Undergraduate Course: Feminist Foreign Policy and Diplomacy (PLIT10197)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Why do we need to study feminist foreign policy and diplomacy? This course enables students to develop thoroughgoing understandings of the key features, ambitions, achievements and shortcomings of feminist foreign policy and diplomacy. Students are also encouraged to critically assess the rationale for and critiques of feminism as a platform for foreign policy and diplomacy, in theory and policy practice. This involves exploring how pro-gender and feminist approaches to foreign policy and diplomatic practice differ from orthodox foreign policies, and, as such, require distinctively feminist and intersectional analytical toolsets. It also involves comparing and contrasting states' FFPs and diplomatic practices across policy areas. |
| Course description |
This course considers the relationship between gender, feminism, foreign policy and diplomacy. In times of multiple and intersecting global crises, militarism and armed conflict, it is important to consider how foreign policy can be repackaged to cater for distinct feminist and ethical concerns in global affairs and how states and other actors have sought to engage in such endeavours through feminist international conduct. The feminist turn in foreign policy has given rise to both political debate and scholarly engagement. Thus, the course is of contemporary relevance, while considering broader historical and theoretical debates on gender justice, foreign policy and diplomatic practice.
The course seeks to understand the intellectual and empirical roots of feminist foreign policy and pro-gender diplomacy by zooming in on a range of normative and feminist factors that can help to explain the growing use of feminism amongst policy-makers to define foreign policy and diplomatic engagements. It asks what political and ethical motivations drive this agenda. A central question here is the extent to which feminist-informed approaches to foreign policy really differ from traditional foreign policy and diplomatic approaches? The course also considers what feminism(s) drive the turn towards FFP and pro-gender and feminist diplomatic practice, encouraging students to engage in intersectional and decolonial feminist analysis. The course also considers whether feminism, as a policy approach, is compatible with ethical conduct in global politics and whether it has the potential to disrupt the coloniality and gendered harms associated with orthodox foreign policy and diplomatic policy practices? To substantiate and contextualise these theoretical and ethical discussions, the course encourages students to interrogate critically the adoption of feminist and pro-gender foreign policies and diplomatic practices by states and organisations across a range of policy areas including environmental politics, aid and development policy as well as digital and feminist-informed diplomacy. The course also asks why an increasing number of international actors view feminism as a solution to global inequalities. Key here is also the question how the emergence of populist anti-gender politics and militarism impact on global feminist endeavours?
The course is informed by multiple conceptual and theoretical debates in International Relations (IR) and security and peace studies, with focus on feminist approaches to foreign policy, militarism, armed conflict, peace and diplomacy. The course will be taught through a weekly lecture and tutorial. The lecture will introduce the students to the weekly topics and the tutorials will feature a combination of small group exercises including the opportunity to design a digital campaign pertaining to feminist foreign policy, a UN negotiation exercise as well as discussions in the wider group. Several tutorials will be dedicated to group presentations. The lectures and tutorials will be interactive and informed by active learning, enabling student-led learning. The discussions in the larger and smaller groups will centre on the weekly readings and students will be provided with prompt questions, helping them to prepare for the tutorials. They will be encouraged to reflect on their learning and there will be opportunity to reflect on what it means to engage in feminist and intersectional analysis and learning, and how such approaches differ from mainstream foreign policy and diplomatic analysis.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 4 Politics/International Relations courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate familiarity with the main academic and policy debates about the relationship between foreign policy, diplomacy, feminism and gender justice
- Engage critically with the work of scholars of gender and feminist foreign policies and consider the significance of debates about feminist foreign policy and diplomacy to the wider fields of foreign policy analysis, diplomacy and security studies
- Effectively synthesise and communicate knowledge on feminist foreign policy and pro-gender diplomacy
- Critically analyse the achievements, shortcomings and ethical dilemmas of feminist foreign policy and diplomacy
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Reading List
Achileos-Sarll, C., Hastrup, T. and Thomson, J. (eds.) (2026) Feminist Foreign Policy. Energy and Resistance (Bristol University Press).
Aggestam, K. and True, J. (2024) Feminist Foreign Policy Analysis: A New Subfield (Bristol University Press).
Aggestam, K. Bergman Rosamond, A. and Hedling, E. (2024) The Politics of Feminist Foreign Policy and Diplomacy (Palgrave), open access.
Foster, S. & Markham, S. A. (2023) Feminist Foreign Policy in Theory and Practice: An Introduction (Routledge) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Critical thinking
Collaboration
Reflective learning
Curiosity
Research skills |
| Keywords | feminism,foreign policy,diplomacy,gender,militarism,peace |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Annika Bergman Rosamond
Tel:
Email: A.Bergman-Rosamond@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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