Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era

This book evaluates the major debates around which the discipline of international relations has developed in the light of contemporary feminist theories. The three debates (realist versus idealist, scientific versus traditional, modernist versus postmodernist) have been subject to feminist theorising since the earliest days of known feminist activities, with the current emphasis on feminist, empiricist standpoint and postmodernist ways of knowing. Christine Sylvester shows how feminist theorising could have affected our understanding of international relations had it been included in the three debates. She elaborates a feminist method of empathetically cooperative conversation which challenges the identity politics of IR, and illustrates that method with reference to the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp and the efforts of Zimbabwean women to negotiate international funding for their local producer cooperatives.

Introduction: contestation and El(l)e-phants; Sketches of feminisms first wave in anticipation of chapter one; 1. The palette of feminist epistemologies and practices; 2. The early field of IR - musings, assertions, debates, and (now) feminist interruptions; 3. The second debate in IR revisited by feminists; 4. The third debate in IR visited by feminists; 5. Feminist homesteadings of security and cooperation; 6. Repainting the canvases of IR.

This book evaluates the major debates around which the discipline of international relations has developed in the light of contemporary feminist theories.