The influence of gender on foreign policy beliefs and behavior : a literature review

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Since feminist approaches to international relations (IR) first made their appearance inthe late 1980s, efforts to explain the 'gender gap' have proliferated. Gender studieswithin IR in particular have been focused on foreign policy opinion, seeking todiscover whether men and women have different views on foreign policy simply dueto the fact that they are of different genders. The correlate of this is that if womenbelieve differently than men, in which way do they believe differently and if this werethen taken to its logical end, what would happen if they were more equallyresponsible for foreign policy decision-making?As an illustration of the varying approaches to feminist IR, this research projectundertakes a brief overview of the history of feminist IR, showing how the tools andlanguage of traditional IR do not encompass the needs of feminist IR study.The research article then reviews the literature of gender, feminism and foreign policybeliefs and behavior, examining its research core and evolution to date. Threeresearch questions are covered. Firstly, is gender a relevant variable in foreign policyanalysis? Secondly, if yes, does it make a difference to the foreign policy beliefs ofwomen? Thirdly, where women play a significant role in foreign policy decisionmaking,are countries more pacific on the international level? Dealt with separately,foreign policy beliefs are found to have a clear gender-based breakdown. Foreignpolicy behavior is less simple to approach since the dataset of countries led by womenduring international disputes is limited.The research project and literature review also looks forward, pointing toward thefuture, not only of gender and foreign policy studies but also to the implications thatfuture developments in feminist IR may have for the study of IR.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University