Feminist Perspectives on International Relations PDF

Feminis m J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D LA U RA SJ O B E R G I ntrod ucti o n 1 79 Gender in I R...

Feminis m J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D LA U RA SJ O B E R G I ntrod ucti o n 1 79 Gender in I R 1 80 Typ o logy of I R fe m i n ist theories 1 82 G e n d e r, secu rity, and global pol itics 1 86 Case study: U n ited N atio n s sanctions o n I raq 1 89 Conclusion 1 93 Reader's Guide This chapter i ntrod uces fem i n ist perspectives on i nternational relations. It provides a typology of fem i n ist I nternati onal Relati ons ( I R theories, outl i n i ng thei r major tenets with i l l ustrations from specific authors). Fem i n i st theories of I R use gender as a so­ cially constructed category of analysis when they analyse foreign poli cy, i nternational pol itical economy, and i nternational security. This chapter focuses on fem i n ist per­ spectives on i nternational security. Fem i n ist security research takes two major forms: theoretical reform u lati on and empi rical eval uation. This chapter chron icles devel­ opments i n fem i n ist reanalyses and reformu lations of secu rity theory. It i l l u strates fem i n ist security theory by analysing the case of U n ited Nations Security Council sanctions on I raq fol l owing the Fi rst G u lf War. It concludes by d i scussing the contri bu­ tions that fem i n ist I R can make to the d isci p l i n e of I R , specifically, and to the practice of i nternational pol itics, more generally. I ntrod uction Fem i n ist theories entered the d i sci p l i n e of I R i n the l ate 1 980s and early 1 990s. The begi n n i ngs of I nternational Re lations ( I R) fem i n is m are associated with a m o re gen e ral ferment in the fi e l d - often referred to as the 'th i rd debate' (or so m eti mes as the 'fo u rth d ebate'; see Chapter 1 ). Early I R fem i n ists challenged the d i sci p l i n e to th i n k about how its theories m ight be refo rm u l ated and how its u n d ersta n d i ngs of global pol itics m ight be i m p roved if attention were paid to wo men's expe riences. Fem i n ists clai m ed that o n ly by i ntrod u c i n g gender analys i s co u l d the d ifferential i m pact of the state system and the glo bal eco n o my o n the l ives of wo men and men be fu l ly u n d e rstood. IR fem i n ists critical ly re-exa m i ned some of the key co n cepts i n the field -co n cepts such as sovereignty, the state, and secu rity. I R fem i n ists have also so ught to d raw attention to wo men's i nvis i b i l ity and gender s u bo rd i n ­ ation i n i nternational pol itics a n d t h e global economy. Less than 1 5 per cent o f t h e world's heads of state are wo men. I R fem i n ists ask why this is the case and how this m ight affect the 1 80 J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D L AU R A SJ O B E RG structu re and p ractice of global pol itics. M o re recently, I R fem i n ist empi rical case stud ies have focused o n h itherto u n derstud ied issues such as m i l itary prostitution, domestic ser­ vice, d i plo matic households, and home- based wo rk, m uch of which is perfo rmed by women. Thro ugh these stu d i es, fem i n ists have sought to demonstrate how vital wo men are to states' foreign pol i cies and to the fu ncti o n i n g of the global economy. S i n ce most wo men speak from the margi ns of i nternational pol itics, their l ives offer us a perspective o utside the state-centric focus of conventional Western i nternational theories and broaden the e m p i rical base u po n w h i c h w e b u i l d theories. Fem i n ist scholars suggest that if w e put on gendered lenses w e get q u ite a d ifferent view of i nternational pol itics { Peterson and Ru nyan 1 999: 21 ). Fem i n ists d efi n e gender as a set of socially constructed characteristics descri b i n g what men and wo men o ught to be. Ch aracteristics such as strength, rati onal ity, i n d ependence, p rotecto r, and p u b l i c are associated with m asc u l i n ity, wh i l e characteristics such as weak­ ness, emotional ity, relati onal, p rotected, and private are associated with fem i n i n ity. It i s i m po rtant t o n ote that i n d ivid ual men and wo men may not em body a l l these character­ istics-it is poss i b l e fo r wo men to d is p lay masc u l i n e o n es and vice versa. Rather, they are ideal types; the ideal m ascu l i n e type ( i n the West-wh ite and h eterosexual) is someti mes referred to as 'hege m o n i c mascu l i n ity'. These characteristics may vary over time and place but, i m po rtantly, they are rel ational, mean i n g they depend on each other fo r their mean­ i ng. They are also u n eq ual. Men, wo men, and the states they l ive i n general ly assign m o re pos itive val ue to m ascu l i n e characteristics than to fem i n i ne o n es-at least i n the p u b l i c sph ere. T h e fo reign pol icies o f states are often l egitimated i n terms o f h ege m o n i c m ascu ­ l i n e characteristics; a d es i rable fo reign pol icy i s general ly o n e that strives fo r power a n d auto n o my and wh ich p rotects its citizens fro m o uts ide dangers. Appeals t o these gender d ua l i s m s also o rgan ize social activity and d ivide necessary social activities between gro u ps of h u mans; fo r exa m p le, s i n ce wo men are associated with the private sphere, it is seen as 'nat u ral' fo r wo men to be caregivers wh i l e m en's association with the p u b l i c s pace makes them 'natu ral breadwi n n ers' {Hard i ng 1 986: 1 7- 1 8). W h i l e fem i n ists rightly q uestion the nat u ra l n ess of th ese d ichoto m ized d isti n ctions, they h ave co nseq uences-fo r wo men, fo r men, and fo r glo bal pol itics. In this chapter, we trace the history of the development of fem i n ist I R. We o utl ine a typology of I R fem i n ist theories that build on, but go beyond, a variety of I R approaches, such as l i ber­ alism {Chapters 4 and 5), constructivism {Chapter 9), critical theory {Chapter 8), poststruc­ turalism {Chapter 1 1 ), and postcolon ialism {Chapter 1 2). We offer some rei nterpretations of secu rity as an i l l ustration of how fem i n ists are reformu lati ng some of the key concepts in I R. We wi l l i l l ustrate o u r fem i n ist analysis of secu rity thro ugh an exam i n ation of U n ited Nations { U N ) economic sanctions against I raq i n the 1 990s. We propose that fem i n ist IR offers some insights i nto this case that other sanctions theo ries do not. We co nclude by suggesting the contri butions of fem i n ist IR to the d isci pline specifically and to global pol itics more generally. Gender i n I R The 'th i rd debate' of the late 1 980s was a time when many scholars i n the d isci p l i ne began to debate its ways of knowi ng { Lapid 1 989). Certain scholars began to q u estion both the epistemo logical and ontological fo u n d ations of a field which, in the U SA especially, had been  FE M I N I S M 1 81 Featu red book Cynthia En loe (201 0), Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the War i n Iraq (Berkeley: U n iversity of Cal iforn ia Press). Cynthia Enloe's Nimo's War, Em ma's War provides an account of the war in I raq through the l ife stories of eight women, fou r American and fou r I raq i , as a creative and com p l i cated way to see the war through gend ered lenses. Enloe provides a wi n d ow i nto the ways that war fu ncti ons to m i l itarize women's lives, as wel l as the ways that the m i l itarization of women's lives is essential to the maki ng and fighti ng of wars. Enloe traces the i m pacts of the war from I raq i jails to American kitchens, and from American hospitals to I raq i beauty parlo u rs, showi ng that, despite narratives of 'progress' on women's rights in I raq and 'success' in gender i ntegrating the U S m i l itary, gender oppression remai ns. Enloe argues that m i l itaries and thei r civi lian supporters rely on the existence and support of women, not only as people, but specifically as women, as wel l as on id eas about mascu l i n ity and fem i n i n ity, and that the war i n I raq is no exception. I n fact, she notes mascu/inization-the decrease of women's presence and women's i nfl uence- i n key spheres of the war (including but not l i m ited to the I raq i economy, the I raq i police forces, and the US m i litary). She outl i nes a n u m ber of the roles that women are expected to fi l l i n order to make war possi ble, roles that are as d iverse as free care provision for wou n d ed sold i ers and prostituti on as a means of su pporting fam i l ies. Enloe clai ms that these roles are l i n ked by gender- based behavioural expectations essential for the i nspiration for, and operation of, m i l itarism in global politics. Through rich e m p i rical analyses, Enloe argues that m i l itarization is pervasive, and that it is i m portant to see the war(s) in I raq as fought through, on, and in the lives of ord i nary people, who experi ence the fighti ng very d ifferently depen d i n g on the biological sex category to which they belong. Whether it is in N i m o's beauty parlo u r as pol itics is d iscussed or at Em ma's d i n i ng room table as her sons tal k about j o i n i ng t h e US m i litary, Enloe 'makes fem i n ist sense of' t h e I raq War b y showi ng h o w it is fought constantly in everyday l ife. In so demonstrating, Enloe does not j ust 'make fem i n ist sense' of the I raq War, she makes sense of it. She demonstrates that the war can n ot be accou nted for without understand i n g not only the war's place in hi story, but the war's place i n the h i story of gender relations, and the gender relations of hi story and war. Looking through the experiences of the women who lived the war, Enloe compelli ngly demonstrates war as com m o n place, embodied, felt, and gendered. d o m i n ated by positivist, rational ist, and material ist theories. Postpositivist scholars h i p, which incl udes critical theo ry, so me fo rms of constructivism, poststructural ism, and postmodern­ ism, q uestions positivists' bel iefs about the poss i b i l ity of creating u n iversal , o bjective knowl ­ edge. Rejecti ng rationalist methodologies and causal explanations, postpositivists advocate more i nterpretive, ideational, and sociological methods fo r u nderstand i ng global pol itics. They ask in whose i nterests and fo r what p u rpose knowledge is co nstructed. Fo r a more de­ tai l ed acco u nt of the d ifferent kinds of theorizi ng in I R , see Chapter 1. M any fem i n ists share this postpositivist co m m itment to exam i n i ng the relationsh i p be­ tween knowledge and power. They po i nt out that most knowledge has been created by men and is about men. 1 Although IR postpositivists have been as slow as positivists to i ntrod uce gender i nto their research, their epistemological critiq ues created space fo r fem i n ist analyses in a way that other I R scholars h i p had not. Conventional I R rel ies on general ized rational ist explanations of asocial states' behaviour in an anarch ic i nternational system. I R fem i n ist the­ ories focus o n social relations, particularly gender relations; rather than anarchy, they see an 1 82 J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D L AU R A SJ O B E RG i nternational system co nstituted by socially co nstructed gender h ierarch ies that contri bute to gender subord i n ation. I n order to reveal these gender h ierarch ies, fem i n i sts often begi n their examinations of i nternational relations at the m icrolevel-atte m pting to u nderstand how the l ives of i n d ividuals ( especially margi nal ized i n d ividuals ) affect and are affected by global pol itics. I R fem i n ist research can be d ivided i nto two co m plementary but d isti nct generations: fi rst­ generatio n , which largely focused on theory fo rm u lation, and seco nd -generation, which ap­ proaches empi rical situations with 'gendered lenses'. 2 Fi rst-generation IR fem i n ist theory was primarily concerned with bringing to l ight and critiq u i ng the gend ered fo u n d ations of I R the­ ories and of the practices of i nternational pol itics. Second -generation I R fem i n ists have been developing their own research p rogram mes-extend i n g the bou n d aries of the d isci p l i ne, i n ­ vestigating d ifferent issues, a n d l istening t o u nfam i l iar voices. These fem i n ists u s e gender as a catego ry of analysis in their stud ies of real -world events in glo bal pol itics, i n corporating fem i n ist conceptual critiq ues i nto thei r analyses of specific situations. They have stud ied the gendered nature of the glo bal econo my, fo reign policy, and sec u rity by exam i n ing specific pol itical and eco n o m i c situations in concrete h i sto rical and geographic co ntexts. Typology of I R fe m i n ist theo ries As in IR more general ly there are a wide variety of fem i n ist theoretical perspectives. Many of them b u i l d on, but go beyond, some of the IR perspectives d iscussed i n other chapters, such as l i beral ism, constructivism, critical theory, poststructural ism, and postcolon ial ism. While they may d isagree about the reasons, all of them are trying to u nderstand wo men's s u bo r­ d i n ation. I R fem i n ists share an interest i n gender eq ual ity or what they prefer to cal l gender emanci pation. But what fem i n ists mean by gender emanci pation varies greatly, as does their u n d erstand i ng of the appropriate paths to reach it. We wi l l now briefly o utl i n e the ass u m p­ tions and methodological preferences of some of these approaches and refer to some exem­ plary writi ngs i n each. We note that there is sign ificant overlap between these perspectives and that o u r typology is somewhat of a s i m p l ificatio n , but usefu l fo r analysis. Liberal fem inism Liberal fem i n ism cal l s attention to the s u bo rd i nate positi o n of wo men i n glo bal pol itics but remains co m m itted to i nvestigating the causes of this s u b o rd i n ation with in a positivist framewo rk. Li beral fem i n is m challenges the content but n ot the episte m o l ogical ass u m p ­ t i o n s o f conventional I R. Li beral fem i n i sts document vario u s as pects o f wo me n's s u b o rd i n ­ atio n. For exa m p le, they h ave i n vestigated t h e particular p roblems o f refugee wo men, i nco me i neq ual ities between wo men and men, and h u man rights violati o n s i n c u rred d isproporti o n ately by wo men, such as trafficking and rape in war. They look fo r wo men i n the i n stitutions and p racti ces of global pol itics and observe h ow their p resence ( o r lack thereof ) affects and is affected by i nternational po l i cy-maki ng. They ask what a wo rld with m o re wo men in positi o n s of power m ight look l i ke. Li beral fem i n ists bel i eve that wo men's eq ual ity can be ach i eved by removing legal and oth er o bstacles that h ave den ied them the same rights and opportu n ities as men.  FE M I N I S M 1 83 Liberal fem i n i sts also use gender as a n exp lanato ry variable i n fo reign policy analysis. U s i n g social scientific meth ods, Mary Capri o l i and M ark Boye r (2001 ) e m p loy q uantitative social science data and statistical measu res to i nvestigate a variant of the democratic peace hypothesis- namely whether there is a relationsh i p between domestic gender eq ual ity and states' use of violence i nternational ly. Acco rd i n g to thei r measu res of gender i n eq ual ity, thei r resu lts show that the severity of violence used by states i n i nternational crises decreases as domestic gender equal ity i ncreases. Capri o l i and Boyer are using gender as a variable to explain certai n pol icies and policy resu lts. M any postpositivist I R fem i n ists are critical of l i beral fem i n ism. They see problems with measuring gender i neq ual ity using statistical i n d i cato rs. Caprio l i and Boyer (2001 ) use na­ tional i n d i cators, such as n u m bers of wo men in parl iament and years since wo men gai n ed the vote, to meas u re gender eq ual ity. Postpositivist fem i n i sts claim that such measu res are i n adeq uate for u nderstand i ng gender i n eq ual ity, which is associated with gender ro le expec­ tations that keep wo men o ut of positions of power; as we mentioned earl ier, gender- laden d ivisions between p u b l i c and private spheres co nsign wo men to certain social ly accepted ro les. Postpositivist fem i n ists point o ut that gender i neq ual ities co nti n ue to exist in societies that have long since ach i eved formal eq ual ity, so we m u st go deeper i nto o u r investigations of gender h ierarchies if we are to explain these i neq ual ities. Al l these fem i n ists use gender (as we defi ned it earl ier) as a catego ry of analysis to help them u nderstand these i neq ual ities and thei r i m p l ications fo r global pol itics. Critical feminism Critical fem i n ism goes beyo nd l i beral fem i n ism's use of gender as a variable. It explores the id eational and material manifestations of gend ered identities and gendered power i n glo bal pol itics. M any critical fem i n ists b u i l d u pon, but go beyo nd, the wo rk of I R scholar Ro bert Cox. Cox (1 986) po rtrays the wo rld in terms of h i sto rical structu res made up of th ree catego ries of reci procal interacting forces: material co nd itions, ideas, and i n stitutions. These fo rces i nteract at th ree d ifferent levels: p rod uction relations, the state-society com p l ex, and h i storical ly de­ fi ned wo rld orders. While id eas are i m po rtant i n legitimating certain i n stitutions, ideas are the prod uct of h u man agents-therefo re, there is always the poss i b i l ity of change. Critical theory is co m m itted to u nderstand i ng the world i n o rder to try to change it. San d ra Whitworth is a fem i n ist critical theorist who b u i l d s o n Cox's framewo rk. In her boo k, Feminism and International Relations (1 994), she claims that u nderstand i ngs about gender depend o n ly i n part o n real material co nd itions of wo men and men i n particular c i rc u m stances. She suggests that ge nder is also co nstituted by the mean i n g given to that real ity- ideas that men and wo men have about thei r relati o n s h i ps to one another. Her re­ search exami nes the d ifferent ways gender was u nderstood over time in the I nternational Plan ned Parenthood Federation and the I nternational Labo u r O rgan ization ( I LO), and the effects that these changi ng u n d erstan d i ngs had o n both i n stitutions' po p u lation pol icies at vario u s times in thei r h i sto ry. Ch risti ne C h i n's In Service and Servitude (1 998) also uses a critical fem i n ist approach to study female domestic workers. C h i n exami nes the increasing prevalence of u n derpaid and often explo ited fo reign female domestic workers i n Malaysia d u ring the l 970s-a time when the state was modernizing the economy. She rejects a trad itional economic explanation of 1 84 J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D L AU R A SJ O B E RG wage d ifferentials to explain the i m portation of F i l i p i n a and I ndonesian female domestic la­ bo u r because, i n this case, economic theory does not acco u nt fo r state i nvo lvement o r the social dynam ics aro u n d the emp loyment of foreign domestic workers. Ado pti ng a critical approach, C h i n argues that the Malaysian state su pported the i m po rtation and employment of foreign female domestic workers, who were often wo rki ng i n cond itions not m uch better than slavery, as a part of a strategy to co-opt and wi n the s u p port of m i d d l e-class fam i l ies and decrease eth n i c tensions. Her study shows that the Malaysian state, l i ke other states, is not neutral, but an expression of class-, race-, and gender- based power that has wo n s u p po rt by co-opti ng certain citizens wh i l e rep ressi ng others. Consistent with critical theory more generally, C h i n sees her study as emanci pato ry-to identify existi ng power relations with the i ntention of changing them. Feminist constructivism IR social constructivists cal led fo r reth i n ki ng the ways we see and u nderstand i nternational pol itics by add i ng a social layer to I R's analyses. They emphasize the ideation al rather than the material elements of global pol itics. Constructivist approaches range broad ly-fro m positivist versions that treat ideas as causes to a postpositivist focus on language. Al l agree that i nter­ national l ife is social and that agents and structu res are co-constituted. They challenge realist ass u m ptions about states as u n itary acto rs; i n stead , they see states as the dynam ic resu lts of the social processes that constitute their existence. States and other i nternational acto rs' per­ ceptions of their own and others' identities shape thei r behavio u r in global pol itics. Constructivist fem i nism focuses on the way that ideas about gender shape and are shaped by glo bal pol itics. Elisabeth Prugl's boo k, The Global Construction of Gender (1 999), uses a l i n ­ guistical ly based fem i n ist constructivist perspective t o analyse t h e treatment o f home- based wo rk in international negotiations and i nternational law. Since most home- based wo rkers are women, the debate about regulating this type of employment is an i m po rtant one fro m a fem i n ist perspective. Low wages and poor worki ng cond itions have often been justified on the gro u nds that home- based wo rk is not 'real work' si nce it takes place i n the private repro­ d u ctive sphere of the ho usehold rather than the more val ued p u b l i c sphere of waged - based prod uction. Prugl shows how ideas about woman hood and fem i n i n ity contri buted to the i nternational com m u n ity's debates about institutionalizing these wo rkers' rights, a debate that fi nal ly cu l m i n ated i n the passage of the I LO's Homewo rk Convention i n 1 996 d ue, i n large part, to the lobbying of a variety of women's nongovern mental o rgan izations. She sees gender as an i n stitutio n that cod ifies power at every level of glo bal pol itics, from the home to the state to the i nternational system. She argues that gender pol itics pervade wo rld pol itics, creating a set of l i ngu istical ly based ru les about how states i nteract with each other and with their own citizens. Prugl and other constructivist fem i n ists study the processes whereby ideas about gen ­ der i nfl uence glo bal pol itics, a s wel l a s t h e ways that glo bal pol itics shape ideas about gender. Feminist poststructural ism Poststructu ral ists focus o n mean ing as it is cod ified in language. They claim that o u r u n d er­ stand i ng of real ity is med iated through o u r use of language. They are particularly concerned with the relationsh i p between knowledge and power; those who co nstruct mean ing and  FE M I N I S M 1 85 create knowledge thereby gai n a great deal o f power. Fem i n i sts point o ut that men have gen ­ erally been seen a s t h e knowers-what has co u nted a s legiti mate knowledge i n t h e social sci ­ ences has generally been based o n knowledge about men's l ives i n t h e p u b l i c sphere; women have been margi nal ized both as knowers and as the s u bjects of knowledge. Poststructural ist femin ism is particularly co ncerned with the way d ichoto m ized l i nguis­ tic constructions, such as stro ng/weak, rational/emotional, and p u b l i c/private serve to em­ power the mascu l i n e over the fem i n i ne. In i nternational relations, co nstructions, such as civi l ized/u ncivil ized , o rder/anarchy, and develo ped/u nderdeveloped, have been i m po rtant in how we d ivide the wo rld l i ngu istical ly. Poststructu ral ists bel ieve that these d i stinctions have real -world co nseq uences. Dichotomous constructions such as these denote i nferiority and even danger with respect to those o n the o utside-they are also gendered and have racial i m p l ications. Fem i n i st poststructu ral ists seek to expose and d econstruct these h ierarch ies­ often th ro ugh the analysis of texts and thei r mean i ng. They see gender as a co m p l ex social co nstruction and they emphasize that the spoken mean i n g of gender is co nstantly evolving and changi ng with co ntext. Deconstructing these h ierarch ies is necessary i n o rder fo r us to see them and co nstruct a less h ierarch ical vision of real ity. Charlotte Hooper's book Manly States (2001 ) is an example of poststructu ral textual analysis. One of her central q uestions is what ro le i nternational relations theory and practice plays in shapi ng, defi n i ng, and legiti mati ng mascu l i n ities. She claims that we can not u n derstand i nternational relations u n less we understand the i m p l ications of the fact that it is conducted mostly by men. She asks how i nternational relations m ight d isci pline men as much as men shape i nternational relations. H ooper sets about answering this q u estio n thro ugh an analysis of theo ries of mascu l i n ity together with a textual analysis of The Economist, a prestigious British weekly newspaper that covers business and pol itics. She fol l ows the practice of intertextual ity­ 'the process by which mean i ngs are circulated between texts through the use of various visual and l iterary codes and co nventions' (Hoo per 2001 : 1 22). Through an exami nation of texts, graphs, photos, and advertising material , she co ncl udes that The Economist is satu rated with sign ifiers of hegemonic masc u l i n ities and that gendered messages are encoded in the news­ paper, regard l ess of the i ntentions of its publ ishers or authors. She aims to show that gender pol itics pervades world pol itics and that gender is a social co nstruction that resu lts from prac­ tices that con n ect argu ments at all levels of pol itics and society, including the i nternational. More recently, Lau ra Shepherd's Gender, Violence, and Security: Discourse as Practice (2008) i nvestigates UN Secu rity Co u n c i l Resol ution 1 325, passed in 2000 to add ress gender issues i n confl ict areas, fro m a fem i n ist postructural ist poi nt of view. Shepherd argues that the lan ­ guage of the resol ution not o n ly reflects real ity, but is also constitutive of it. She details the ways i n which the Reso l ution's d iscu rsive co nstructio n has i nfl uenced its i m plementation and, u ltimately, determ i n ed its fai l u re. Fo r example, Shep herd poi nts to the reification of gender­ based expectations that wo men are peacefu l/passive i n the Reso l utio n's j u stifications for i n ­ c l u d i n g wo men i n peace processes, argu ing that t h i s sti l l -gendered i nterpretation even i n apparently gender-emanci pato ry i nternational law can explain t h e U N's conti n u ed inabil ity to include wo men adeq uately in thei r peace processes and/or transform these processes to be gender aware. Shepherd's d isco u rse-theo retical analysis of Reso l ution 1 325 co ncludes that a reconceptual ization of gendered violence i n co nj u n ction with secu rity is necessary to avo id repl ication of the partial and h ighly problematic u n derstandi ngs of their relationsh i p i n Reso l ution 1 325 a n d (therefore) i n its i m plementation. 1 86 J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D L AU R A SJ O B E RG Postcolonial fem inism M any postco lon ial writers are poststructuralists. Their particular co ncern is co lon ial rela­ tions of d o m i n ation and s u bord i n ation established u nder i m perial ism. They claim that these d o m i nance relationships have persisted beyo nd the granti ng of independence to fo rmerly co lon ized states and that they are b u i lt i nto the way the colon ized are represented in Western knowledge. Argu ing that the co lon ized m ust represent themselves, postcolon ial scholars aim to 'speak back', a task made harder by the erasu re of their h i story and culture. Like poststruc­ tu ral ist scholars more generally, postcolon ial scholars argue that, i n i nternational relations, co nstructions of 'self' and 'other' foster racial and cu ltu ral stereotypes that denote the other­ in their case ex-colon ial s u bjects-as i nferior. Postcolon ial femin ism makes s i m i lar claims about the way Western fem i n ists have co n ­ structed knowledge about non -Western women. J ust a s fem i n ists have criticized Western knowledge fo r its false assu m ptions about u n iversal ity when, in real ity, it is knowledge co n ­ structed mai n ly fro m men's l ives, postco lon ial fem i n i sts see false c l a i m s o f u n iversalism aris­ ing fro m knowledge that is based largely o n the experiences of relatively p rivi leged Western wo men. Chan d ra Mohanty {1 988} critiques some Western fem i n ists fo r treating wo men as a homogeneous catego ry that does not acknowledge their d ifferences depend ing on their cu ltu re, social class, race, and geograph ical location. This eth nocentric u n iversalism ro bs wo men of their h i storical and pol itical agency. Postco lon ial fem i n ists, such as M ohanty, are co ncerned that Western fem i n ists ass u m e that all wo men have s i m i lar needs with respect to emanci pation when, in fact , thei r real ities are very d ifferent. Postcolon ial fem i n i sts chal lenge Western portrayals of Th i rd Wo rld wo men as poor, u ndered ucated, victi m ized , and lacki ng i n agency. Recent wo rk i n postcolon ial fem i n ist I R, i n c l u d i n g that of Anna Agathangelou and Lily Ling, 3 has analysed gender s u bo rd i natio n as sitting at the intersection of gender, race, and cu ltu re, and b l u rring the bo u n d aries between pol itics, pol itical econo my, and other rela­ tions of d o m i n ation/s u bord i n ation. Recogn izi ng this, they seek to red ress these s u bo rd i na­ tions with i n their own cultural context, rather than thro ugh so me u n iversal u nderstand i ng of wo men's needs. Gender, secu rity, and glo bal po l itics In this section we focus on how the theoretical perspectives we have outli ned and how the scholars h i p we have d iscussed co ntri bute to our u nderstand i ng of secu rity and i n secu rity. Fem i n ist defi n itions of secu rity, exp lanations of i n secu rity, and suggestions as to how to i m ­ prove sec u rity are very d ifferent fro m those o f conventional I R. We begi n t h i s section b y of­ fering so me fem i n ist redefi n itions of sec u rity and i n secu rity. Then we suggest some fem i n ist reanalyses of secu rity and outl i n e some empi rical evid ence that fem i n i sts are using to formu­ late their reanalyses. Redefining security and its subjects Conventional I R scholars, notably realists, defi ne secu rity primarily in terms of the secu rity of the state. A secu re state is one that can protect its physical and moral bo u n d aries against  FE M I N I S M 1 87 a n 'anarch ic' i nternational system. Neoreal ists focus o n the anarchic structu re o f the i nter­ national system where there is no sovereign to regulate state behaviour. They po rtray states as u n itary acto rs whose i nternal structu res and pol icies are less i m portant than this anarchic co nd ition for explai n i ng thei r secu rity and i n secu rity. The power-seeking behavio u r and m i l i ­ tary capabi l ities o f states are seen a s ways t o increase thei r secu rity; many secu rity special ists bel ieve that power-seeking in order to pro mote secu rity explains m uch of the i nternational behavio u r of states. I n the 1 980s, certain I R scholars began to chal lenge these exp lanations and to articu­ late broader defi n itions of sec u rity. N oti ng that most wars since 1 945 have been fuel led by eth n i c and nationalist rival ries and have not been fo ught across i nternational bou n daries, they began to examine the i nterrelatio n of m i l itary th reats with economic and enviro n mental ones. M ost of the wo rld's poo rest states have active m i l itary co nfl icts with i n thei r bo u n d aries. These confl icts contri bute to h igh n u m bers of civi l ian casualties, to structu ral violence-the violence done to people when their basic needs are not met-and to envi ronmental destruc­ tion. Critical secu rity scholars, as they are cal led, began to defi ne secu rity in terms of th reats to h u man wel l - being and s u rvival -secu rity of the i n d ivid ual and their envi ron ment, as wel l a s that o f the state. Li ke critical sec u rity scholars, many I R fem i n ists defi ne secu rity broad ly in m u ltid i mensional and m u ltilevel terms-as the d i m i n ution of all fo rms of violence, i n c l u d i n g physical, structu ral, and eco logical. Accord ing to IR fem i n ists, secu rity th reats i nclude domestic violence, rape, poverty, gender s u bord i n ation, and ecological destruction, as wel l as war. Fem i n ists not o n ly broaden what security means, but also who is guaranteed security. M ost of their analyses of secu rity start at the bottom , with the i n d ivid ual or the com m u n ity, rather than with the state or the i nternational system. I R fem i n i sts have demonstrated how the secu rity of i n d ivid uals is related to national and i nternational pol itics and how i nternational pol itics affects the sec u r­ ity of i n d ivid uals even at the local level. Fem i n i st research is demonstrating how those at the margi ns of states may actually be ren ­ dered more i nsec u re b y thei r state's secu rity po l icies. T h e Malaysian case, d iscussed earl ier, demonstrates that the explo itation of foreign domestic servants, often tho ught of as a 'private' issue, was perm itted by the Malaysian state i n order to wi n support of its middle class, thereby d i m i n i s h i n g eth n i c tensions-tensions that were causing th reats to the secu rity of the state. I n Bring M e Men {201 3), a study of the homoerotic su btexts to ideal ized, heterosexual mascu l i n ities in the US m i l itary fro m 1 898 to 2001 , Aaron Bel kin shows the ways in which the i ntimate and national identity are crucially tied together, both representationally and empi rical ly. The po l i ­ tics o f sexual ized relations among sold iers is d i rectly related t o t h e strategies a n d tactics o f the U S m i l itary do mestically and i nternational ly. Both these cases show how co nsiderations of national sec u rity translated i nto i n secu rity fo r margi nal ized v u l nerable wo men. Redefi n itions of secu rity and reth i n king about the s u bjects of sec u rity pro m pt fem i n ists to ask d ifferent q u estions, particularly about whose l ives are being secu red and whose are not. Challenging the myth of protection O u r earl ier defi n ition of masc u l i n ity and fem i n i n ity defi ned men as 'protectors' and wo men as 'protected'. 4 It is a widespread myth that men fight wars to p rotect 'vu l nerable people', usually defi ned as wo men and c h i l d ren. Yet, wo men and c h i l d ren co nstitute a majo rity of casualties 1 88 J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D L AU R A SJ O B E RG i n recent wars as civi l ian casualties have risen fro m about ten per cent at the begi n n i ng of the twentieth centu ry to almost n i n ety per cent by its close. In 1 999 about seventy-five per cent of refugees were wo men and c h i l d ren, many of them fleeing from wars. Wars make it harder for wo men to fu lfi l their care-givi ng respo n s i b i l ities; as mothers and fam i ly providers, wo men are particu larly h u rt by the eco n o m i c co nseq uences of wars. I n Gendering Global Conflict, Lau ra Sjoberg (201 3) demonstrates that wo men's presu med status as i n n ocent civi l ians makes wars harder, not easier, fo r them, by defi n i ng them as pro­ tected without regard fo r their actual safety. Since wo men's i m m u n ity from war has been pre­ su med, bell igerents have often d isregarded the degree to which war causes wo men to suffer d isproportionately. Fem i n ists have also d rawn o u r attention to wartime rape; often rape is not j ust an 'accident' of war but, as in the case of the war in the fo rmer Yugoslavia in the 1 990s, a deli berate m i l itary strategy. I nstead of seeing m i l itary power as part of a state's arsenal to de­ fend agai nst secu rity th reats from other states, fem i n ists see that m i l itaries are often th reats to i n d ivid uals' (partic u l arly wo men's) security and co mpetito rs fo r scarce resou rces on which wo men may depend more than men. Loo king at the effects of war th rough gendered lenses, we fi nd that war is a cultural co n ­ struction that depends on myths o f protection. S u c h myths have been i m po rtant i n u phold­ ing the legiti macy of war. They also co ntri bute to the delegiti mation of peace which is often associated with fem i n i n e characteristics, such as weakness, co ncession, and ideal ism. Loo k­ ing at these gendered constructions may deepen o u r u nderstand i ng of the causes of war and allow us to see how certain ways of th i n king about secu rity have been legiti mated wh i l e others have been silenced. Understanding economic insecurity Fem i n ist analyses of m i l itary secu rity have looked at the gendered i m pacts of war, particularly as they relate to the secu rity of i n d ivid uals. Fem i n ist research on economic secu rity h igh l ights women's particular economic vu l nerabi l ities. While there are o bviously enormous global d ifferences i n women's socioeconomic status, depending on race, class, and geographic location, women are d isproportionately located at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale i n all socie­ ties. In order to explain this, fem i n ists have d rawn our attention to a gendered d ivision of labo u r that had its origi ns i n seventeenth-centu ry E u rope, where defi n itions o f male a n d female were beco m i ng polarized in ways that were su ited to a growing d ivision between work and home req u i red by early capitalism. The notion of 'housewife' began to place women's work i n the private domestic sphere as opposed to the public world of prod uction i n h abited by men. Even though most women do work o utside the home, the association of wo men with gendered ro les, such as housewife, caregiver, and mother, came to be seen as 'natu ral'. Conseq uently, when women do enter the wo rkforce, they are disproportionately represented i n the cari ng professions or 'l ight' man ufactu ring i n d u stries, occu pations that are chosen because of val u es that are often emphasized i n female social ization. Women provide an opti mal labo u r force for contemporary global capital ism because, since they are defi ned as housewives rather than workers, they can be paid lower wages o n the ass u m ption that thei r wages are supplemen­ tal to fam ily i nco me. Elisabeth Prugl's (1 999) study of home- based labo u r, discussed earl ier, tal ks about the low rem u neration of home- based work, wh ich is grou nded i n this ass u m ptio n. Nevertheless, i n actual fact, about one-th i rd of all households are headed by wo men.  FE M I N I S M 1 89 Even when wo men do benefit fro m entry i nto the wo rkfo rce, they co nti n ue to suffer fro m a d o u b l e or even tri ple b u rden si nce wo men carry most of the respo n s i b i l ity fo r household labo u r and u n paid com m u n ity wo rk. U n re m u nerated labo u r plays a crucial ro le i n the rep ro­ d uction of labo u r necessary fo r waged wo rk, yet it has rarely been of co ncern to eco n o m i c analysis. A narrow defi n ition o f work a s wo rk i n the waged eco no my, one that is used i n eco n o m i c acco u nting, tends t o render i nvisible many o f t h e contri butions that wo men make to the glo bal economy. The d isproportionate poverty of women can not be exp lained by market co n d itions alone; gendered ro le expectations about the economic wo rth of wo men's wo rk and the kinds of tasks that wo men are expected to do co ntri bute to their eco n o m i c i nsecurity. Li ke critical secu rity scholars, fem i n ists have broadened thei r defi n itions and analyses of sec u rity. B ut they go fu rther by showing how i m po rtant gender as a catego ry of analysis is to o u r u nderstand i ng of secu rity and i n security. Using o u r gendered lenses we wi l l now examine i n more detail the UN sanctions po l i cy o n I raq d u ring the 1 990s, a case which s u p po rts this propositio n. Case study: U n ited N ati o n s sanct i o n s o n I raq In 1 99 1 , I raq i nvaded and con q uered Kuwait, clai m i ng a right to Kuwaiti territory. The U n ited N ati ons (UN) declared I raq's i nvasion i l l egal and u ltimately used m i l itary force to eject I raq from Kuwait. This confl ict is known as the Fi rst G u lf War. At the end of the First G u lf War, UN Secu rity Council Resol ution 687 left I raq under a stri ct i m port and export em bargo. Accord in g to the Resol ution, the em bargo wou l d remai n in place until I raq m et a l i st of demands i m posed by the Secu rity Council. These demands related to Kuwaiti i n dependence, I raq i weapons, terrorism, and liabil ity for the Gulf War. 5 Th is sanctions regi me, origi nally i ntended to last about a year, stretched over t h i rteen. It was marked by confusion, fits and starts, partial com p l iance, and u lterior motives. I raq's cooperation was in consistent at best and Saddam H ussei n , the presid ent of I raq , often openly defied the sancti ons. Throughout the 1 990s, I raq remained under one of h i story's longest and m ost strict economic sancti ons regimes. In the m i d - l 990s, i nternati onal popular o p i n i o n tu rned against the sanctions because of the tragic h u man itarian conseq uences. Many states that favou red the overth row of the Saddam H ussein regi me became critical of the sanctions. A n u m ber of U N Security Council mem ber states, including France and Russia, turned against the sanctions. Sti l l , a Secu rity Council vote to l ift the sancti ons was never taken because such a vote wou l d have faced certain veto from the USA. The USA, but not the U N , i nsisted on regi me change in I raq as a cond ition for lifti ng sancti ons. Meanwh ile, pictu res of malnourished c h i l d ren were publicized by activist organ izations fighting the sanctions. The USA and the UN Secu rity Council blamed Saddam H usse i n for I raq's noncompl iance, wh i l e the I raq i govern ment blamed the U N. The sanctions regi me was a h u man itarian d isaster. T h e i m pacts o f a t h i rteen-year near-total em bargo on the I raq i economy were extensive. Before the Fi rst Gulf War, I raq had an export-based economy, exporti ng oil. I raq i m ported almost all of its food and other basic necessities. The I raq i gross national prod uct fel l by fifty per cent d u ri n g the fi rst year of sanctions, and decl i ned to less than $500 i n the fol l owing years. By 2000, I raq was the th i rd poorest country i n the world. Economic decl i n e caused a sharp d rop i n real wages and widespread unemployment. These adverse economic i m pacts caused most I raq is serious material problems. Often , women had less secure jobs than men because their job ten u re had been shorter and they were not seen as the pri mary i n come-earners for their fam i l ies. I raq had neither the money to buy, nor the means to (conti n ued) 1 90 J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D L AU R A SJ O B E RG produce, essential supplies; before the sanctions it had i m ported most of its food. With no i n come, a cri ppled infrastructure, and an i nternational law against both i m ports and exports, I raq had a d ifficult time acq u i ri n g food. The result was catastrophic maln utrition. Households rarely had enough food and women were often the last to eat. I raq is also lacked clean water, baby m i l k, vitam i ns, healthcare suppl ies, and adeq uate electricity. The o i l -for-food programme, which was i m plemented by the U N Secu rity Counci l, allowed some needed suppl ies t o enter I raq b y perm itti ng l i m ited o i l exports. W h ile the programme d i d result i n s o m e food enteri ng I raq , its provisions fai led to provide for the restoration of I raq's o i l i nfrastructu re, which had been bad ly damaged i n the Fi rst Gulf War and had been dormant for most of the 1 990s. As a result, the o i l-for-food programme did not meet the basic needs of I raq i citizens. It was not u ntil certain mem bers of the i nternational com m u n ity began to trade with I raq i n the late 1 990s despite the sanctions that the worst h u man itarian i m pacts d issipated. These deprivations had severe med i cal i m pacts. F i n d i n g adeq uate prenatal care was next to i m possible for I raq i women; even if thei r c h i l d ren were born healthy, the lack of vitam in s and baby m i l k meant that c h i l d mortal ity skyrocketed. T h e cancer rate rose b y 400 per cent. It is estimated that the sanctions lead to the deaths of about 1 m i l l i o n I raqis, half of them c h i l d ren and another t h i rty per cent women (Mueller and M ueller 1 999). In a cou ntry that had previously possessed a world-class m ed i cal system, curable d i seases and starvation were the lead in g causes of d eath. The ed ucational systems also p l u m m eted. Crime rates and prostitution rose, wh i l e culture, the arts, and rel igious activity d ecreased. J oy Gordon (1 999) clai m ed that sanctions sent I raq back to the stone age. S o m e I R analyses of sanct i o n s Fol lowi ng t h e success o f l i m ited sanctions on South Africa i n t h e 1 980s, wh ich contri buted t o t h e ending of Apartheid, economic sancti ons were seen as a powerfu l but h u mane tool. I nternational Relations ( I R) analyses of the effectiveness of sanctions are i nformed by a variety of theoretical perspectives. Realists view sanctions as a way of raising the cost of noncom pliance for the cou ntry on which sanctions are i m posed u ntil it becomes unacceptable ( Baldwi n 1 985). Li berals explain sanctions as a way of depriving the target cou ntry of the means to com m it a violation of i nternational norms (Marti n 1 992). In other words, sanctions take away the resou rces an errant state wou ld use to defy i nternational wi ll. Constructivists argue that sanctions a r e a socializing ph en om e n on , com m u n i catin g a message of d isapproval through the com b i nation of negative conseq uences and i nternational shame (Crawford and Klotz 1 999). Scholars who focus on language see sanctions as d iscou rse-as tools of argu mentation which allow actors to demonstrate the i m portance of their point to other actors reticent to agree (Morgan and Schwebach 1 997). With i n each of these schools of thought, there are d isagreements about which (if any) sancti ons have worked, and how freq uently they should be used. A fem i n ist theory of sanctions d raws from all these perspectives but goes beyond them, using gender as a category of analysis. Fe m i n i sts i n te rpret sancti o n s on I raq Eco n o m i c sancti ons do not appear to be a security issue in the narrow sense: they are not fought with guns on a battlefi eld, or with bombs o n ai rplanes. The UN Secu rity Council d i d not declare war on I raq and the sanctions on I raq d i d not look like a conventional war. H owever, as we mentioned earl ier, I R fem i n i sts who study war pay attention to all fo rms of violence, physi cal and structural, and to what is happen i n g on the gro u n d -to i n d ivid uals and com m u n ities. From this perspective, eco n o m i c sanctions on I raq n ot only looked l i ke a war, t h e y a l s o looked l i ke a war on I raq's most v u l n erabl e citizens. As we have shown, the UN Secu rity Counci l's sancti ons regi me deprived most I raq i citizens of thei r basic everyday needs. The aim of the sanctions was to sti r up popular d iscontent against the I raq i  FE M I N I S M 1 91 government and its policies. I n other words, sanctions tried to hurt civilians s o they wou ld change thei r government. The civi lians who were h u rt the most were not the rich and powerfu l or the decisi on­ makers, since they had the abi l ity to buy food and suppl ies on the black market. I n stead , it was I raq's most vul nerable popu lation that suffered most- low- i n come people, women, c h i l d ren, and the elderly. Economic sancti ons agai nst I raq constituted both physical and structural violence. Physical violence was i ncu rred though freq uent bombi ngs i ntended to com m u n i cate UN mem ber states' u n happiness with I raq's noncompl iance. Structural violence was i ncu rred through the destruction of the economic infrastructu re and the lack of n utriti on and medical care that had supported I raq's poorest citizens. By these measu res fem i n ists wou l d conclude that economic sancti ons constitute war. This bei ng the case, we wi l l now suggest some research q uesti ons that fem i n ists m ight ask and what we m ight learn from their analyses. A l i beral fem i n ist study of sancti ons m ight ask how many women partici pated in the sanctions decision- making process; they m i ght also measu re the varyi ng effects of sancti ons on i n d ivid uals, focusi ng on gender d ifferences. From this they m ight conclude that, wh i l e few women were i nvolved in constructing and i m plementing the sancti ons policy, women suffered more than their male counterparts, both through d i rect deprivation and through the effects of sanctions on their homes, fa m i l ies, and j obs. Fem i n i sts from all postpositivist theoretical perspectives wou ld i ntrod uce gender as a category of analysis and i nvestigate the role that gender played in the pol itics of the sanctions regi me. They m i ght investigate how both the I raq i govern ment and the advocates of the sanctions regime used gender as a public relati ons argu ment against their opponents. The U n ited States characterized I raq as a state that failed to fu lfi l its protector role on account of its wi l l i ngness to starve its women and c h i l d ren in order to develop weapons. I raq characterized its sanctioners as cruel for ki l l i ng women and c h i l d ren to pu n ish the government. Fem i n i sts m ight i n vestigate the pol itical appropriation of gender categories by both sides of the confl ict. IR fem i n i sts emphasize the gendered social h ierarchy i n global pol itics that fosters an atm osphere of coercive com petition by val u i n g traits associated with mascu l i n ity (bravery, strength, and d o m i nance) over traits associated with fem i n i n ity (compromise, com passion, and weakness). Fem i n ists m ight i nvestigate the gend ered d isco u rses of com petitive mascu l i n ity that each side of the sancti ons war used to legitim ize their acti ons and delegiti mate the enemy's; such d iscou rses are often manifested in times of i nterstate confl ict. Specifically, they m ight point to i nstances where US Central I ntel l igence Agency Di rector George Tenet tal ked about penetrating Saddam H ussei n's 'inner sanctum', where US Presid ent George H. W. Bush tal ked about protecting I raq i women as a ju stification for sanctions and war, and where Sad dam H ussei n cou ntered with the th reat of showi ng the U S what a 'real man' he was. It is often the case, particu larly in ti m es of confl ict, that we personify enemy states in gendered ways, referri ng to them by their leaders' names. Th is h i d es the negative i m pacts of war on the l ives of i n d ivid uals- i n d ividuals who may not be responsible for the confl ict in the fi rst place. Fem i n i sts m i ght also explore the pun itive relationsh i p between the UN Security Council and I raq as an example of a hegemonic mascu l i n ity fem i n izing a weaker enemy. Towa rd s a fe m i n ist t h e o ry of sancti o n s o n I raq We suggest th ree major i nsights that fem i n i sts contri bute to the study of sancti ons. Fi rst, fem i n ists look for where the women are in sanctions regimes. They see that women are disproportionately affected by com prehensive sanctions. Women and c h i l d ren are the most l i kely to be mal nourished. When women are malnourished, every stage of the c h i l d - beari ng process becomes more d ifficult. Prenatal and i nfant healthcare is often the fi rst facet of the healthcare system to suffer when a sanctioned economy begi ns to decl i ne. Women lose their jobs and are charged with ru n n in g households deprived of basic (conti n ued) 1 92 J. A N N T I C K N E R A N D L AU R A SJ O B E RG goods. An i nternati onal policy of economic deprivation is felt most heavily at the level of i n d ividual households. While women suffer d i sproporti onately from sanctions regi mes, very few women are present in the decision- making process. When the sanctions on I raq were enacted, there were no female heads of UN Secu rity Council mem ber states. Fem i n i sts see the sanctions regi me on I raq as an example of the systematic exclusion of wom en's voices from decisions about i nternational policies that d isproportionately affect them. State and i nterstate secu rity policy can cause women's (and other i n d ivid uals') i nsecu rity. The second i nsight fem i n ists have is a criticism of the gendered logic of the policy choice. Sanctions are put i n place by the stronger actors i n an attem pt to force the weaker actor to submit to thei r wi l l. They are coercive i n nature-co m ply, or you starve. Fem i n ists criticize the adversarial natu re of i nternati onal pol itics because it valorizes mascu l i n e val ues, such as pride, victory, and force, over fem i n i n e ones, such as com prom i se, com passion, and coexistence-val ues that are often seen as signs of weakness by most states and many of their citizens, women and men a l i ke. This results i n confrontational pol icies; policies that often h u rt those a t t h e margi ns o f i nternational pol itical life the most. Postcolon ial fem i n ists wou l d add a criticism of the ass u m ption that the UN Security Council mem bers somehow knew better than Iraq what was good for I raqis. It is often the case that powerfu l people, many of whom are men, claim to know what is best for subord i nate people (and often for women). I R fem i n ists criti q u e the gendered logic and gendered i m pacts of sanctions. The t h i rd insight that IR fem i n ists have to offer a theory of sanctions is a critical re-exami nation of the q uestion of responsi b i l ity. Fem i n i sts not only look for the problems with h ierarchical gender relati onsh i ps i n global pol itics, they also look for sol utions. Fem i n i sts explore sanctions as both an empi rical phenomenon and a gendered phenomenon. Having seen the tragic h u man itarian conseq uences of the sanctions regi me, they m ight ask why no one was fixing them. The I raq i govern ment used people's suffering to advance its pol itical position at the expense of its most vulnerable citizens. Saddam H usse i n showed no fl exi b i l ity that cou ld have saved lives. Whether or not the i nternational com m u n ity truly bel ieved that the goal of sancti ons was worth the catastrophic loss of l i fe i n I raq or whether anyone weighed the conseq uences d i rectly, many govern m ents i n the i nternati onal arena were wi l l i ng to let people d i e. Fem i n ists d raw ou r attention to the construction of state borders as a way to separate 'self' from 'other' and d istance ou rselves from the suffering of others. Fem i n i sts enco u rage states and their citizens to reflect on the false perception of separateness and the global hierarchies that are thereby created. Deconstructing these h i erarchies m ight lead people to care for, rather than com pete with, those others outside state boundaries. Fem i n i sts wou l d conclude that economic sanctions are not isolated areas of confl ict with i n an otherwise peacefu l system. Acts of coercion, physical or economic, put i n place by both sides to win i nternati onal com petitions are not only violent, but also part of a system that is con d on in g violence, both physical and structural. The sanctions regi m e on I raq contri buted to the perpetuation of a violent i nternati onal system i n which the most vulnerable people are rarely secu re. The fem i n ist i nsights from the study of economic sanctions as war in i nternational relati ons are not o n ly val uable for their contri bution to I R's theories of sanctions, but also for their generalizabil ity to I R's crucial q uesti ons, such as what constitutes foreign poli cy, what cou nts as war, and how war affects people. Case stu d y q uesti o n s 1. Sanctions agai nst I raq were a case o f extreme h u man itarian suffering a n d pol itical i ntransigence, but other sanctions have been more successfu l. Do gendered lenses have anyth in g to say about economic coercion more general ly? If so, what? 2. Can the analysis in this chapter on sancti ons in I raq be extended to analyse the confl ict there in the twenty-fi rst century?  FE M I N I S M 1 93 Co nclusion W e bel ieve that fem i n ist I R h as co ntri b uted s u bstantially t o o u r u n d ersta n d i n g o f glo bal pol itics over the l ast twenty years. Fem i n i sts h ave resto red wo men's visi b i l ity, i nvesti­ gated gendered co n structi o n s of i nternational co n cepts and pol icies, and q uestioned the n at u ra l n ess of the gen d e red catego ries that shape and are shaped by glo bal pol itics. F i rst-generati o n fem i n ist IR schol ars h ave offered theo retical reform u l ations wh i l e seco n d -generati o n schol ars h ave appl ied these theo retical refo rm u l ations t o co ncrete situations in glo bal pol itics. We have provided a brief overview of a n u m ber of d ifferent IR fem i n ist theories, i n c l u d i n g l i beral, critical, co nstructivist, poststructuralist, and postcolon ial. Wh i l e w e realize it may be an overs i m p l ification, we created this typology to i l l ustrate one of the major goals of fem i n ist I R-to demonstrate that gender relationsh i ps i n here in all IR scholars h i p. Gender relatio n ­ s h i ps are everywhere i n global pol itics; whenever they are n o t recogn ized , t h e si lence is loud. IR fem i n ists suggest that all scholars and practitioners of i nternational pol itics should ask gender q u estions and be more aware of the gendered i m p l ications of global pol itics. Scholars should ask to what extent thei r theories are co nstructed mai n ly by men and fro m the l ives of men. Practitioners should ask how their pol icies affect wo men and whether a lack of wo men's vo ices i nfl uences their pol icy cho ices. Recogn izi ng gender and other h ierarch ies of power and thei r i m p l ications fo r the l ives of both women and men allows us to begi n to de-gender global pol itics-from inside the UN to i nside the ho me. In this chapter, we focused o n fem i n ist i nterp retati o n s of secu rity. Sec u rity is so i m po r­ tant to states that someti mes they p u rsue sanctio n s and wars and cause structu ral vio­ lence i n the name of p reserving o r enhancing sec u rity. H owever, i n p reserving state secu rity mem bers of the i nternational com m u n ity m ay violate the secu rity of their own and oth ers' m ost margi nal citizens, n otably, wo men, c h i l d ren, the elderly, the poor, and the sick. I R fem i n ists study secu rity at the i n d ividual and the co m m u n ity leve l ; they notice the d if­ ferential i m pacts of secu rity pol icies on wo men and margi nal ized peo p l e m o re generally and i nterrogate the gendered nat u re of co n cepts such as war, secu rity, and the state. The i n sights they p rod u ce reveal some n ew cau ses of i nsecu rity at the global l evel, i n c l u d i ng gender s u bo rd i n ation. Gender s u bo rd i n ation is visible at every l evel i n the I raq sanctions case. I nd ividual wo men were d i s p ro po rtionately affected by the sanctions; gendered states exp l o ited that d isparate i m pact by engagi ng i n gendered d isco u rses of m asc u l i n e co m petitio n. F ro m the pol icy logic to the effects, sanctio n s o n I raq were an exa m p l e of a gendered i nternational secu rity policy. We have laid out a few paths fem i n i sts have u sed i n reform u lati ng I R's u n ­ derstand i ngs o f sanctions i n o rder t o m ake wo men a n d gender relationsh i ps visible and thereby suggest some n ew ways to e n h ance sec u rity. We hope that th ese suggestions offer I R schol ars of a l l perspectives some new i n sights i nto the fem i n ist claim that gender is not j u st about wo men but also about the way that i nternational pol icies are framed, stu d ied , and i m plemented.  Poststructuralism D AV I D C AM P B E L L A N D R O LA N D B LE I K E R 1 I ntroduction 1 96 The i nterd i s c i p l i n a ry co ntext of poststructu ral i s m 201 The react i o n o f I R to poststruct u ra l i s m 202 The critical attitude of poststructu ral i s m 205 U n d e rstan d i n g d i scou rse 208 D i scou rses of wo rld pol itics 21 0 Case study: i m ages of h u man itarian cri ses 21 2 Conclusion 216 Reader's G u ide H ow the d isci p l i n e of I nternational Relations ( I R) 'maps' the world shows the i m por­ tance of representation, the relationsh i p of power and knowledge, and the politics of identity to the prod uction and understand i n g of global politics. Poststructural ism d i rectly engages these issues even though it is not a new parad igm or theory of IR. It is, rather, a critical attitude or ethos that explores the ass u m ptions that make certain ways of being, acting, and knowing possi ble. Th is chapter details how and why poststruc­ tural ism engaged IR from the 1 980s to today. It explores the i nterd isci p l inary context of social and pol itical theory from wh ich poststructural ism emerged , and exa m i nes the misconceptions evident in the reception this approach received from mainstream theorists. The chapter details what the critical attitude of poststructural ism means for social and pol itical i n q u i ry. Focusi ng on the work of M ichel Foucault, it shows the i m ­ portance o f d i scou rse, identity, subjectivity, a n d power t o t h i s approach, and discusses the methodological featu res employed by poststructuralists in their read in gs of, and i nterventions in, i nternational politics. The chapter concl udes with a case study of im­ ages of h u man itarian crises that i l lustrates the poststructural approach. I ntroduction I nterpretation, mapping, and meta-theory Every way of u nderstand i ng i nternational pol itics depends u po n abstraction, representatio n , a n d i nterpretation. That is because 'the wo rld' does not present itself t o u s i n the fo rm of ready- made catego ries or theories. Whenever we write or speak of 'the realm of anarchy', the 'end of the Cold War', 'gendered relations of power', 'global ization', 'h u man itarian i nterven ­ tion', o r 'fi nance capital', w e are engaging i n representation. Even the most 'objective' theory that claims to offer a perfect resem blance of th i ngs does not escape the need for i nterpreta­ tion {Bleiker 2001 ).  P O STS TRUCTU R A L I S M 1 97 Po l itical l ead ers, social activists, scholars, a n d stu d ents are a l l i nvo lved i n t h e i nte rpreta­ tion of 'th e wo rld', whether they engage in the p ractice, theory, or study of i nternational rel ations. This d oes n ot m ean , h owever, that anyo n e can s i m ply make t h i ngs u p and have their perso nal o p i n ions co u nt as l egitimate knowledge. The d o m i nant u n d ersta n d i ngs of wo rld pol itics are both arbitrary, in the sense that they are but one poss i b i l ity among a range of poss i b i l ities, and no narb itrary, i n the sense that certa i n social and h i storical p rac­ tices have given rise to d o m i nant ways of making 'the wo rld' that have very real effects u po n o u r l ives. The d o m i nant i nterpretations of 'the world' have been establ ished by the d isci p l i n e of I nternational Relations (I R), which trad itionally tal ks of states and their policy- makers p u rs u i n g i nterests and provid i ng secu rity, o f economic relations and t h e i r material effects, and o f the rights of those who are being bad ly treated. The 'we' who tal k i n this way do so fro m a particular vantage poi nt-often white, male, Western, affl uent, and comfo rtable. These representations, then, are related to our identities, and they establish a d isco u rse of identity pol itics as the frame of reference fo r wo rld pol itics. This h igh l ights the relations h i p between knowledge and power. While many say 'know­ ledge is power', this assu mes they are synonymous rather than related. The p rod uction of maps i l l ustrates the sign ificance of this relationsh i p between knowledge and power. M aps are not s i m ply passive reflections of the wo rld of o bjects. They favo u r, p romote, and infl uence social relations (Harley 1 988). Co nsider the co m m o n ly u sed Mercato r p rojection ( F igu re 1 1. 1 ). D rafted in 1 569 i n o rder t o p rovide t h e d i rect l i nes n ecessary fo r n avigation, i t p l aced E u rope at t h e centre and put two-th i rds of the wo rld's land mass in the n o rthern h e m i s p here. This rep resenta­ tion s u pported the British E m p i re, and l ater rei n fo rced Cold War perceptio n s of the Soviet th reat ( M o n m o n ier 1 996). Contrast this with the Peters p roj ectio n , d evelo ped i n the 1 970s Figure 1 1. 1 The Mercator projection (Pacific central) Source: Oxford U n i versity Press. 1 98 DAV I D CA M P B E L L A N D R O L A N D B L E I K E R (Figure 1 1.2). This was based o n eq ual-area p roj ection that e m p h asized the South. This p rojection was sign ificant because it emerged with Th i rd Wo rld pol itical assertiveness in the U n ited N atio n s ( U N), and was p ro m oted by UN agencies keen to secu re m o re reso u rces fo r d eve l o p m ent. The Peters p rojection is therefo re a man ifestation of the power relations that chall enged the two s u perpowers i n the 1 970s and a fo rm of knowledge that p ro moted the glo bal South. IR as a d isci p l i n e 'maps' the wo rld. Critical approaches-and poststructural ism i n particu lar­ make these issues of i nterpretation and representation, power and knowledge, and the po l i ­ tics o f identity central. Because o f t h i s poststruct u ral ism is n o t a m o d e l o r theory o f i nter­ national relations. Rather than setting out a parad igm through which everything is u nderstood , poststructu ral ism i s a critical attitude, approac h , o r ethos that cal l s atte nti o n t o the i m po r­ tance of rep resentation, the rel ati o n s h i p of power and knowledge, and the pol itics of identity i n an u n d e rstan d i ng of glo bal affai rs. This means poststructural ism does not fit eas i ly with the conventional view that I R is a d isci p l i n e characterized by d ifferent parad igms co m peti ng i n 'great debates' (discussed i n Chapter 1 ). I nstead o f being another school with its own acto rs and issues t o h igh l ight, post­ structural ism pro motes a new set of q uestions and co ncerns. As a critical attitude rather than theory, poststructural ism, i n stead of seeing a d i stinction between theory and practice, sees theory as practice. This co mes about because poststructural ism poses a series of meta­ theoretical q u estions-q uestions about the theory of theory- i n o rder to understand how particular ways of knowi ng, what co u nts as knowing, and who can know, have been estab­ l i shed over time. Poststructural ism is th us an approach that comes fro m prior and extensive debates in the h u man ities and social science, in a manner akin to critical theory (Chapter 8), fem i n ism (Chapter 1 0), and postcolon ialism (Chapter 1 2). I ;:::::::. - 1 ""\. 7t: /. ' "-' ' ,, l e-" /" v , , o 0 -() ,7 -.;> ? t? ( ' ! v ( \> < rt \ · " " · Q I\,-) \ I )\ r) l I Eq uator j h I Jl7 · / r \ ( ( ( f v L.r- / 11 lJ> l[ --- - (1 - - F'> - Figu re 1 1.2 The Peters projection (Pacific central) Source: Oxford U n iversity Press.  P O STS TRUCTU R A L I S M 1 99 Poststructuralism and I R Poststructuralism's entrance i nto I R came i n the 1 980s thro ugh the work o f Richard Ash l ey (1 981 , 1 984),J ames Der Derian (1 987), M ichael Shapiro (1 988), and R. B.J. Wal ker (1 987, 1 993). Two i m portant co l l ections (Der Derian and Shapiro 1 989; Ash l ey and Wal ker 1 990) bro ught together the early stud ies. These focused mostly on articulating the meta-theoretical critique of realist and neoreal ist theo ries to demonstrate how the theoretical assu m ptions of the trad i ­ tional perspectives shaped what co u l d be said about international pol itics. What d rove many of these contri butions was an awareness of how other branches of the social sciences and h u man ities had witnessed sign ificant debates about how knowledge of the world was co n ­ structed. Recogn izi ng that t h e d o m i nant approaches t o I R were u n aware, u n i nterested , o r hosti le t o s u c h q uestions, t h e above- mentioned authors sought t o connect I R t o its i nterd iscip­ l i nary context by i ntrod ucing new so u rces of theory. The motivation for the turn to poststruc­ tural ism was not p u rely theoretical, however. Critical scholars were d issatisfied with the way realism -and its revivification at that time th ro ugh neo real ism-remained powerfu l i n the face of new glo bal transfo rmations. These scholars felt that real ism margi nal ized the i m po rtance of new transnational actors, issues, and relationsh i ps, and failed to hear (let alone appreciate) the vo ices of excluded peoples and perspectives. As such, poststructu ral ism began with an eth ic­ al co ncern to include those who had been overlooked or excluded by the mainstream of I R. I n focusing on the co nceptual and pol itical p ractices that i n c l u d ed some and excl uded others, poststructu ral approaches were co ncerned with how the relations of inside and outside were m utually co nstructed. Fo r real ism, the state marked the border between i n side/o utside, sovereign/anarchic, us/them. Acco rd i ngly, poststructu ral ism began by q uesti o n i n g how the state came to be regarded as the most i m po rtant acto r in wo rld pol itics, and how the state came to be u nderstood as a u n itary, rational acto r. Poststructural ism was thus co ncerned at the outset with the practices of statecraft that made the state and its i m portance seem both natural and necessary. Th is approach is n ot anti state, it does not overlook the state, nor d oes it seek to move beyo nd the state. I n many respects, poststructu ral ism pays more attention to the state than real ism, because-instead of merely asserti ng that the state is the fo u n d ation of its parad igm - poststructural ism is co ncerned with the state's h i storical and co nceptual p rod u ction, and its pol itical formation, eco n o m i c co nstitution, and social excl usions. After the fi rst wave of meta-theoretical critiques, su bseq uent stud ies e m ployi ng a post­ structu ral approach-wh i l e co nti n u i ng to develop the theoretical basis fo r their alternative i nterp retations-engaged pol itical events and q uestions d i rectly. This research i ncl udes analy­ ses of state identity and foreign po l i cy (Cam pbe l l 1 992, 1 998b, 2005; Bleiker 2005; Steele 2008; Epstein 201 1 ; Solomon 201 4); stud ies of the gendered character of state identity i n the co ntext of U S i ntervention (Weber 1 994, 1 999); stud ies of the centrality of representation in N o rth-So uth relations and i m m igration po l i cies (Doty 1 993, 1 996); i nterpretive read ings of d i plomacy and E u ro pean secu rity (Co nstantinou 1 995, 1 996); the rad ical reth i n king of i nter­ national o rder and secu rity ( D i l l o n 1 996); critical analyses of i nternational law and African sovereignties (G rovogu i 1 996); a recasting of eco pol itics (Kuehls 1 996); the re-articu lation of the refugee regime and sovereignty (Sogu k 1 999); a problematization of the U N and peace­ keeping (Debrix 1 999); a sem iotic read ing of m i l itarism in H awai i ( Ferguson and Tu rn b u l l 1 998); methodological reflections o n autoethnography a n d t h e u s e o f narrative (Dau p h i nee 201 3 , Ed kins 201 3); investigations of contemporary warfare, strategic identities, secu rity 200 DAV I D CA M P B E L L A N D R O L A N D B L E I K E R Featu red art i c l e Richard K. Ash ley (1 984), 'The Poverty o f N eo-Realism'. International Organ ization, 38/2: 225-86. Th is is one of the most i m portant articles in the early development of a critical approach to i nternational relations. Ash l ey did not write of the day-to-day events of i nternational politics. I nstead , he d rew upon European social theory to q u estion how North American I nternational Relations ( I R) theory was begi n n i ng to understand global affairs. Ash ley's concern was with the rise of neoreal ism, as manifested in the work of Robert Keohane, Stephen Krasner, and Robert G i l p i n. H owever, it was the ass u m ptions of a theory, rather than the personal ities of people, that were Ash ley's target. 'My argu ments here, i ntentionally ph rased in provocative terms, are l i ke warn i ng shots, meant to provoke a d iscussion, not destroy an alleged enemy' (p. 229). Ash l ey d rew inspirati on from the h i storian E. P. Thom pson's polemic against the structuralism of Louis Althusser, entitled The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays (1 978). Th is book condemned Alth usser's scientific Marxism for its rel iance on positivism. Ash ley thereby noted that, j ust as social theory was cal l i n g structuralism i nto q uesti on, pro mi nent scholars in i nternational relations were d eveloping a new approach rel iant on structuralism. Neoreal ism had emerged as a response to perceived fai l i ngs i n classical realism, Ash l ey argued. In place of the subjectivism of realism, neorealists wanted to emphasize a 'sci entific' approach that wou ld identify the 'obj ective' structu res o f world pol itics. A t th e heart of neoreal ism was a com m itment to th e state-as-actor. A s a result, and especially odd given the neorealist's concern with power pol itics, there was no concept of social power beh i n d or constitutive of states and their interests. The effect of these ass u m ptions, Ash l ey argued, was for neorealists to treat the given i nternational order (with the USA i n a position of hegemony) as the natural order. N eorealism, Ash l ey said , did not expose the l i m its of the given order and thereby denied h istory as process, the sign ificance of practice and the place of politics. Controversial ly, Ash ley cal led this a 'total itarian project of global proportions' (p. 228), although he emphasized this referred to the logic of the theoretical ass u m ptions rather than the pol itics of i n d ivid uals (p. 257). Ash ley's 1 984 article was not j ust a critiq ue; it also proposed that a 'silenced realism' (p. 264) be recovered and a theory of i nternational pol itical practice be developed, d rawin g on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, J u rgen Habermas, and M ichel Foucau lt. Although critics l i ke Robert G i l p i n were scathing i n their responses t o Ash ley's arti cle, it hel ped shape t h e futu re o f critical theory i n I R. landscapes, a n d representations o f sovereignty {Der Derian 1 992, 2001 ; K l e i n 1 994; Dillon and Reid 2001 ; Coward 2002; Dillon 2003; Lisle and Pepper 2005); a rei nterpretation of area stud­ ies {P h i l pott 2001 ) ; engagements with the pol itics of popular culture {Shapiro 2008; Shepherd 201 3); explorations of the performative and aesthetic d i mensions of pol itical events {Bleiker 201 2; Edkins and Kear 201 3; Rai and Rei nelt, 201 4); and a reth i n king of fi nance and the field of i nternational pol itical economy {de Goede 2005, 2006; Brassett and Clarke, 201 2). These are o n ly a few examples meanwh i l e of cou ntless i n novative and i m po rtant post­ structu ral ism-inspired i n q u i res. Wh i l e not all of these authors wo u l d necessari ly label themselves as 'poststructural', thei r work intersects with , and wou l d not have been possible witho ut, an i nterd isci p l i n ary debate that cal led i nto q uestion the authority of the positivist meta-theo retical ass u m ptions that secu red real ist and other trad itional perspectives i n I R. Befo re detai l i ng what a poststructu ral ist perspective i nvolves, it is necessary, therefo re, to outl i n e the key elements of this i nterd isci p l i n ary debate.  P O STS TRUCTU R A L I S M 201 T h e i nterd isci p l i n ary co ntext o f poststructu ralism Positivism and science in question IR has been shaped by the i nfl uence of science and tech nology i n the development of the modern wo rld. The potential fo r contro l and pred ictive capacity that the natural sciences seemed to offer p rovided a model that social scientists sought to e m u l ate. This model, positivism, was fo u nded o n the empi ricist theory of knowledge, which argued that sensory experience provides the o n ly legiti mate sou rce of knowledge (fo r more detail on positivism, see Chapter 1 ). 'Experience' refers to d i rect sensory access to an external real ity com prising material th i ngs. As an epistemology (a meta-theory concern ing how we know), the e m p i ricist co nception of knowledge u n derstands knowledge as derivi ng fro m a relationsh i p between a given s u bject (the person that knows) and a given o bject (that which is known). These theoretical developments were central to a major h i storical transfo rmatio n -the i ntel lectual clash in the Renaissance period between the c h u rch and science, which chal­ lenged the d o m i nance of theology fo r social o rder. These i ntel lectual developments, which c u l m i n ated d u ring the E n l ighten ment, incl uded making 'man' and 'reaso n', rather than 'god' and 'belief', the centre of p h i l osoph ical d isco u rse, and the construction and legitimation of the state, rather than the c h u rch, as the basis fo r pol itical order. It was a mo ment i n which knowledge i ntersected with power to lasti ng effect. Although the E n l ightenment conception of knowledge was i ntended to free h u man ity from rel igious dogma, it was eventually trans­ fo rmed i nto a d ogma itself. By the end of the n i n eteenth centu ry, its d o m i nance meant that knowledge was eq uated with science and reason l i m ited to scientific reason. This dogmatiza­ tion of science meant that social l ife is centred on tec h n i cal contro l over nature and ad m i n is­ trative co ntrol over h u mans, so that pol itical issues became q u estions of order and efficiency. The positivist acco u nt of science at the base of E n l ighten ment thought is fou nded u pon th ree empi ricist assu m ptions: fi rst, epistemic realism: the view that there is an external wo rld, the existence and mean ing of which is i ndependent of anyth i ng the o bserver does; second, the ass u m ption of a universal scientific language: the bel ief that this external wo rld can be descri bed i n a language that does not pres u p pose anyth i ng, thereby allowing the o bserver to remain detached and d ispassionate; th i rd , the correspondence theory of truth: that the o bserver can captu re the facts of the wo rld i n statements that are true if they cor­ respond to the facts and false if they do not. We can see these ass u m ptions in Hans M o rgen ­ thau's classic text when he writes that a theory m ust 'approach pol itical real ity with a k i n d of rational o utl i n e' and d isti nguish 'between what is true o bjectively and rational ly, s u p po rted by evidence and i l l u m i nated by reason, and what is o n ly a s u bjective j udgement, d ivo rced fro m the facts as they are and i nfo rmed by p rej u d ice and wishfu l th i n ki ng' (Morgenthau 1 978: 3 -4). Postempiricism in science A n u m ber of i ntel lectual developments have demonstrated that the positivist u nderstand i ng of scientific proced u re that the social sciences have tried to model does not actually represent the cond uct of scientific i n q u i ry. The 'li ngu istic tu rn' in Anglo-American p h i losophy was a move away fro m the idea that language is a transparent med i u m through which the wo rld can be com p rehended-a view that suggested it was possible to get 'beh ind' language and 'gro u nd' 202 DAV I D CA M P B E L L A N D R O L A N D B L E I K E R knowledge i n the wo rld itself-towards a n acco u nt o f language that u nderstood i t as em bed ­ ded i n social practice and i n separable fro m the world ( Rorty 1 967). Al l ied with the develop­ ment of hermeneutic thought i n conti nental p h i l osop hy-a trad ition origi nally co ncerned with the read i ng of bibl ical, classical, and legal texts which develo ped i nto an acco u nt of the i m portance of i nterpretation to being h u man-these s h ifts co ntri buted to a new u n derstand­ ing of the relations h i p between language and real ity (see Geo rge 1 994). Developments i n the p h i l osophy of science itself-especially what are cal led the postpositivist and postempi ricist debates (see H esse 1 980)-have also challenged the val id ity of the positivist acco u nt. These developments have co ntri buted to a reappraisal of science th rough social stud ies that q ues­ tion the val ue of 'facts' and the mean ing of 'objectivity' fo r social i n q u i ry (Megi l l 1 994; Poovey 1 998). Fi nal ly, the development of co m p l exity science ( i n c l u d i n g chaos theory and other new approaches to regularity) extends even fu rther the chal lenge to 'co m m o n -sense' assu m ptions of what co u nts as science and how it is co nd ucted , and l i n ks contemporary u n derstand i ngs of science with poststructural ism ( D i l l o n 2000). G iven this, poststructu ral ism is i n no sense antiscience. In the p h i losophy of science, the poste m p i ricist debates focused o n the co re of the co n ­ tention between positivists and anti positivists: the E n l ighten ment co nceptio n o f knowledge. For the E n l ighten ment the search fo r truth meant the search fo r fo u n d ations, facts that co u l d 'gro u nd' knowledge. T h e poste m p i ricist perspective is thus co ncerned with t h e rejection of such foundational tho ught (such as the claim that the state is the o rgan izi ng principle of i nter­ national relations, or that eth ical theory req u i res establ ished rules ofj ustice as grounds forj udg­ ing right from wro ng), which it ach i eves th ro ugh a new understan d i ng of the s u bject/object relationsh i p in theories of knowledge. Poste m p i ricists conceive of this relationsh i p as one i n which t h e two terms co nstruct each other rather than t h e fu ndamental opposition o f two pregiven entities. Th is u nderm i n i ng of the separation of s u bjects and o bjects means any claim to knowledge that rel ies o n d ichoto m ies analogou s to the s u bject/object d ualism (e.g. facts against val ues, o bjective knowledge vs s u bjective p rej ud ice, or empi rical o bservation i n co ntrast to normative co ncerns) 'is... epistemologically u nwarranted ' (Bernste i n 1 979: 230, 1 983). The end resu lt is that i n place of the basic ass u m ptions of epistemic real ism, a u n iversal scientific language and the correspondence theory of truth that lay beh i n d positivist u n d er­ standi ngs of science and the E n l ighten ment conception of knowledge, all i n q u i ry- i n both the h u man sciences and the natu ral sciences-has to be co ncerned with the social constitution of mean i ng, the l i ngu istic co nstruction of reality, and the h i sto ricity of knowledge. This reaffi rms the i n d ispensabi l ity of i nterpretation, and suggests that all knowledge i nvo lves a relationship with power i n its mapping of the wo rld. The reaction of I R to poststructu ral ism Critical anxiety As we shal l see, these d i mensions are present i n and help make possible the poststructuralist acco u nts of pol itics and i nternational relations i ntrod uced above, even as those acco u nts go beyo nd the priority given to language in the constitution of real ity that marks co nstructivist approaches to i nternational pol itics. We need to be clear, then, about the s i m i larities and  P O STS TRUCTU R A L I S M 203 d ifferences i n the critical approaches t o I R. A n awareness o f these d isti nctions, however, i s someth ing that has been absent fro m t h e responses the critical approaches have provo ked in the field. Those who have o bjected to the meta-theo retical critiq ues of real ism, neoreal ism, and the l i ke, particularly the way those critiq ues have cal led i nto q uestion the rel iance o n external reality, fou n d ations, objectivity, and the transparency of language, have often cal l ed those critiq ues 'postmodern', even tho ugh there are few, if any, scholars who use that label, and many who expl icitly reject it (see Cam pbel l 1 992: 246-7). In one of the fi rst assessments of the meta-theoretical critiques, Ro bert Keo hane {1 988) d i choto m ized the field i nto 'rationalists' versus 'reflectivists' and castigated the critical ap­ proaches of the latter position fo r lacki ng social scientific rigo u r. Keo hane fau lted the criti­ cal approaches fo r fai l i ng to embrace the empi ricist standards co ncern ing research agendas, hypothesis co nstructio n , and testing that wo u l d (in his eyes) lend them cred i b i l ity. H owever, i n making h i s claims, Keo hane fai led to demonstrate an awareness or u nderstand i ng of the chal lenge posed by postempi ricist developments i n the p h i losophy of science fo r his sup­ posed ly o bjective criteria (see Bleiker 1 997). S u bseq uently accused of 'self- righteousness' (Wallace 1 996), lam basted as 'evil' and 'dangero us' (Krasner 1 996), castigated fo r 'bad I R' and 'meta-babble' (Halliday 1 996), m isread as 'ph i l oso ph ical idealism' (Mearsheimer 1 994-5), and co nsidered congen ital ly i rrational (0sterud 1 996), those named as 'postmodern ists' have been anyth ing but welcomed by the mainstream of I R (see Devetak 201 4 fo r the best review using this term). Aside fro m their u nwi l l i ngness to engage ways of th i n king they regarded as 'fo reign', these critics reacted as if the q u esti o n i n g of critical approaches meant that the trad i ­ tional co ntainers o f pol itics (especially t h e state) a n d t h e capacity t o j udge right fro m wrong were bei ng rejected. I n so doi ng, they m i stoo k arguments about the h i storical p rod uction of fo u n d ations fo r the claim that all fo u n d ations had to be rejected. When theo retical co ntests p rovo ke such vehemence, it i n d icates that there is someth i n g larger a t stake t h a n d ifferent epistemol ogies. A s Co n n o l ly (2004) h a s argued, d ifferent meth ­ odologies express i n one way or another deep attac h m ents- u nderstood as metaphysical co m m itments o r existential faith -on behalf of those who advocate them. Fo r those who take such i ntense o bjection to the critical perspectives they herd together and brand as 'postmodern', their faith is a particular u n dersta n d i n g of science. Their attachment to that faith i n science-desp ite the d ebates i n the p h i losophy of science that demonstrate how their u n d erstan d i ng of science can not be s u p po rted thro ugh reaso n - i n t u rn d erives fro m an anxiety about what the absence of sec u re fo u n d ations means fo r eth ics and pol itics. Bernste i n (1 983) has named this the 'Cartesian Anxiety', because in the p h i losophy of Descartes the q uest was to fi nd a sec u re gro u n d fo r knowledge. The Cartesian Anxiety is the fear that, given the dem ise of o bjectivity, we are u nable to make j udgements that have been central to the u n dersta n d i n g of modern l ife, namely d isti ngu i s h i n g between true and false, good and bad. The chal lenge, however, is to escape fro m the straightjacket in which i ntel l ec­ tual u n d ersta n d i n g and pol itical l ife has to be o rgan ized by reco u rse to either one option or the other. The post-empi ricist debates in the p h i losophy of science have demonstrated that d ual istic or d ichotomous framewo rks are u n stable. We n eed , i n Bernstei n's (1 983) wo rd s, to move beyo nd o bjectivism and relativism. We need to develop modes of i nterpretation that allow j u d gem ents about social and pol itical issues at home and abroad wh i l e accepti ng, fi rst, that such j u dgements can not be secu red by claims about a p re-existi ng, external reality and, 204 DAV I D CA M P B E L L A N D R O L A N D B L E I K E R seco n d , such arguments can not b e l i m ited by i nvo king d i choto m ies such as fact/val u e o r o bjective/su bjective. Poststructuralism misunderstood as postmodernism By label l i ng the critical perspectives that deal with i nterpretation and rep resentation i n i nter national pol itics as 'postmodern', the critics are suggesting that it is modern ity that they bel i eve to be u nder th reat. If we are to u nderstand what is meant by 'postmodernism', we also have to be co ncerned with modern ism. What is meant by this term? 'Modernism' refers to the p red o m i nant cultural style of the period fro m the 1 890s to the outbreak of the Seco nd World War, encom passing the id eas and val ues i n the painting, scu l p ­ tu re, m usic, arch itectu re, d esign, and literature o f that period. Modernism was part o f the great u pheavals i n pol itical, sociological, scientific, sexual, and fam i l ial orders i n E u rope and the U SA. It was also