This path-breaking book addresses the oft-avoided, yet critical question: where are the women located in contemporary diplomacy and international negotiation? The text presents a novel research agenda, including new theoretical and conceptual perspectives on gender, power and diplomacy. The volume brings together a wide range of established International Relations scholars from different parts of the world to write original contributions, which analyse where the women are positioned in diplomacy and international negotiation. The contributions are rich and global in scope with cases ranging from Brazil, Japan, Turkey, Israel, Sweden to the UN, Russia, Norway and the European Union. This book fills an important gap in research and will be of much interest to students and scholars of gender, diplomacy and International Relations. The volume also reaches out to a broader community of practitioners with an interest in the practice of diplomacy and international negotiation.

This volume provides a detailed discussion of the role of women in diplomacy and a global narrative of their current and historical role within it. The last century has seen the Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) experience seismic shifts in their policies concerning the entry, role and agency of women within their institutional make-up. Despite these changes, and the promise that true gender equality offers to the diplomatic craft, the role of women in the diplomatic sphere continues to remain overlooked, and placed on the fringes of diplomatic scholarship. This volume brings together established scholars and experienced diplomatic practitioners in an attempt to unveil the story of women in diplomacy, in a context which is historical, theoretical and empirical. In line with feminist critical thought, the objective of this volume is to theorize and empirically demonstrate the understanding of diplomacy as a gendered practice and study. The aims of are three-fold: 1) expose and confront the gender of diplomacy; 2) shed light on the historical involvement of women in diplomatic practice in spite of systemic barriers and restrictions, with a focus on critical junctures of diplomatic institutional formation and the diplomatic entitlements which were created for women at these junctures; 3) examine the current state of women in diplomacy and evaluate the rate of progress towards a gender-even playing field on the basis thereof. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy studies, gender studies, foreign policy and international relations.

Women, Diplomacy and International Politics since 1500 explores the role of women as agents of diplomacy in the trans-Atlantic world since the early modern age. Despite increasing evidence of their involvement in political life across the centuries, the core historical narrative of international politics remains notably depleted of women. This collection challenges this perspective. Chapters cover a wide range of geographical contexts, including Europe, Russia, Britain and the United States, and trace the diversity of women’s activities and the significance of their contributions. Together these essays open up the field to include a broader interpretation of diplomatic work, such as the unofficial avenues of lobbying, negotiation and political representation that made women central diplomatic players in the salons, courts and boudoirs of Europe. Through a selection of case studies, the book throws into new perspective the operations of political power in local and national domains, bridging and at times reconceptualising the relationship of the private to the public. Women, Diplomacy and International Politics since 1500 is essential reading for all those interested in the history of diplomacy and the rise of international politics over the past five centuries.

Over the past 20 years scholars, policymakers, and the media have increasingly recognized the links between both traditional and non-traditional security issues and the changing condition of the global environment. Concepts such as 'environmental security' and 'resource conflict' have been used to hint at these significant linkages. While there has been a good deal of scholarly work conducted that seeks to identify the ways that actors link these concepts, there has been little examination of the intersection between approaches to environmental security and gender. This book explores this intersection to provide an insight into the gendered nature of both global environmental politics and security studies. It examines how the issues of security and the environment are linked to theory and practice, and the extent to which gender informs these discussions. By adopting a feminist environmental security discourse, this book provides crucial redefinitions of key concepts and offers new insights into the ways we understand security-environment connections. Case studies evaluate if, and how, environment and security discourses are being used to understand a range of environmental issues, and how a feminist environmental security discourse contributes to our understanding of security-environment connections. This multidisciplinary volume draws on literature from the environmental sciences, security studies and sociology to highlight the complex human insecurities that often accompany environmental change. As conceptualizations of security continue to shift and broaden to include environmental issues and concerns, it is imperative that gender informs the debate.

This publication focuses on the gender dimensions of intrastate conflicts (civil wars), organised around eight key themes of gender and warfare, sexual violence, formal and informal peace processes, post-conflict legal frameworks, work issues, rehabilitation of social services and community-driven development. For each theme, the authors examine the impact on gender roles of conflict situations, the development challenges involved, and the policy options available to help build more inclusive and gender balanced post-conflict societies.

This book looks at the gendering of the political system in Japan and the effects of that system on gender equality in national-level politics specifically and wider society more generally. It examines the approach taken by the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to issues of gender equality in Japan, and the repercussions of that approach on women’s political experiences and representation. This book covers a range of themes including the role of the LDP and other major political parties in constructing the modern Japanese political system, the under-representation of women in Japanese politics, women’s experiences in party politics and the gendering of government policies. Using in-depth interviews with women members of the national Diet, the book sheds light on how political women negotiate the male-dominated world of Japanese politics.

The contributors to this volume provide a survey of the existing gender machineries on the international level, explore the way in which feminist movements have approached international organizations and the way IOs have responded, and examine the laws and norms that have been produced and their effects in local contexts globally.