Instrumentalisation of Gender in Foreign Policy: Comparing Six Feminist Foreign Policies (FFPs)

This paper critically looks at how the six existing Feminist Foreign Policies (FFPs) of Sweden, Canada, France, Luxembourg, Mexico, and Spain instrumentalise gender in their foreign policies. As a FFP is a policy that covers different aspects of international affairs, ranging from international security and economy to human rights, the paper brings together the academic literature on feminist security studies (Basu et al 2020; Wibben 2010), feminist political economy (Calkin 2015; Prügl 2015), and gender and diplomacy (Aggestam and True 2021; Goedecke and Roger Klinth 2021) to conceptualise instrumentalisation of gender in foreign policy. It is argued that states use their FFPs to create hierarchies among each other (Towns 2010) by drawing on temporal and spatial identities (Hansen 2006). The empirical material derives from interviews conducted with diplomats and public officials from the six FFP states. The paper concludes with the implications of intrumentalisation of gender in foreign policies on transnational feminist struggles. References Aggestam, Karin and Jacqui True (2021) “Political leadership and gendered multilevel games in foreign policy”, International Affairs 97(2): 385–404. Basu, Soumita, Paul Kirby, and Laura Shepherd (2020) New Directions in Women, Peace and Security. Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press. Calkin, Sydney (2015) “Feminism, interrupted? Gender and development in the era of ‘Smart Economics’”, Progress in Development Studies 15(4): 295–307. Goedecke, Klara and Roger Klinth (2021) “Selling Swedish fathers: On fatherhood, gender equality and Swedishness in strategic communication by the Swedish Institute, 1968–2015’, NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, online first. Hansen, Lene (2006) Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge. Prügl, Elisabeth (2015) “Neoliberalising feminism”, New Political Economy 20(4): 614–631. Towns, Ann E. (2010) Women and States: Norms and Hierarchies in International Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wibben, Annick T. R. (2010) Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge.