Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field now overlaps with queer studies and men's studies. Its rise to prominence, especially in Western universities after 1990, coincided with the rise of deconstruction.
International Relations (IR) are the interactions among sovereign states. The scientific study of those interactions is called international studies, international politics, or international affairs. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities among states—such as war, diplomacy, trade, and foreign policy—as well as relations with and among other international actors, such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), international legal bodies, and multinational corporations (MNCs). There are several schools of thought within IR, of which the most prominent are realism, liberalism, and constructivism.
International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain behaviors and outcomes in international politics. The four most prominent schools of thought are realism, liberalism, constructivism, and rational choice. Whereas realism and liberalism make broad and specific predictions about international relations, constructivism and rational choice are methodological approaches that focus on certain types of social explanation for phenomena.
Feminist geography is a sub-discipline of human geography that applies the theories, methods, and critiques of feminism to the study of the human environment, society, and geographical space. Feminist geography emerged in the 1970s, when members of the women's movement called on academia to include women as both producers and subjects of academic work. Feminist geographers aim to incorporate positions of race, class, ability, and sexuality into the study of geography. The discipline has been subject to several controversies.
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy.
International security is a term which refers to the measures taken by states and international organizations, such as the United Nations, European Union, and others, to ensure mutual survival and safety. These measures include military action and diplomatic agreements such as treaties and conventions. International and national security are invariably linked. International security is national security or state security in the global arena.
Critical international relations theory is a diverse set of schools of thought in international relations (IR) that have criticized the theoretical, meta-theoretical and/or political status quo, both in IR theory and in international politics more broadly – from positivist as well as postpositivist positions. Positivist critiques include Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches and certain ("conventional") strands of social constructivism. Postpositivist critiques include poststructuralist, postcolonial, "critical" constructivist, critical theory, neo-Gramscian, most feminist, and some English School approaches, as well as non-Weberian historical sociology, "international political sociology", "critical geopolitics", and the so-called "new materialism". All of these latter approaches differ from both realism and liberalism in their epistemological and ontological premises.
Reflectivism is an umbrella label used in International Relations theory for a range of theoretical approaches which oppose rational-choice accounts of social phenomena and positivism generally. The label was popularised by Robert Keohane in his presidential address to the International Studies Association in 1988. The address was entitled "International Institutions: Two Approaches", and contrasted two broad approaches to the study of international institutions. One was "rationalism", the other what Keohane referred to as "reflectivism". Rationalists — including realists, neo-realists, liberals, neo-liberals, and scholars using game-theoretic or expected-utility models — are theorists who adopt the broad theoretical and ontological commitments of rational-choice theory.
The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations is an introduction to international relations (IR) and offers comprehensive coverage of key theories and global issues.Edited by John Baylis, Patricia Owens, and Steve Smith. It has eight editions, first published in 1997, in this book leading scholars in the field introduce readers to the history, theory, structures, and key issues in IR, providing students with an ideal introduction and a constant guide throughout their studies.
Laura Elizabeth Sjoberg is an American feminist scholar of international relations and international security. Her work specializes in gendered interpretations of just war theory, feminist security studies, and women's violence in global politics.
Hayward R. Alker was a Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California School of International Relations, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Yale University. Alker was also former President of the International Studies Association and John A. McCone Chair in International Security at the School of International Relations, University of Southern California. Dr. Alker specialized in research methods, core international relations theory, international politics, and security.
Feminism is a broad term given to works of those scholars who have sought to bring gender concerns into the academic study of international politics and who have used feminist theory and sometimes queer theory to better understand global politics and international relations as a whole.
L. H. M. "Lily" Ling was a political theorist and scholar whose work focused around the theory of worldism within international relations. Much of her work draws from storytelling, the arts, and non-Western culture to present alternative versions of historical analysis of global affairs. She was Professor of International Affairs at The New School at the time of her death.
Renee Marlin-Bennett, is a professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Her research on global problems probes power, information flows, borders, and bodies. The research draws upon approaches from international theory, pragmatism, international political sociology, and global political economy. Early in her career, her focus was on the evolution of rules that order global practices as well as those that provide the basis for disorder. She has examined substantive areas such as trade, intellectual property, information, and privacy to examine how contestation, rhetorical frames, and path dependence contribute to development of global orders.
Strong objectivity is a term coined by feminist philosopher Sandra Harding, known for her work on feminist standpoint theory. Harding suggests that starting research from the lives of women "actually strengthens standards of objectivity". Strong objectivity can be contrasted with the "weak objectivity" of supposed value-neutral research. Strong objectivity is posited in contrast to scientific objectivity since strong objectivity amplifies researcher bias, something that Harding argues can never really be removed; a researcher's life experiences will always be a lens through which they view the world and subsequently their research.
Feminist security studies is a subdiscipline of security studies that draws attention to gendered dimensions of security.
The Susan Strange Award, named after the political theorist Susan Strange, was established in 1998 to reward innovative thinkers in the field of international studies.
Carol Cohn is the founding director of the Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights and a Lecturer of Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Cohn is recognised for addressing issues of gender in global politics, particularly conflict and security issues. She has published in academic and policy contexts with major research interests lying in the realm of gender and armed conflict, the gendered discourses of US national security elites and gender mainstreaming in international security institutions. In addition to her research, Cohn facilitates training and workshops for United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and has been active in the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security since 2001. Taken wholly, Cohn's career includes a stance described as feminist anti-militarism. In 2013, Cohn edited a well-received collection of essays on the topic of women and war in which it is argued that the topic of war cannot be understood without understanding gender dynamics.
Embedded feminism is the attempt of state authorities to legitimize an intervention in a conflict by co-opting feminist discourses and instrumentalizing feminist activists and groups for their own agenda. This term was introduced in the analysis of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, but can also be applied to several historical examples where women's rights were used as justification and legitimization of Western interventionism.
