generally very reluctant to address. Masculinity differs from femininity in that it presents itself in two ways: a generic mode and a gendered mode. It gains a power advantage for its holders in the process, given that they can switch from one to the other. The generic or de-gendered mode allows them to represent the human being as simply human irrespective of sex and, thus, by stealth devalue the feminine and feminized per sons. This mode is apparently de-gendered, but covertly gendered as masculine. Women discovered this historically when as citizens they demanded the vote (and were refused for many years), and still find it true when they demand equal treatment at home and in the workplace (but find that mens presumptions about themselves are taken as the norm). The gendered mode, by contrast, is overt because it evokes conventional notions of maleness and masculine behavior as one side of the gender binary. But it does so in a morally approbatory manner, by presenting men in a good light in relation to women, and in relation to each other, as seen above. However, it is important to note that categories of moral opprobrium—which conventionally presume a male and masculine referent— conveniently appear as generic, that is, unmarked by gender. In this way, what are considered bad aspects of the masculine side of the gender binary are projected onto the generic human subject. That is, a criminal could, of course, be a man or woman. The moral opprobrium is thus displaced onto humanity as such, although we know in reality that far more men are criminals and violent—in legal as well as illegal ways—than women.10 Back to Basics As a discipline, IR was conceived in the early twentieth century as the study of inter-state relations, and in particular, conflictual relations. Wars and the security dilemmas through which they arise have a foundational place in IR studies. In post-war IR theory, armed conflict and the dynamics of defense and aggression have an even more influential role, albeit in the abstract terms of strategic interaction models and games, where state-players confront each other as rivals with opposing interests. It is easy to see structures of competitive interaction as challengers and targets, winners and losers, hierarchies of power and cunning tactics of play in IR basics.11 However, it is interesting to compare foundational IR here with the pre history that the discipline has constructed for itself. Famously, IR has adopted two figures from classical political theory as forebears and proto-founders.12 The Fall/Winter 2014 volume xxi, issue i This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Terrell Carver formation of academic disciplines usually proceeds in this way. For exam physicists look to Galileo and Newton, and sociologists to Weber and Dürkhe The relationship of Thucydides and Hobbes to men and manliness, even to t overt recognition of masculinities as an analytical frame of analysis, was strik different from modern IR. Their vision of the international, and of the impo actors within it, was much more overtly male-centric and masculine-ori Hobbes's Leviathan proceeds from thantwentietK-centu^versi conflict and war, as well as mod "man," which to us may seem generic, em accounts of the interna but the famous frontispiece shows actors involved. This vision ar..... not so much from their lack of en us a sovereign that is clearly male. ^ementwithwom and Thucydides have that quality in common with contemporar scholars. It arises instead from an exclusive focus on—and indeed c of—warrior/protector manliness throughout their works, conc bearing arms. Virtually every character of interest in Thucydides' History of nesian War is both male and a warrior, presented and assessed on th of course, mirrored the gender and social hierarchy of the time: w 118 sequestered, while males citizen were trained and judged by their Hobbes's Leviathan proceeds from "man," which to us may seem the famous frontispiece shows us a sovereign that is clearly male. composed himself of tiny males and is also armed with the weapon and church. Hobbes' text continues in an apparently de-gendered, y gendered way. His apparent abstractions presume a masculine subje for example, when he writes in his seventeenth-century text: " nature of man, we find three principall causes of quarrell. First Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory."13 Neither writer was concerned with humanity as generic or the the idea that all humans are somehow equal irrespective of sex— respective of rank or birth or community membership. The notion made no sense. In the case of Hobbes, equality is reduced to a d man level, as seen when he argues that even very weak people, such can—using stealth or guile—kill stronger ones, such as men.14 For ers, the important actors in life are men, or very rarely, in the ca masculinized women. Moreover, for both, masculinity itself is a hierarchy topped of soldiers.15 Political importance—international or otherwise—i the brown journal of world affairs This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research measured on an ascending scale of manliness, where manliness is constituted through martial arts and military skills. Finding the generic human in Hobbes, at least, is a twentieth-century project and thus a difficult one. While Thucydides is one of the great humane writers of all time due to his moving accounts of human suffering, he is hopeless as a theorist of mankind. He is monotonically masculinized and focused within that already limited framework on the citizen class within the Hellenes. Neither proto-IR theorist had any problem acknowledging that, in terms of gender cliché, "it's a man's world." They were invested, accordingly, in the study of men and masculinity. Any suggestion that the political, at any level, could be studied and understood other than through an understanding of warrior/protec tor masculinity would have seemed to them incredible. They relied unashamedly on tropes and types of manliness, physical, intellectual, and moral, whether to demonstrate good or bad examples for our edification. Unsurprisingly, in their representations, the state conceived as an international actor appears as overtly masculinized and a male-centric domain.16 De-gendered Men and De-humanized Subjects The early years of IR as an academic discipline and framework for theorization were hardly immune to such overt emphasis on warrior/protector masculinities. Concepts of leadership—whether in conjunction with diplomacy or warfare— were used to discuss the otherwise abstract truths that were generated about "the international."17 But in an age of sciences and technologies—whether of warfare, economics, or even social sciences—the overtly martial masculinities of warrior/ protector rulers began to seem rather out-of-date in a world of increasingly technologized and bureaucratized states and their militaries. Indeed, such men became—if only at times—rather suspect as candidates for civilian leadership roles as democratic and other structures of popular sovereignty were invoked in the struggles to supplant one-man rule. This steady shift in emphasizing the civilian in the state had two consequences. The first consequence was that visible masculinities—because of the chang ing character and roles of the men under consideration—broadened out to include rational/managerial, and generally cerebral, desk-based practices. These were often transferred from feminine, and therefore marginal, associations to become central to manliness and masculinity. In this way, physicality, muscular ity, and warriorism were not erased or displaced, but supplemented.18 The second consequence was that an apparently de-gendered language of actors—whether Fall/Winter 2014 volume xxi, issue i This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Terrell Carver human individuals or social institutions—overtook previous tropes of warri ruler exemplars. This obviously suited a calculating rationalism drawn from way that natural sciences and industrial technologies characterize thing objects. Once the objects of study are characterized in this way, generalizat beyond the individual instance becomes possible and impersonal regular among objects of study become the key to knowledge.19 This trend appeared to remove IR as a political science from maleness a even from human bodies, as opposed to the way that Hobbes and Thucydide tackled analogous questions. It also had the effect of preserving non-femalen a norm worth studying. Thus, an apparently de-gendered maleness characte the normal condition of the human agent or actor whenever it [sic\ appear typically as an "individual." While this transposition of gender difference i apparently de-gendered singularity was hardly exclusive to IR, IR as a disci is nonetheless an extreme example. This is because it moved from a def investment in martial arts, warrior skills, manly combat, and military stra ing to much more abstract and seemingly disembodied scenarios of oppositi rivalry, conflict, domination, ambition, and mortal anxiety. This is a view of world that elevates men, as non-female, above and beyond maleness because generic human is still man-shaped. But this vision also presumes that the m masculinized individuals—as national and therefore world leaders—are m important than others. In particular, they are presumed to be more import than those humans who are, apparently and supposedly, disqualified from a masculinity at all, namely women. Thus, the abstractions of mainstream IR theory are not those referrin a genuinely generic human who could be either male or female. Covertly, t abstractions are gendered masculine and the generic human is thus man-sha and not a woman. Moreover, competitive self-interest, strategic interac defense, and aggression, as well as other versions of the security dilemma, solely concerned with moral and immoral masculinities. As we have seen, th derive from overtly gendered and moralized conceptions of manliness. In th way, IR makes the concept of the international male-centric. Rational actors within these theorizations could be women and indeed a women at times. Some men are certainly not suited to play this kind of gam that is, one based on presumptions of competitive self-interest, even as a m for real-world interactions. However, the masculinity here is not in the pe it is in the rationality that these presumptions construct.20 And here—as wa the case with Thucydides or Hobbes—the masculinity is not acknowledg studied as such, precisely because it is covert, hiding within an apparent THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research gendered world of actors. Hence, to most contemporary IR scholars the study of men and masculinities seems a new idea, even though virtually all contemporary IR scholars will have read the standard excerpts from Thucydides and Hobbes. But somehow, IR scholars typically do not see manliness as an invitation to examine gender, and in particular masculinity. We can now explain the paradox stated at the opening of this paper, and the reluctance of IR scholars to acknowledge the centrality of gender studies and, in particular, studies of men and masculinities to their discipline. Adding Masculinity and Stirring Up Men Male exclusivity in the top jobs of states and economies; men's vastly majori tarian shares of property, income, and wealth worldwide; and their symbolic but also very literal influence as warriors, leaders of all kinds, and the highest paid celebrities are obvious. While there are some rare exceptions to these rules, the empirical facts of men's dominance over women in such positions and the overwhelming importance of male-exclusive and male-majoritarian hierarchies of power are incontestable. Founding scholars of the IR discipline identified the international realm as the top zone of global political significance. This is evident in the impact 1< that states acting internationally can have on the world. In recent centuries, war-power, firepower, and state-power have—in hierarchies of great powers— wrought death on untold millions and inflicted further traumas of destruction, displacement, and despair beyond.. comprehension. Men are in charge Men are m char9e of of international politics, and the politics, and the headl headline importance of violence Qf vio|enœ te„s us h tells us how masculine hierarchies are arranged, defended, and natu- hierarchies are arranged, defen raüzed as unchangeable.21 ancj naturalized as unchangea We have outlined above how some IR scholars fail to engage with gender, and in particular, with masculinity in relation to males or females, unlike Thucydides and Hobbes. However, it will not be effective simply to add the study of men and masculinity to contemporary IR and then stir it to make it central.22 Men do not want to be stirred in this way. The apparently de-gendered version of the human subject does not present a problem for contemporary IR. As explained above, the de-gendered language of actors constructs a rationality and human subject position that comfortably Fall/Winter 2014 volume xxi, issue i This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Terrell Carver comports with constructing and maintaining hierarchies of power through deployment of masculinity and maleness. However, the overtly gendered co tions of men—as morally good and bad alike—present a problem: to use might suggest that gender is an important analytical category. Clearly, IR scholars of the mainstream need a defense against these thr ening disruptions. When overtly gendered males threaten to break into typical analytical narrative of state actions, the public/private distinction c to the rescue. Discourses of overtly gendered and positively moralized m linity—as they emerge in discussions of world leaders and world politics generally treated as an intrusion of supposed private behavior onto the poli stage, or as some otherwise extraneous consideration. The real story for rea neo-realists, and indeed those of most other brands of IR analysis (other th feminist) will be about what are considered public actions and public person International politics operate in and through clichés of marital monogamy a family photoshoots, which highlight the overt gendering of important acto male and masculine in ways that reflect the moral goodness of so-called nor masculinities, rather than the moral goodness of particular individuals. scholars are usually more interested in other areas that are supposedly more nificant. Thus, gender itself disappears into the private sphere, and what co have been analytically important is dismissed out of hand.23 Something similar happens when actors in world politics are known to h committed shameful or criminal acts specific to, or characteristic of, men thus exemplify masculinity in its morally bad aspects. This kind of behavio most usually treated in IR accounts as a regrettable exception to the mascul rule, a scandalous bit of human interest or—depending on the moral pos ing of the researcher in relation to the research subject—another instan demonic or monstrous behavior on the part of a supposedly abnormal indivi The occasional acknowledgement by IR scholars that scandalous head facts are important in international politics has not led to methodologic vision in mainstream IR such that gender and, in particular, masculinity become a standard independent variable. The case is quite the opposite. consistently, and perhaps increasingly, usual to find IR scholars professing a of expertise in relation to gender and indeed to claim that gender is a topic which the researcher did not have any accredited interest. In other words, and masculinized individuals in the IR community, as a rule, are happie leave gender to feminists and to presume that feminist IR is a women-only One reason why mainstream researchers might have this attitude towar gender is that if they were to delve into these areas, the exercise might begi the brown journal of world affairs This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research reveal something about themselves. In fact, it might even make them wonder about their personal, professional, and other anxiety-producing aspects of their lives. One consequence of this gender-exclusion zone in mainstream IR is that it insulates the researchers themselves, who are overwhelmingly male, or in some few instances, masculinized females, from examining their own proclivities and relationships—academic and otherwise.24 Moreover, it legitimates the male dominated power-rationalities, whether in international politics or in IR, as serious and worthy of study, but relegates femaleness and femininity—via sexual behavior as such and a supposed intrinsic connection with the family—to an unserious zone of ostensibly private or forgettable activities. Most importantly, it allows men to appear in an apparently de-gendered way as a further badge of superiority over and above their overtly moral roles as masculine role models. These role models include kindly heroes and state founders, as well as benevolent fathers and grandfathers, all of whom benefit from emblematic masculinities. Rogue rulers and monster terrorists, on the other hand, are gendered male in morally bad ways and are thus unmanly and distanced from generic humanity where the good—if often covert—masculinity resides. Conclusions The intellectual practices in the IR community detailed above filter gender out not just as women and femininity, but also as men and masculinity. These entrenched ways of thinking render the study of men and masculinity a strange choice to make within the analytical tool kit of concepts. However, the first thing that the study of men and masculinities offers to IR is a wake-up call. Some 30 years of feminist theorization and research regarding gender, including considerable work on men and masculinities, has resulted in ideas and strategies well worth considering.25 Masculinity is a lens, rather than an object or property of a thing—whether a human body, behavior pattern, or role. It is a way of looking, rather than a thing seen—or not seen, as modern IR has generally managed to do. As a performance, masculinity is more interesting as to how it works than what it is in any given instance. For instance, de-masculinization is a way to look at how national hierarchies are established, given the way that top dogs use it to secure their position by denigrating their opponents. This is because masculinity is often about "doing down" rather than "manning up," though the latter practice is hardly excluded.26 Exclusion and denigration are not solely directed at women as a power-grabbing strategy. Men are very good at doing it Fall/Winter 2014 volume xxi, issue i This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Terrell Carver to each other as well, and subordinated masculinity of one kind of another— projected onto others—does the trick. Elite military units, and many o hierarchies of power, invoke an exemplary masculinity that necessarily exc and devalues those who failed to make the grade. Of course, these hierarchical practices are also true of race or other egories through which pushing some people down leaves others "floating But without a finely grained view of this process, quite a lot is going t missed in international competitions of any sort where powerful men jocke define and protect a concept of masculinity. To do this, they use strategies de-masculinization, usually by threatening and humiliating others.27 If one puts any group of people into uniforms, ranks, and visible h archies, they start to look not just militarized but also perforce masculinize Female military corps, and even female drill teams, are testimony to the w that masculinity arises through such stylized and repetitive practices. There masculinities other than the warrior/protector to be referenced, such a patriarchal, rational/bureaucratic, and priestly.28 However, it is overwhelmin the case that warrior/protector masculinity is not just constitutive but an plar. This is especially so when backed by nationally funded militaries, secu agencies, defense industries, and the like. Other masculinities are derivative this, and often mimic it, such as international sports. Thus, world leade political actors operate within this masculinized framework and manipulate even if they are women. Hierarchies of credibility in international politics are hierarchies of ma linities played out through weaponry, wealth, and war.29 Without a gender attuned to this situation, the day-to-day struggles of competitive and boast males, and often mutually destructive performances of masculinity, are not to get the serious consideration they deserve. If with reference to a particu case, it can be established that a serious consideration of men and masculini does not lead to interesting results and insights, then at least the gender le will have been invoked. But taking hierarchical practices within mascul for granted, dismissing them as unserious, or ruling them out of considera altogether is highly suspect as a methodology. History and religion have made it back into IR research without contam nating the discipline unduly. Indeed, they found their way in with some re that IR training had not served its practitioners well in abstracting away fr aspects of politics that were conceived as epiphenomenal. The link betw purported disciplinary purity, the gender lens, and admitting females "into club" is painfully obvious.30 the brown journal of world affairs This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Men and Masculinities in International Relations Research It is not that men and masculinity studies have something to offer IR as an add-on, but rather that contemporary IR has lost out in modern times by excluding men and masculinities from its field of study. This counterintuitive reductionism renders IR illusory rather than rigorous, and it insulates IR profes sionals from self-knowledge that could be usefully deployed in understanding world politics. O Notes 1. For an explication of this view of gender and masculinity, see: Terrell Carver, "Public Man and the Critique of Masculinities," Political Theory 24 (1996): 673-86. 2. See any number of standard IR texts such as: John Bayliss, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens, The Globalization of Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 3. See the discussion in: Cynthia Enloe, Seriously! Investigating Crashes and Crises as if Women Mattered (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), chap. 4. 4. For the origin of this view, see: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Milton Park, UK: Routledge, 2006). For critical explications of "performativity," see: Moya Lloyd, Judith Butler: From Norms to Politics (Oxford: Polity, 2007) ; Samuel A. Chambers and Terrell Carver, Judith Butler and Political Theory: Troubling Politics (Milton Park, UK: Routledge, 2008). 5. For a thorough review and scientific critique of widely held views on biology and sex, see: Anne Fausto Sterling, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (New York: Basic Books, 2000). 6. See, for example: Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (London: Routledge, 1995); Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men125 (London: Virago, 1997); Adam Jones, Men of the Global South: A Reader (London: Zed, 2006); Jane Par part and Marysia Zalewski, eds., Rethinking the Man Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations (London: Zed, 2008). 7. For the discussion of Garfinkel's concept of "cultural genitals," see: Momin Rahman and Stevi Jackson, Gender and Sexuality: Sociological Approaches (Cambridge: Polity, 2010). 8. For an introductory discussion of these summary findings, see: R.W. Connell, Masculinities, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Polity, 2005); together with: R.W. Connell, Gender, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Polity, 2009), which situates masculinity in a relational context. 9. For classic analysis and demonstration, see: Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Cambridge: Polity, 1988); Diana H. Coole, Women in Political Theory: From Ancient Misogyny to Contemporary Feminism, 2nd ed. (London: Harvester/Wheatsheaf, 1993). 10. For an explication and discussion of these points, see: Adrian Howe, Sex, Violence and Crime: Foucault and the Man Question (Milton Park, UK: Routledge-Cavendish, 2008). 11. For a reliable treatment of widely accepted IR "basics," see: Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki, and Steve Smith, eds., International Relations Theories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 12. For authoritative discussion and critique on the relationship between classic texts and contemporary IR, see: David Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations: From Thucydides to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); David Armitage, Foundations of Modern International Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 13. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 88. 14. Ibid., 86-7. 15. For a discussion of the history and continuing importance of this institutional and symbolic con struction, see: R. Claire Synder, Citizen Soldiers and Manly Warriors: Military Service and Gender in the Civic Republican Tradition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). 16. The anachronisms involved in making this statement are inherent in the way that IR has constructed the two thinkers as proto-founders. Fall/Winter 2014 volume xxi, issue i This content downloaded from 146.50.122.162 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:23:32 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  Terrell Carver 17. For an analytical survey, see: J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Persp on Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); for an IR textbook opens with a discussion of gendered human agents, see: Laura J. Shepherd, Gender Matters: A Fe Introduction to International Relations, 2nd ed. (Milton Park, UK: Routledge, 2014). 18. R.W. Connell examines the interactions in economic and social status, which shift masculin dominant over femininity) from one occupation to another in: Connell, Masculinities; Charlotte has traced this process through modern militarized statecraft in relation to international struct economic power in: Charlotte Hooper, Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations and G Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). 19. For texts that are widely regarded as a methodological exemplars (albeit in somewhat different see: Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2010) ; Robert hane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Pr University Press, 2005). 20. See the discussion of rationality in relation to gender in Raia Prokhovnik, Rational woman: afe critique of dichotomy, 2nd ed. (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002). 21. For detailed studies, see: Paul Kirby and Marsha Henry, "Rethinking Masculinity and Pra of Violence in Conflict Settings," International Feminist Journal of Politics 14, no. 4 (2012): 445- 22. Feminists argued that women could not simply be "added" to existing male-exclusive and dominated hierarchies of power and institutions of all kinds, then "stirred" in to the mix. Rather critiques pointed out that the hierarchies and institutions were set up in highly masculinized ways first place, thus making equal participation by women in them difficult or impossible. Hence the r tion of gender inequality was said to require transformational restructuring of existing practices su women could participate and succeed in these positions. However, there are of course many diff feminist views as to what such transformations would look like and how they could be achieved Judith Squires, "Is Mainstreaming Transformative? Theorizing Mainstreaming in the Context of Div and Deliberation," Social Politics 12, no. 3 (2005): 366-88. 126 23. Notably "feminist IR" makes a feature of curiosity, see: Cynthia Enloe, The Curious Feminist: S ingfor Women in a New Age of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 24. "this is discussed in: Cynthia Enloe, "Militarism, Patriarchy and Peace Movements: In Convers with Cynthia Cockburn," in Seriously! Investigating Crashes and Crises as if Women Mattered (Berk University of California Press, 2013), 114-23. 25. Some of the foundational works in the field were: Cynthia Cockburn, Brothers: Male Dom and Technological Change (London: Pluto, 1983); Harry Brod, The Making of Masculinities: The New Studies (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987); Michael Kimmel, Changing Men: New Directions in Resea Men and Masculinity (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987); Jeff Hearn, The Gender of Oppression: Me culinity and the Critique of Marxism (Brighton, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1987). 26. See Carol Cohns classic study: Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of De Intellectuals," Signs 12, no. 4 (1987): 687-718. 27. For a thorough discussion of this dynamic, see: Aaron Belkin, Bring Me Men: Military Mascul and the Benign Facade of American Empire 1898-2001 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012 28. See the typologies in: Jean Bethke Elshtain, Women and War (New York: Basic, 1987); fo earlier foundational work see also: Judith Stiehm, Women and Men's Wars (Oxford: Pergamon, 1983 29. See the empirical accounts in: Joshua Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War S and Vice Versa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 30. Cynthia Weber, "Good Girls, Little Girls, and Bad Girls: Male Paranoia in Robert Keohanes Cri of Feminist International Relations, "Millennium 23, no. 2 (1994): 337-49. 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