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Feminist & Postcolonial Perspectives · Diplomacy and International Relations

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  Welcome back to Diplomacy and International Relations by
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  Bastian Freiborg, the deep dive specifically designed to
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  shortcut you straight to the heart of global politics.
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  Today we're taking a bit of a different path.
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  We're doing a deep structural analysis, really looking beyond
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  that typical state centric view of international relations.
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  Our mission is to really explore feminist international relations
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  FIR and also post colonial theory.
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  We want to show you how these ways of thinking reveal these,
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  well, often invisible gendered and racial structures.
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  Structures that shape pretty much everything right?
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  War, diplomacy, the global economy.
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  Exactly even how states present themselves today.
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  OK, so let's unpack this a bit. Normally, when you study global
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  politics, you often start with what's called a rationalist
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  school. This idea that states are
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  rational actors weighing costs and benefits based on material
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  interests. You know, power, money.
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  Cold, hard, rational choice. But FIR, it's part of a
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  different camp, what we call the reflectivist approach.
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  And that's a key difference. It really is, the reflectivist
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  view argues, that state identities, their interests,
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  they aren't just fixed. They're constantly being shaped,
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  contested, changed through shared ideas, norms, history.
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  So it's not just about tanks and trade deals.
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  Not at all what a state believes itself to be its identity that's
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  just as critical as its military might or its economic clout in
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  figuring out why it does what it does.
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  And FIR brings this really crucial question to the table,
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  the one that kind of flips everything upside down.
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  Yeah. It asks, how are our most basic
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  concepts in IR, like war, security, even sovereignty?
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  How are these things inherently gendered?
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  And asking that question immediately highlights what
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  critics call the fields. Well hand Oracle gender
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  numbness. It just wasn't seeing it.
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  To really get a handle on this, we probably have to start with
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  Cynthia Enlow. Her book Bananas, Beaches and
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  Bases Making Feminist Sense of International Politics.
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  It's foundational. Absolutely, and the genius of it
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  is really in her driving question, which sounds so
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  simple. Where are the women?
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  Just asking that forces you to look beyond the usual places,
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  right beyond the state leaders in generals.
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  Precisely. You have to look into the
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  kitchens, the factories, the tourist spots, military bases,
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  and those shows how gender makes the world go round.
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  It's an organizing principle. The whole international system,
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  politically and economically, is basically built on assumptions
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  about gender and relies on gendered labor.
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  Your big idea? The international is personal.
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  That's it. It connects global structures to
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  individual lives. And the example she uses really
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  bring this home. They show how the global system
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  actually depends on these gendered roles.
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  Take tourism for instance. Huge global industry, right?
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  Massive GDP contributor. But it runs on women filling
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  very specific, often low paid gender jobs.
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  Flight attendants, hotel maids, sometimes even sex workers.
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  They're the hidden machinery keeping that global economy
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  humming. And it's not just the economy.
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  Look at security like military bases and Low points out that
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  these huge symbols of state power, they don't function
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  efficiently without women in supporting often subjugated
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  roles. Yeah, you mentioned things like
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  base prostitutes, the horrific example of Japanese comfort
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  women during World War 2. Exactly, but it also includes
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  roles like the good military wife.
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  That one's so telling because it's not just about low wage
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  work, it's often about an educated, created partner,
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  usually a woman having to put her own career, her own
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  ambitions on hold. For the sake of the state's
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  military readiness, it's an unseen contribution to national
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  security, framed as personal choice or duty.
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  And this gendered lens also changes how we look at war
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  itself. You mentioned Laura Stroberg,
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  Carol Cone. Right.
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  They show how deeply war is associated with masculinity, and
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  that has real consequences. Think about it.
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  Women have always fought in wars, but historically they're
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  often rendered invisible. Or if they are seen, their role
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  gets qualified. You don't just hear soldiers,
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  you hear women soldiers. Like it's an exception.
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  Exactly. And notice the flip side.
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  How often do war stories focus on men as civilian victims that
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  label civilian victim? It's almost always reserved for
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  women and children. Which shapes who we see as
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  legitimate actors or legitimate sufferers in conflict.
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  It matters. It absolutely matters.
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  And this brings up a really important point for policy
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  today. Feminist anti militarists argue
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  that if military strength is so tied up with ideas of
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  masculinity. Then things like disarmament,
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  arms control can feel like emasculation, like a threat to
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  the state's identity. Precisely so.
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  They argue that part of the reason militarism persists, why
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  it's so hard to get rid of weapons of mass destruction, is
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  tied to these deeply ingrained gendered ideas about what makes
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  a state strong or weak. It's a huge barrier to peace.
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  OK, so we've seen how gender is this key organizing principle
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  often hidden in security and economics.
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  But we need to broaden the lens further, right?
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  This is where post colonial theory comes in.
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  Yes, it gives us the tools to understand how race and the
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  legacies of colonialism continue to structure global power,
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  especially the dominance of the West.
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  And you really have to start with Edward Syed's concept of
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  Orientalism. Orientalism.
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  It sounds academic, but it's much more than that.
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  Oh, definitely, Said defined it not just as a field of study,
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  but as a whole Western style for dominating restructuring and
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  having authority over the Orient.
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  It's about creating the East as fundamentally other.
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  And the purpose is power. Cultural and political
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  supremacy. Yes, it works by creating and
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  repeating stereotypes. The audience, as exotic,
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  irrational, inferior may be needing to be saved or
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  controlled. So it's a way of using
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  knowledge, even academic knowledge, to justify and
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  maintain Western political power.
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  Exactly, it's a discourse of power and this connects directly
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  back to feminist critiques, especially when we look at some
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  key figures and anti colonial thought like France Phnon.
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  Fanon is huge in post colonial studies.
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  Black skin, White masks, the witches of the earth.
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  Massively influential text about colonial trauma liberation.
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  Educational, Absolutely. But his work has also come under
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  scrutiny from an intersectional feminist perspective.
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  Why? Because the language,
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  particularly in the original French, is overwhelmingly
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  masculine. He uses Illinois Lom he man when
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  talking about the colonized subject, the natives or the
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  Negro. So women are just absent from
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  the picture? Largely, yes.
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  The critique is that his analysis of the colonizer
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  colonized dynamic focuses almost entirely on the male experience.
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  This effectively erases the specific experiences of black
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  women who face oppression based on both race and gender.
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  That double marginalization. And critics point to some pretty
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  specific problematic parts, right?
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  Like Fannin suggesting black men desire white women partly to
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  feel dominant over a European woman.
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  Yes, and perhaps even more damningly, when asked directly
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  about the psychosexuality of women of color, he apparently
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  admitted quite bluntly. I know nothing about her.
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  Wow, that's quite an admission. It really makes you question who
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  that liberation struggle was envisioned for.
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  It does, but, and it's important, it doesn't mean we
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  throw Fanon out entirely. Right.
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  So how do scholars reconcile this?
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  Well, thinkers like Chandra Talpade Mahanti argue that even
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  with its masculinous biases, fanon score idea of
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  decolonization is still incredibly valuable.
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  His insistence that true decolonization requires these
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  deep, profound changes in the self, in the community, and how
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  we govern. That comprehensive scope is
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  actually useful for a feminist decolonizing project.
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  Exactly. It provides A framework for
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  thinking about transformation at all levels, which leads us
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  naturally to post colonial feminism itself.
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  Which challenges mainstream Western feminism for sometimes
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  being well blind to its own biases.
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  Precisely for being ethnocentric, for assuming a
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  universal woman's experience that often centers white Western
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  women, postcolonial feminism insists we must look at the
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  intersections. Gender, race, class,
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  nationality, Liberation looks different depending on where you
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  stand. OK, this brings us right up to
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  the present day and how these ideas play out in actual foreign
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  policy. We're talking about feminist
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  foreign policies, or FFPS. Right.
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  We've seen several countries adopt them like Sweden
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  initially, then Canada, France, Mexico, others often starting
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  around the mid twenty 10s. They usually focus on things
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  like gender mainstreaming and Aid and Development.
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  But as. Soon as FFP becomes official
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  policy, the critiques start rolling in, don't they, about
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  the gap between the rhetoric and the reality.
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  Immediately, one common critique is that these policies can
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  sometimes reinforce stereotypes, portraying women mainly as
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  victims, as weak or inherently peaceful figures needing
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  protection. And they often struggle to
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  include LGBTQ plus or gender non conforming people properly.
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  That's another major gap. But perhaps the sharpest
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  critique challenges the sincerity of FFP.
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  How can a state champion feminist principles in its aid
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  budget while, say, simultaneously selling billions
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  of dollars in weapons to regimes involved in conflicts that
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  disproportionately harm women? That's a massive contradiction,
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  yeah. Which leads us to a really stark
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  case study. France, specifically how France
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  handled the terrible allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse
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  SEA by its peacekeepers in the Central African Republic back in
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  20/14/2015. Yes, this was a huge crisis for
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  France. As AP5 member of the UN Security
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  Council, its reputation was on the line.
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  So how did FFP fit into their response?
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  Well, the analysis suggests it was used strategically.
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  French diplomats essentially acted as embodied brand
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  ambassadors. They leaned into FFP and
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  feminist diplomacy, but primarily as a short term damage
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  control exercise. To fix the R problem.
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  Largely yes, to limit the reputational hit and reassert
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  Francis status. The underlying issue, though, is
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  that Frances broader nation branding its long term image
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  projection still tends to follow what critics call a masculine,
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  white supremacist neoliberal logic.
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  How did that play out in the Khayar situation?
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  They managed the narrative very carefully.
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  They kind of downplayed their own accountability failures by
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  resurrecting old colonial tropes, portraying Khayar as
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  this chaotic place on fire, desperately needing French
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  intervention, French salvation. Shifting the blame, essentially.
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  And shifting the focus, they highlighted France's role in
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  fighting sexual violence committed by other groups, like
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  violent extremist groups, positioning France as the
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  solution, not part of the problem.
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  And the Made in France feminist diplomacy under Macron.
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  That reinforced this branding. It drew heavily on France's long
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  history of, well, predominantly white feminist thought.
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  Critics argue this sidelined the voices of black French feminists
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  who are pointing out systemic issues within France itself.
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  It projected this image of France as the enlightened,
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  powerful white male protector on the world stage.
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  And the most devastating part of this focus on reputation.
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  The outcomes for the victims French courts eventually
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  dismissed the say our abuse cases, citing lack of evidence.
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  And at least according to the sources we reviewed, the French
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  government hadn't actually contributed to the UN trust fund
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  set up for SE victims by that. Point So managing the brand took
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  precedence over accountability and supporting survivors.
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  It certainly appears that way. Reputational management and
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  geopolitical status seem to be the priority.
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  Wow. OK.
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  That's a lot to take in. And if you listening appreciate
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  this kind of deep dive getting into the nuances behind the
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  headlines, remember this is just one of many.
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  We do. You can subscribe to the podcast
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  on Spotify or Apple podcast. There's a small monthly fee,
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  which really helps us keep this going.
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  And you get access to extra episodes too.
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  Yeah, the link for that is right there in the description.
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  So after all this, what's the big take away for our listeners?
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  I think the crucial thing FIR and post colonial critique force
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  us to see is that international politics isn't just about what
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  happens between states. The treaties, the wars, the
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  trade. It's fundamentally shaped by
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  these deep, often unseen, gendered and racialized
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  structures. Structures that decide who has
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  power, who counts as important, whose security matters, and even
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  whose story gets told. Exactly.
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  And understanding that is absolutely vital if you want to
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  make sense of global power dynamics today.
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  Which leaves us with a final thought, Something for you to
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  Mull over, given that states, as we saw with France, are
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  increasingly using feminist foreign policy as, let's be
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  frank, a branding tool. A form of reputational
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  management. Yeah, how can we actually tell
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  the difference? How do you distinguish between
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  genuine policy shifts driven by real feminist understanding and
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  commitment, and this more superficial feminist diplomacy
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  that's really just about boosting a country's image in
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  geopolitical standing? That's the $1,000,000 question.
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  Isn't it a really complex one for a complex world?
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  It definitely is. Thank you for joining us for
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  this deep dive into FIR and post colonial thought.
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  Please do follow the podcast and if you found this valuable, rate
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  US five stars. It really helps more people find
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  these discussions. We'll see you next time.