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Queer International Relations

Melanie Richter-Montpetit and Cynthia Weber
Subject: Groups and Identities, International Political Economy, Post Modern/Critical Politics,
World Politics
Online Publication Date: May 2017 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.265
Summary and Keywords
Queer International Relations (IR) is not a new field. For more than 20 years, Queer IR
scholarship has focused on how normativities and/or non-normativities associated with
categories of sex, gender, and sexuality sustain and contest international formations of
power in relation to institutions like heteronormativity, homonormativity, and cisnormativ
ity as well as through queer logics of statecraft. Recently, Queer IR has gained unprece
dented traction in IR, as IR scholars have come to recognize how Queer IR theory, meth
ods, and research further IR’s core agenda of analyzing and informing the policies and
politics around state and nation formation, war and peace, and international political
economy. Specific Queer IR research contributions include work on sovereignty, interven
tion, security and securitization, torture, terrorism and counter-insurgency, militaries and
militarism, human rights and LGBT activism, immigration, regional and international inte
gration, global health, transphobia, homophobia, development and International Financial
Institutions, financial crises, homocolonialism, settler colonialism and anti-Blackness, ho
mocapitalism, political/cultural formations, norms diffusion, political protest, and time
and temporalities
Keywords: Queer IR, sexuality, gender, heteronormativity, homonormativity, cissexism, transgender, LGBT rights,
homonationalism, LGBT Politics
Introduction
Queer International Relations (IR) is not a new field. For more than 20 years (Peterson,
1999; Weber, 1994A, 1994B), Queer IR scholarship has focused on how normativities and/
or non-normativities associated with categories of sex, gender, and sexuality sustain and
contest international formations of power in relation to institutions like
heteronormativity,1 homonormativity,2 and cisnormativity3 as well as through queer logics
of statecraft.4 Recently, Queer IR has gained unprecedented traction in IR, as IR scholars
have come to recognize how Queer IR theory,5 methods,6 and research further IR’s core
agenda of analyzing and informing the policies and politics around state and nation for
mation,7 war,8 peace,9 and international political economy.10 Specific Queer IR research
contributions include work on sovereignty,11 intervention,12 security,13 and
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securitization,14 torture,15 terrorism,16 and counter-insurgency,17 militaries and mili

tarism,18 human rights and LGBT activism,19 immigration,20 regional and international in
tegration,21 global health,22 transphobia,23 homophobia,24 development and International
Financial Institutions,25 financial crises,26 homocolonialism,27 settler colonialism,28 and
anti-Blackness,29 homocapitalism,30 political/cultural formations,31 norms diffusion,32
political protest,33 and time and temporalities.34
Definitions, History, and Intellectual Concerns

Queer and Queer Studies
Debates about the meaning of the term “queer” and whether or not queer can be or
ought to be defined rage on (Butler, 1994; Warner, 2012; Wilcox, 2014). Yet many self-
identified queer scholars cite Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s description of queer as their point
of departure. For Sedgwick (1993), queer describes “the open mesh of possibilities, gaps,
overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the con
stituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made (or can’t be
made) to signify monolithically” (p. 8). Non-monolithic expressions of gender and sexuali
ty include what are broadly called gender nonconforming, gender variant, and gender ex
panding expressions of subjectivities that might be read as, for example, male and/or
female, masculine and/or feminine, heterosexual and/or homosexual, as well as neither/
nor in relation to any of these categories.
Sedgwick’s discussion of queer clarifies the affinities queer studies has to feminist stud
ies and gender studies, which analyze the political work that gender and (sometimes) sex
ualities do. It also clarifies Queer studies’ affinities to poststructuralist scholarship, which
analyzes the political work that multiple significations do. Sedgwick’s discussion also
nods toward Gay and Lesbian (and sometimes Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Asex
uality) studies, which take the histories, lived experiences, and political mobilizations by
and of those with such sexualized identifications as among their points of focus. Yet
Queer studies is not reducible to Feminist studies, Gender studies, Gay and Lesbian stud
ies, or Poststructuralism. Nor is it the sum total of these theoretical dispositions. As an
academic practice, queer studies has been and remains, as Teresa de Lauretis (who
coined the term the “queer theory”) described it, an attempt “to rethink the sexual in new
ways, elsewhere and otherwise” in relation to but also beyond how each of these fields
traditionally thought about sexualities at least until 1990 (Butler, 1990; De Lauretis, 1991,
p. xvi; Rubin, 1992; although exceptionally, see Foucault, 1980).
This “otherwise” results in a move beyond traditional identity politics, which often seeks
to understand the presumed authentic nature of gender nonconforming, gender variant,
and gender expanding subjectivities and seeks to explain how their presumed gendered
and sexualized identities function in the world. In so doing, it often reinserts what were
non-binary genders and sexualities into binary terms (e.g., LGBT vs. non-LGBT or hetero
sexual vs. homosexual). In contrast, Queer studies is more interested in the political im
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plications of binary and non-binary constructions of identity, by understanding identity as

something that is naturalized through cultural practices rather than natural in and of it
self. This leads Queer studies scholars to ask how subjectivities come to be understood in
either/or terms (rather than in and/or or neither/nor terms) and to investigate the political
implications of presuming to know gendered and sexualized subjectivities in these multi
ple ways.
Queer studies scholars also examine how the social construction of gendered and sexual
ized subjectivities functions through—as well as produces—institutionalized understand
ings of gender and sexuality as normal or perverse as well as normal and/or perverse.
Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, for example, introduced the concept of “heteronor
mativity” in the 1990s to capture how gender nonconforming, gender variant, and gender
expanding subjectivities are produced as non-normative subjectivities in relation to “insti
tutions, structures of understanding, and practical orientations that make [normative sex
ualities like] heterosexuality seem not only coherent—that is, organized as a sexuality—
but also privileged” (Berlant & Warner, 1998, p. 548, fn. 2; our brackets). In the early
2000s, Lisa Duggan argued that “homonormativity”—which expands the definition of nor
mal subjectivities to include some homosexuals—“holds and sustains” heteronormativity
because it never contests the values and assumptions of heteronormativity (2003, p. 50).
Most recently, Robyn Weigman and Elizabeth Wilson have suggested that heteronorma
tive and homonormative understandings of gender and sexuality assume that “queer” is
inherently antinormative. They wonder what additional possibilities might exist for queer
studies if it gave up on its commitment to antinormativity (Wiegman & Wilson, 2015).
Among the important questions Wiegman and Wilson’s work raises is this: Is queer neces
sarily transgressive (as antinormativity theorists suggest), or can queer antinormativities
themselves be captured on behalf of governing social, cultural, political, and economic in
stitutions?
Queer Studies scholarship builds upon these and other classic texts in Queer Studies
(Butler, 1990; Foucault, 1979; Halberstam, 2005; Muñoz, 1999; Warner, 2000), which are
increasingly read intersectionally (Crenshaw, 1991), because the actual meaning and po
litical consequences of sexual norms, identities, and normativities are articulated through
the complex ways in which they are always already entwined with formations of racism,35
(dis)ability,36 class,37 citizenship and migration,38 (settler) colonialism and Indigeneity,39
and anti-Blackness.40 Queer Studies scholars pursue these key intellectual concerns by
performing the following:
• Critical genealogical investigations of powerful formations and mobilizations of

sexed, gendered, and sexualized binaries (male vs. female; masculine vs. feminine; het
erosexual vs. homosexual);
• Critical analyses of how these binaries are normalized (i.e., become commonsense
ways of understanding and acting in the world) so that the gendered and sexualized
“normal” and “perverse” subjectivities they produce appear to be normal and natural;
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• Critical analyses of how (expanding) normativities are defended (Berlant & Warner,
1998), resisted (Duggan, 2003; Halberstam, 2011; Puar, 2007) and confounded (Cohen,
1997; Sedgwick, 1985; Weber, 1999, 2016A; Wiegman & Wilson, 2015) by queer sub
jectivities and/or queer publics (Berlant & Warner, 1998), performativities (Butler,
1990) and logics (Weber, 1999, 2016A); and
• Critically analyses of how “queerness” is constituted (Butler, 1990), appropriated
(Puar, 2007; Weber, 1999, 2002, 2016A), and erased (Duggan, 2003; Halberstam, 2011)
by hegemonic normativities.
From Queer to Queer IR
Since at least the 1990s, Queer Studies has had an increasingly explicit focus on transna
tional/global phenomena, producing significant insights on war, geopolitics, globalization,
racism and colonialism, nationalism, citizenship, labor, migration, tourism, austerity. and
the welfare state.41 At the same time, Queer IR scholars have continued to critically ana
lyze how normative and/or non-normative genders and sexualities sustain and contest in
ternational formations of power.
Over time, any hard and fast boundary between Transnational/Global Queer Studies and
Queer IR scholarship has eroded. What sometimes continues to distinguish these two
overlapping and interconnected bodies of scholarship, though, is how Queer IR scholars
often make explicit use of IR theories and concepts grounded in IR literatures and de
bates. These include IR formulations of security (Amar, 2011, 2013) and sovereignty (We
ber, 2016A), for example, and how debates about “the practice turn in IR” are enriched by
Feminist and Queer IR thinking (Wilcox, 2013). This has led Queer IR scholars to make
contributions to Transnational/Global Queer Studies debates as well as to general IR de
bates (see also Smith & Lee, 2015).
Among the key questions Queer IR scholars ask are these:
• How do cultural ideas about gender and sexuality shape foreign policy and military
operations?
• How do the security and development needs of LGBT subject become key terrains in
geopolitical struggles around war and security as well as around human rights and
norms diffusion?
• How do heteronormative, homonormative, and cisnormative frameworks inform the
operations of the global political economy?
• How do normative understandings of gender and sexuality intersect with normative
understandings of soldiering, militarism, and war to make “normal soldiers,” “normal
military policies,” and “normal wars”?
• How do non-normative understandings of gender and sexuality intersect with under
standings of racial difference and colonial forms of power to construct internationally
dangerous figures—like “the terrorist” and/or “the insurgent”?
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• How are processes of modern state formation connected to heteropatriarchal family

relations and associated normativities of sexuality and gender?
Queer IR Methods
Queer IR methods are among the latest IR methods to have been explicitly articulated
within the field of IR (Weber, 2016A, 2016B; also see Weber, 1998B). Queer IR methods
are necessary because the specific ontological and epistemological concerns Queer IR
scholars have about queer subjectivities and other queer constructions and identifica
tions are not always captured or capturable through other IR theoretical and methodolog
ical frameworks.
Ontologically, Queer IR scholars focus on queer ontologies that do not or cannot be made
to signify monolithically in relation to genders and sexualities, and they read these ontolo
gies intersectionally. Epistemologically, Queer IR scholars recognize that knowledge and
ignorance in and about international relations are intricately bound up with sexualized
knowledge and sexualized ignorance. This observation can again be traced back to Sedg
wick, who observed that 20th-century Western culture depends upon knowing who and/or
what it means to be, for example, heterosexual or homosexual because this knowledge
produces innumerable binaries upon which we reply to understand the world. Among the
binaries Sedgwick identifies that matter for IR are public/private, domestic/foreign, disci
pline/terrorism, secrecy/disclosure, natural/artificial, wholeness/decadence, and knowl
edge/ignorance (1990, p. 11).
Investigating how non-binary expressions of genders and sexualities function as and in re
lation to some of these important binaries is among the things Queer IR scholars investi
gate using Queer IR methods. Weber (2016A, 2016B) recently outlined two Queer IR theo
retical and methodological approaches that Queer IR scholars and IR scholars more gen
erally might utilize in their research. These Queer IR approaches focus on how to analyze
figurations of “the homosexual” and sexualized orders of International Relations. Figura
tions are shared meanings distilled into forms or images. “The homosexual” as a figura
tion, then, is neither a real person nor a false image. It is a term that is collectively used
to imagine and purport to know for sure who people called “homosexuals” and practices
called “homosexuality” actually are, while we employ these unreliable understandings to
map our social, cultural, political, and economic worlds.
The first Queer IR framework Weber outlines combines Michel Foucault’s concepts of
“putting sex into discourse,” “productive power,” and “networks of power/knowledge/
pleasure” (1979) with Donna Haraway’s conceptualization of “figuration” (1997), Judith
Butler’s theory of performativity (1990), and Richard Ashley’s arguments about “state
craft as mancraft” (1989) to develop a method for analyzing figurations of the “homosexu
al” and sexualized orders of IR that are inscribed in IR as either normal or perverse. The
second theoretical and methodological framework Weber outlines recombines these ele
ments—especially Ashley’s “statecraft as mancraft”—with a pluralized rendering of
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Roland Barthes’s rule of the and/or, which offers instructions on how to read plural fig
ures and plural logics that signify as normal and/or perverse. It is these figures who, fol
lowing Sedgwick, might be described as queer. By developing a theoretical and method
ological framework to read queer figures as/in relation to sovereignty and the orders and
anarchies sovereignties are produced through and of which they are productive, Weber
offers an additional lens through which to investigate singularized and pluralized figura
tions of the “homosexual” and sexualized orders of IR, what she goes on to describe as
“queer logics of statecraft.” As Weber (2016C) argues, her explicit IR formulation and ap
plication of and/or logics should be read in tandem with her earlier IR formulation and ap
plication of neither/nor logics to gain a fuller understanding of how to analyze queer log
ics of statecraft.
Key Contributions of Queer IR Research

When scholars and practitioners think about contemporary Queer IR research, they com
monly think about LGBT human rights, their protection and diffusion. This is not surpris
ing, given how the figure of “the LGBT” has been constructed and mobilized by states
leaders like Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (2011) and international institutions like the
United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU). Yet Queer IR scholarship is not limit
ed to concerns about LGBT human rights. Like IR scholarship in general, Queer IR schol
arship investigates contemporary mobilizations of international power, specifically with
respect to the overlapping categories of state and nation formation, war and peace, and
international political economy. However, Queer IR scholarship always also investigates
these power relations as they are related to the gendered and sexualized understandings
of people, states, and international organizations. This section outlines some of the key
contributions Queer IR scholars make to research and policy, particularly in the areas of
LGBT rights as well as to state and nation formation, war and peace, and international
political economy. It concludes by noting new areas of research.
LGBT Rights Promotion and Diffusion

How does Queer IR scholarship help us understand human rights promotion and diffu
sion? Like other IR scholarship on human rights, Queer IR contributes to debates about
norms, ethics, activism, and the (geo)politics of human rights. Queer IR extends feminist
insights on gender and women’s rights to sexuality with a focus on the rights of gay, les
bian, and bisexual subjects.
The recent elevation of LGBT legal equality as a marker of modernity and “civilization”
has made “the LGBT” an important figure in geopolitical struggles, an increasingly impor
tant battlefield in various geopolitical struggles. Queer IR research on LGBT human
rights politics and norms demonstrates the central role of states and the political (rather
than simply moral, personal, or cultural) character of much anti-LGBT rights politics
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across the globe42 and contributes to IR theory debates on the universality and particular
ity of human rights (Birdal, 2015).
Research on the uneven diffusion of (often contentious) LGBT rights legislation across the
globe43 or across EU-member states44 offers insights into processes of threat perception,
state socialization, state-building, and norm transfer in international politics. Geopolitical
struggles around LGBT rights also play out among EU states (Western vs. Eastern Eu
rope) and between Europe vs. Russia (Baker, 2016; Wilkinson, 2014). Contrary to facile
imaginative geographies of gay-friendly vs homophobe states and regions and associated
diffusion models, some Queer IR research explores the transnational production of homo
phobia (Rao, 2014B, 2015A), and the ways in which LGBT rights have been harnessed in
support of hegemonic projects not only by Western powers but also by elites in the Global
South, such as in India (Rao, 2010).
In conversation with Transnational Queer Studies research, Queer IR explores how de
mands for LGBT equality by state and non-state actors are all too often anchored in prob
lematic homonormative45 or racist rescue narratives—specifically Islamophobic,46 anti-
Black,47 homocolonial,48 and/or settler colonial,49 frameworks. And yet, some Queer IR re
search challenges monolithic critiques of contemporary global LGBT human rights ac
tivism as simply animated by racist rescue fantasies and as therefore irredeemable. For
example, Rao (2010) in his book Third World Protest: Between Home and the World offers
a more differentiated analysis of various queer activists, including in the “West.” While he
identifies the racist gay rescue narrative as important among LGBT rights actors, he also
shows that “there is no single politics” to the “Gay International” identified by prominent
postcolonial critics like Joseph Massad (Rao, 2010, p. 177). Work by Amy Lind and Cricket
Keating, which analyzes Ecuador’s recent move away from neoliberalism, supports Rao’s
conclusions. In Ecuador, contrary to the global push for inclusion of same-sex couples into
the institution of marriage, activists successfully fought for a redefinition of family and
citizenship by challenging the postcolonial state’s liberal notion of equality (Lind, 2014;
Lind & Keating, 2013).
State and Nation Formation

How does Queer IR scholarship help us to understand state and nation formation? Like
Mainstream IR scholars, Queer IR scholars study the historical rise of the modern inter
state system, contemporary examples of state-building, and the politics of nationalism
and national political identification practices. Like the work of Feminist and Gender schol
ars, Queer IR scholarship examines the role of gendered norms and identities in past and
present processes of state and nation formation and thus the social construction of states,
nations, and national identities. Taking these concerns further, Queer IR scholars study
these in the register of sexuality.
A classic argument in Queer IR on state and nation formation is V. Spike Peterson’s (1999,
2013) scholarship on “nationalism as heterosexism.” Peterson’s research investigates how
state and nation formation is not only socially constructed but works through ongoing
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processes of reproduction, resistance, and reconfiguration. Peterson’s Queer IR scholar

ship evidences the central role of gender and heteronormative norms and institutions in
imagining or inventing nations, nationalism, and national identities. Drawing attention to
how gendered and sexualized normativities fuel political identification processes and con
flict, Peterson challenges state-centric conceptualizations of national groups and political
identities found in Mainstream IR. Her queer analysis also challenges the implicit hetero
sexism underwriting much of the feminist scholarship on the fundamental role of gender
identity and hegemonic masculinity for national identity construction. Peterson argues
that early state-making processes were generative of gendered and sexualized norms and
normativities, including heteropatriarchal marriage and family. In short, “making states
makes sex” (Peterson, 2014A, p. 390). Peterson’s most recent work pursues these con
cerns through registers of intimacy in relation to heteronormativities and homonormativi
ties (2014a, 2016).
A prominent example for Queer IR scholarship that shows how state and nation formation
is not a one-off occurrence but an ongoing process is the work of Cynthia Weber (1998A,
1999, 2016A). Weber’s Queer IR scholarship on U.S.-Caribbean relations after the Cuban
Revolution, for example, demonstrates how sovereign nation-states mobilized what she
calls “queer performativities” in practice. Weber agrees with mainstream IR theorists that
many U.S. policymakers and military officials perceived the Cuban Revolution as a crisis
that jeopardized U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean region. By extending Mainstream, Femi
nist, and Gender analyses into the realm of Queer IR, Weber argues that this crisis of
hegemony was related to two further U.S. crises—a masculinity crisis (which feminist and
gender scholars identify) and a heterosexuality crisis (which Queer IR scholars identify).
Weber reads key U.S. foreign policy documents and speeches to show how, contrary to
what one would expect, the United States addressed these crises of hegemony, masculini
ty, and heterosexuality by using what she called “queer compensatory strategies”—strate
gies that refigured the U.S. state in its Caribbean relations as queer (i.e., non-normative
in relation to the gender and sexuality of the figural U.S. body politic that appears in
these documents) in order to appear to be hegemonically heteromasculine.50
Weber followed up on these classic Queer IR texts in her recent book Queer International
Relations: Sovereignty, Sexuality and the Will to Knowledge, where she explains some of
the broader domestic and international sexualized logics at work in both state and nation
formation and in the organization of international politics. Through her queer reconsider
ation of Richard Ashley’s work on “statecraft as mancraft” (see Queer IR Methods section
above), Weber explains how what she calls “queer logics of statecraft” function in domes
tic and international politics to create what she calls “sexualized organizations of interna
tional relations” (2016a, 2016b).
Recent Queer IR scholarship on sexual justice struggles show that contestations over
LGBT rights have come to constitute a key terrain of state- and nation-building and the
construction of supranational identity—both among proponents and opponents of LGBT
rights.51 For example, Lind and Keating’s (2013) work on postcolonial state-building in
the context of Ecuador’s recent turn away from neoliberalism shows that in the quest to
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centralize authority, the Ecuadorian state relied on a mix of state homophobia and what
they call state “homoprotectionism.”
Other Queer IR research on state- and nation-building argues that “the international”
consists not only of states and international organizations but also non-state institutions
and queer popular culture. Catherine Baker (2016), for instance, conceptualizes the Euro
vision Song Contest as a popular-cultural text/event produced by a non-state international
actor as an important sight and site of international relations.
War and Peace

How does Queer IR scholarship contribute to the study of war and peace? Like Main
stream IR, Queer IR examines the use of military force in international politics, including
its effects and conditions of possibility. Like Feminist Security Studies, Queer IR ap
proaches war and the use of armed force as embedded in a larger continuum of (gen
dered and sexualized) violence challenging analytical binaries like war/peace, internation
al/domestic, and public/private. Queer IR research furthers Feminist Security Studies’ in
quiries into the constitutive role of the “low politics” of the (allegedly) “merely” private,
intimate and/or cultural by drawing attention to how geopolitics and military operations
are shaped not only by gendered norms but also by sexualized norms and normativities,
specifically heterosexuality and associated ideas about heteromasculinity and cissexism.
Gender, Peace, and Security
Queer IR research on war, peace, and security brings into focus the security needs of
LGBT subjects. For example, Queer IR has revealed security problems faced by LGBT
people that are rendered invisible even in feminist analyses of human security (Amar,
2013), sexual and gender-based violence (Hagen, 2016), and post-conflict reconstruction
(Jauhola, 2010, 2013; McEvoy, 2015). Both feminist and non-feminist analyses of Interna
tional Relations commonly rest on assumptions about gender and sexuality that are dam
aging to LGBT individuals in a range of conflict and post-conflict related settings.
For example, scholars’ and practitioners’ common assumptions about heterosexuality as

the default sexuality and kinship norm (“heteronormativity”) and the twin assumption of
two “opposite” and complementary gender positions are cissexist because they leave out
subjects whose sexuality, familial relations, and/or gender expression (“cissexism”) do not
align with these gender and sexual norms. While there is increasing awareness of certain
non-normative sexualities (“homosexuality”) and sexual practices (“Men-who-have-Sex-
with-Men”), with few exceptions, key international actors and policy frameworks in the
area of peace and security rest on what Queer and Transgender theory describes as cis
privilege. Cisprivilege refers to people whose gender assigned at birth matches their gen
der identity (“cisgender”).
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As Jamie Hagen (2016) explores in the context of the UN’s Women, Peace and Security
(WPS) architecture, heteronormativity and cissexism obscure a wide set of practices of vi
olence and exclusions negatively affecting people that are not straight or cisgender. Ha
gen shows how deploying a limited understanding of a heteronormative gender binary al
lows WPS policy and monitoring to account for the security needs of heterosexual cisgen
der women, while obscuring LGBT subjects and their safety. This framework also repro
duces insecurities for the “women” it is meant to protect, in particular those with queer
sexualities and non-normative gender expression. For instance, trans people and gender
non-binary people are typically refused medical care, safe access to bathrooms in shel
ters, and refugee camps (see also Jauhola, 2010, 2013). Neither is sexual and gender-
based violence against gay men recognized and accounted for under the WPS architec
ture, even though their presumed lack of masculinity makes them vulnerable to rape dur
ing conflict (Hagen, 2016, p. 315f.).
Military Masculinities and Soldiering
Queer IR builds on the rich body of Feminist IR scholarship on the seemingly inextricable
linkages between modern militaries, war, and masculinities. Queer IR agrees with Femi
nist Security Studies [link] about the significance of gendered norms and discourses of
masculinity for producing soldiers, militaries, and militarism and extends this research by
inquiring in more depth into the “heterosexist premises of military masculinity.”52 Queer
IR demonstrates the foundational role of particular normativities around sexuality and
gender in producing soldiers and war, while it simultaneously complicates understand
ings of the modern military and military masculinity as structured by clear-cut gendered
and sexualized dichotomies, such as male/female and heterosexual/homosexual.
Contrary to commonsense understandings of soldiering involving only “manly” tasks,

modern militaries (including the U.S. military) rely on service members to also perform
unmasculine practices and inhabit subjectivities commonly coded as feminine. Examples
for this embrace of the “unmasculine” range from cleaning toilets and polishing boots to
enduring anal rape during hazing. Queer IR adds to our understanding of these seeming
contradictions by demonstrating how these practices and subject positions get recoded as
affirming a soldier’s overall military masculinity (Belkin, 2012; Cohn, 1998). In conversa
tion with Feminist Security Studies, Queer IR argues that the military may in fact provide
men the rare opportunity to safely transcend the boundaries of acceptable heteromas
culinity. The military is among the very few institutions where men are allowed to engage
in emotional, erotic, and sexual encounters and impulses otherwise suppressed in the
civilian world for fear of being seen (by others or themselves) as queer and therefore not
real men (Cohn, 1998, p. 17).
A burgeoning body of Queer IR scholarship examines the increasing inclusion of LGBT

people and associated representational practices in modern militaries. These works offer
important insights for IR theory and policy, challenging in particular dichotomous frame
works regarding the agency of LGBT recruits, such as subversion/co-optation (Bulmer,
2013) or power/resistance (Richter-Montpetit, 2014B). Agathangelou, Bassichis, and
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Spira’s (2008) groundbreaking work coined the concept of “intimate investments” to un
derstand how queer soldiers—historically themselves cast as threats to the nation and na
tional security—seek to actively participate in the military and military violence. Queer IR
scholarship examines whether the inclusion of LGBT soldiers in the United Kingdom (Bul
mer, 2011, 2013) and the United States (Agathangelou et al., 2008; Richter-Montpetit,
2014B) or homoerotic visual representations of soldiers (Caso, 2016) challenge the het
eropatriarchal character of the military and/or contribute to militarization and imperial
geopolitics. Finally, Queer IR also speaks to the generative character of war and the mili
tary in shaping sexual and gender identities, practices, and normativities (Crane-Seeber,
2016; Howell, 2014; Wool, 2015).
Security Governance/Regimes
Queer IR demonstrates that certain normativities around sexuality and gender also play a
central role in global security governance, including security regimes in the Global South.
For example, Paul Amar’s work explores how the governance of stigmatized sexualities
and gender expressions plays a key role in shifting figurations of global security regimes.
Amar’s (2013) most recent book The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexu
ality Politics, and the End of Neoliberalism focuses on Cairo and Rio de Janeiro, two
megacities said to be at the forefront of new and innovative security practices, actors,
and governance structures. Amar traces a range of new and complex securitization
projects and practices and the ways in which they are shot through with sexual and gen
der normativities. Central to the consolidation and expansion of these security regimes is
the rise of a new doctrine of human security that casts human rights as beneficial to both
national and societal security. Military and police security apparatuses and associated
parastate actors prosper by focusing their efforts on constructing non-normative sexuali
ties and gender expressions as threats to public safety. These new security regimes bring
together a set of strange bedfellows, including ultra-conservative and self-identified pro
gressive mass movements around morality, sexuality, and labor. For other Queer IR schol
arship examining the construction of men who have sex with men as national security
threats, see Nicola Pratt on the Queen Boat case in Egypt (2011).
Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of Military Interventions
Over the past decade, the thesis that powerful and otherwise highly heteronormative and
patriarchal states in both the Global North and South increasingly harness queer sexuali
ties and LGBT populations for their geopolitical ambitions has ushered in a rich and vi
brant research agenda in Transnational Queer Studies and more recently, Queer IR.53
This shift has given rise to two dominant figurations of homosexuality and the homosexu
al—“the perverse homosexual” and “the normal homosexual” (Weber, 2016A). Progressive
discourses recognize the latter as a “normal” sexual subject looking for love within the
framework of monogamous couplehood, making “‘the LGBT’ as normal as any other lov
ing human being” (Agathangelou, 2013; Agathangelou et al., 2008; Weber, 2016B).
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Much of Queer IR scholarship has been critical about the ways in which queer sexualities
and increasingly also the rights of trans people have been taken up as tools of chauvinist
or imperial statecraft. To make sense of what they see as problematic practices of diplo
macy and foreign policy, critics in Queer IR have deployed the influential concepts of
“homonationalism” (Puar, 2007) and “pinkwashing” developed in Transnational Queer
Studies and activism (Puar & Mikdashi, 2012; Schotten & Maikey, 2012) and/or developed
new terminology, such as “homocolonialism” (Rahman, 2015). Other Queer IR scholarship
examines how the production of the figure of the respectable homosexual is made possi
ble through structures of settler colonialism (Leigh, 2015; Richter-Montpetit, 2014B) and
anti-Blackness (Agathangelou, 2013; Richter-Montpetit, 2014B).
A classic example in Queer IR on the central role of cultural ideas about heteromasculini
ty—and performances of queer masculinities—in legitimizing military interventions is
Cynthia Weber’s work on U.S. relations with various Caribbean states in the wake of the
Cuban Revolution (1959–1994). Feminist analyses of military interventions typically show
the critical role gendered “rescue” narratives play in producing the conditions of possibil
ity for so-called humanitarian interventions. These gendered “rescue” narratives typically
frame (post)colonial spaces and peoples as variously feminized and in need of forceful yet
benign masculine intervention by major powers like the United States. Weber shows that
the U.S. state did not simply seek to project itself as hyper-masculine and hyper-hetero
sexual. Rather the U.S. state relied upon non-normative codes of gender and sexuality—
queer performativities—as an unlikely strategy to pacify the Caribbean region, regain its
heteromasculine national identity, and thus reclaim its status as a potent and virile global
super power. Other Queer IR scholarship explores how to techno-strategic discourses
about nuclear warfare (Cohn, 1993) are shot through with heteronormative cultural log
ics.
Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency
Building on the pathbreaking work by Jasbir K. Puar and Amit Rai (2002) and Puar’s later
solo work (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007) in Transnational Queer Studies, Queer IR scholarship
has demonstrated the role of non-normative understandings of gender and sexuality in
representations of the figure of the Muslim terrorist and/or insurgent and the ways in
which these knowledges have shaped security practices in the War on Terror.54 Queer IR
draws our attention to how the will to knowledge about sexuality and gender in this con
text is deeply shaped by cultural ideas about racial difference and colonial forms of power
to construct internationally dangerous figures—like “the terrorist” and/or “the insur
gent”—and those who need to be secured from them like “the docile patriot” (Puar & Rai,
2002).
For example, Queer IR scholarship on U.S. and British Counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts
in the so-called War on Terror shows how Orientalist discourses about Afghan, Arab, and
or Muslim men’s (allegedly) failed masculinity and perverse sexualities shaped COIN
practices at the operational and tactical level. In her study of Western representations of
Afghan—in particular Pashtun—men, Nivi Manchanda (2015) identifies a strong preoccu
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pation with the alleged prevalence of “illicit sex” among Pashtun men in both U.S.
counter-insurgency documents and U.S. and British media reports. Manchanda shows
how that “truth” about Pashtun men’s sexualities informed both operational and tactical
considerations in U.S. counter-insurgency in Afghanistan. For instance, COIN training ma
terials for U.S. soldiers contains information about queer sexualities and effeminate gen
der presentation, including the use of eyeliner among the local population. These knowl
edges produce the figure of the “Queer Pashtun” or “perverse” “terrorist” masculinities,
which make it possible for both official COIN and media discourses to frame “violence
against Americans [.º.º.] as a much-needed release of the terrorists’ bottled-up sexual
rage” (Manchanda, 2015, p. 12).
Other Queer IR scholarship shows how associated Orientalist ideas about “the Arab
mind” and its monolithic moral framework of honor and shame anchored in a distinctly
heteropatriarchal Islamic sex-gender regime shaped many of the actual torture tech
niques documented in the Senate Torture Report about the U.S. post-9/11 torture regime
(Owens, 2010; Richter-Montpetit, 2007, 2014A, 2015). Featuring prominently among re
ported torture practices are highly sexualized carceral practices aimed at feminizing male
prisoners. The underlying assumption is simple: The concerted effort at humiliating and
destroying Muslim/Arab prisoners’ (presumed) sense of masculinity would “soften them
up” and getting them to “confess” terrorist crimes they had committed, were planning to
commit, and/or share valuable intelligence about other terrorists/insurgents (Owens,
2010; Richter-Montpetit, 2007, 2014A, 2015). At the center of these feminizing torture
techniques were forced nudity; rape and sexualized assault; forced simulation of anal and
oral “gay sex”; and forcing otherwise naked male prisoners to wear “women’s” under
wear, including on their head. These sexualized carceral practices did not “simply” apply
Orientalist stereotypes about Islam and Arabs but in fact produced Muslim prisoners as
sexually deviant—they cast the tortured “as racially queer” (Richter-Montpetit, 2014A, p.
56).
Taking seriously the influential role of cultural logics about racialized sexuality and gen
der in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency practices helps IR make sense of the
large number of prisoners that were detained and tortured for years even though they
were officially known to be “innocent” and/or without any intelligence value (Richter-
Montpetit, 2014A, 2015). This research opens up critical IR analyses beyond explanatory
and moral frameworks such as failed intelligence gathering, “state of exception,” or “hu
man rights abuses” toward a more comprehensive understanding of seemingly illiberal
security practices in the War on Terror. Finally, like Postcolonial and Decolonial IR, Queer
IR contributes to IR debates on the ongoing raciality and coloniality of international rela
tions by showing how counter-terrorism practices and the larger War on Terror they are
part of are not only shaped by Orientalism, but also anti-Blackness and settler colonialism
(Agathangelou, 2013; Leigh, 2015; Puar, 2007; Richter-Montpetit, 2014A, 2015).
Page 13 of 35

Securitization Theory
Queer IR has also contributed to debates about the conceptual and empirical validity of
securitization theory. For example, Alison Howell’s work on Global Health challenges the
argument that health has been securitized. In fact, Howell questions the validity of ana
lytics of securitization generally. Bringing Critical War studies into conversation with
Queer theory and Critical Disability studies or Crip theory, Howell argues that modern
warfare and modern medicine emerged in tandem rather than medicine and psychiatry
being “abused” by military actors. Howell evidences her understanding of medicine as an
instrument of violence by exploring medicine’s role in the violent management of “abnor
mal” populations, such as homosexuals and trans women. Taking queer and trans people
seriously in global politics renders visible the routine character of practices of force in
herent in—and indeed constitutive of—liberal rule and its use of “social warfare” (Howell,
2014, p. 970). Howell’s queer analysis thus contributes to IR theory and Critical Security
Studies by rethinking the validity of the norm/exception and politics/security distinctions
underwriting securitization theory.
Border Security
Queer IR scholarship shows that ideas about normative sexuality and gender are also cen
tral to everyday security practices at the border (Frowd, 2014). The management of bor
der security is based on calculations about risk and danger of certain bodies and relies on
and is productive of certain normativities around gender. For instance, airport security
assemblages with their use of biometric data and body scanners mobilize knowledges of
gender to assess the truth about travelers’ bodies, which produces trans and non-binary
people as deceptive, deviant, and dangerous bodies (Sjoberg & Shepherd, 2012; Wilcox,
2015). In conversation with Transgender theory, Queer IR approaches to border security
thus extend the insights of feminist and critical race analyses on the role of gendered and
racialized knowledges to problematic ontologies of cisnormativity.
International Political Economy (IPE)

How does Queer IR scholarship help us understand International Political Economy (IPE)?
Like orthodox and critical approaches to IPE, Queer IR explores the intricate connections
between states and markets and the ways in which global power is shaped by the mutual
imbrication of political and economic power. Like Feminist IPE, Queer IPE takes seriously
both productive and reproductive dimensions of global economic activities. Feminist IPE
has drawn attention to the myriad ways in which the masculinist biases of modern eco
nomic (development) theories, policies, and orders affect men and women differently as
well identified the central role of gendered cultural norms for constructing certain forms
of labor and workers as valued, un(der)valued or invisible. Queer IPE pushes these in
quiries further in two main ways. First, Queer IR demonstrates the heteromasculine and
cissexist assumptions and biases underwriting economic policies and Development stud
ies. Second, Queer IR examines the differential—and productive—impact of processes and
Page 14 of 35

policies associated with neoliberal globalization on non-normative sexualized and gen

dered subjects, practices, and kinship relations. Most recently, Queer analyses of IPE
have addressed how the operations of global political economy are animated not only by
heteronormative but also homonormative (Duggan, 2003) logics and frameworks.
Production and Social Reproduction
Queer approaches to IPE have challenged the often implicitly heteronormative assump
tions of orthodox, critical, and Feminist IPE on states and state formation, markets,
households, and familial relations.55 For instance, Nicola Smith’s work draws attention to
the negative impact of financial crises and austerity on LGBT subjects, who are often dis
proportionately affected, including in the areas of employment, social services, and hous
ing (Smith, 2016). Furthermore, Queer IR scholarship shows the critical role of hetero
normative logics of gender and sexuality for (re)producing the neoliberal capitalist order.
For example, narratives about “individual responsibility” in the context of crisis and the
dismantling of the welfare state draw not only on market logics but also often evoke het
eronormative notions of family, intimacy, and sexuality (Smith, 2016).56 The good liberal
subject is produced not only in relation to hegemonic notions of productivity (i.e., surplus
value, property) but also reproduction (i.e., children) (Smith, 2016) and slavery (Agath
angelou, 2013; Richter-Montpetit, 2014B). Other Queer IR scholarship on IPE explores
how these connections between (non)normative family and kinship arrangements and the
transmission of property and entitlement to citizenship claims affect transnational migra
tion (Nayak, 2015; Peterson, 2010, 2014B). Agathangelou’s work on homonormative and
queer economies evidences the central role of Whiteness and “economies of Blackness” in
making possible neoliberal states and markets (2009, 2013).
Development Studies and the International Financial Institutions

(IFIs)
Historically, Development theory and practice excluded women as agents of development

and ignored the gendered effects of development policy and Structural Adjustment on
women (as challenged by Feminist IPE). Queer IR has extended these insights and shows
that the dominant development model rests not only on patriarchal assumptions about
the male breadwinner but also on “institutionalized heterosexuality” (Lind & Share,
2003).57
Support among international development actors for projects around sexual orientation
and gender identity (SOGI) has grown dramatically in the wake of recent legal reforms in
countries of the Global South and North ranging from the decriminalization of sodomy to
same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination legislation for trans people. Queer IR scholar
ship on Global Development has critically interrogated this sudden rise in interest for
matters of (homo)sexuality. For example, Queer IR has examined how development policy
in the context of HIV/AIDS has turned the spotlight on the sexual practices and desires of
so-called Men who have Sex with Men (MSM). Queer IR scholarship has explored the con
ditions of possibility for the seemingly progressive uptake of LGBT rights concerns in
Page 15 of 35

global development as well as examined the effects on local sexual and gender identities,
practices of intimacy, struggles, and household arrangements (Gosine, 2013; Griffin, 2009;
Lind, 2010A, 2010B; Rao, 2012, 2015B).
Most recently this interest in queer sexualities extends also to International Financial In
stitutions (IFIs) (Bedford, 2009; Griffin, 2007, 2009; Lind, 2010A, 2010B; Rao, 2015B).
Both World Bank and IMF have made the case for governments to support homosexual
equality by quantifying the effects of homophobia on economic growth. Currently, the UN
Development Program Team on Gender, Key Populations and LGBTI is developing an
LGBTI Inclusion Index. In the spirit of the World Bank’s concerns about “the economic
costs of homophobia,” this index will collect data on “the LGBTI” worldwide, in relation to
national indicators that seek to measure the success or failure of LGBTI inclusion. Queer
IR scholarship critically interrogates this newfound support for LGBT inclusion among
leading international development actors.
For example, Rahul Rao’s (2015B) work on “global homocapitalism” argues that LGBT
rights in the context of the IFIs have become “a new marker for old binaries” like civi
lized/uncivilized and developed/backward. Rao challenges hegemonic discourses among
both international development actors and academic researchers that treat homophobia
as a “merely” cultural phenomenon. Rao’s study of recent IFI initiatives on homophobia
demonstrates how neoliberal policies initiated by the IFIs in Uganda and India con
tributed to the material conditions that have given rise to homophobic moral panics in
both countries. In Uganda, the dramatic ascendancy of Pentecostal Christianity and their
aggressively anti-queer agenda became possible because the shrinking state delegated
crucial social services like health care and education to faith-based organizations (Rao,
2014B, 2015B).
Despite the growing prominence of LGBT populations in development discourse, even

feminist approaches to development and humanitarian aid often still rely on a heteronor
mative framework of family, reproduction, and citizenship. For example, recent work by
Marjaana Jauhola on post-tsunami reconstruction in Indonesia critically examines gender
mainstreaming efforts at the intersection of development aid and humanitarian relief in a
(post)conflict setting. Jauhola’s (2010, 2013) Queer IR analysis shows how the limited het
eronormative gender matrix that informs gender mainstreaming efforts (1) obscures
wider relations of power and normalization and (2) contributes to the reproduction of ex
isting social inequalities and insecurities.
Trends and Directions for Future Research

Beyond empirical studies on LGBT people as right-holders as well as on the differential
impact of security practices and economic policies on non-normative sexual and gendered
subjects, Queer IR has rendered visible sexual politics and queer sexualities as key ter
rains and animating logics of past and contemporary geopolitical struggles. Treating
queer as an analytical category, Queer IR scholarship explores how state and nation for
mation, global security and the operations of the international political economy are shot
Page 16 of 35

through with heteronormative and homonormative cultural logics. And Queer IR increas
ingly pays attention also to cissexist norms and normativities. A growing body of Queer IR
scholarship also challenges the facile celebration of sexualized and gendered non-norma
tivities in recent international policy initiatives and certain LGBT research.
Taking their cue in particular from Queer and Trans of Color Critique, Black feminist
thought, Crip theory, and associated social movements, Queer IR theorists focus on how
queer no longer (if ever it did) simply designates the abject and/or excluded. Instead, it
demonstrates how certain figurations of the homosexual and homosexuality have been
harnessed by hegemonic actors, from the geopolitics of the War on Terror to neoliberal
development policies. This research seeks to explore how these international and transna
tional contestations are structured by heteronormative, homonormative, and cissexist log
ics and desires beyond facile gendered binaries and dichotomies like homophobic vs. gay-
friendly practices, policies, and actors. Part of this (self)-critique challenges the problem
atic ways trans people have been taken up by Queer IR as figures that are read as trans
gressive and resisting of orthodox gender relations and larger gender orders, and thus as
“raw materials” to improve IR theory (Weber, 2016C). More recent Queer IR research of
fers a more sustained engagement with the rich body of Transgender theory produced by
academics and activists (Howell, 2014; Weber, 2016C).
Emerging Queer IR research provincializes Western sexualities—and Queer IR. With

much of the canon in LGBT studies and Queer theory in Western universities grounded in
what postcolonial and Queer of Color theorists identify as White and Eurocentric life
worlds and theories, a growing body of Queer IR foregrounds sexuality and gender in
racialized and colonial technologies of power and/or centers the geo/political agency, sex
ual, and gendered desires and practices of actors in the Global South58 or at the various
peripheries of the Global North.59 Queer IR scholarship increasingly studies how sexual
ized and gendered formations in IR emerge in conjunction with discourses and structures
of Orientalism, and most recently anti-Blackness (Agathangelou, 2013; Richter-Montpetit,
2014A, 2014B, 2015) and settler colonialism (Leigh, 2015; Richter-Montpetit, 2014B,
2016A).
Finally, one of the most prominent debates in Queer theory in recent years centers
around inhabiting and strategically evoking seemingly negative and/or shameful queer af
fects and subject positions, such as “deviance,” “marginality,” “melancholy,” and “failure”
to challenge the status quo and offer new and innovative political imaginaries. Queer IR
has begun to bring these concepts to bear on the study of ethics in world politics,60 time
and temporality,61 Democratic peace theory,62 the practice turn in IR theory,63 as well as
to disciplinarity knowledge production in IR more generally.64
Conclusion
Given the importance of Queer IR scholarship for IR research and for foreign policy, why
has Queer IR scholarship been largely neglected until recently? One answer is that IR
scholars do not usually read the work of their Queer Studies colleagues (and vice
Page 17 of 35

versa).65 Yet there are arguably three additional reasons for this state of affairs, which
are rooted in the understanding and conduct of the discipline of international relations.
First, grounded (in part) in Martin Wight’s description of international relations as “the
study of the state’s system itself” and Wight’s positivist inclinations for determining what
counts as knowledge about “the state’s system itself” (Wight, 1966) what we might call
“Disciplinary IRs” are able to employ a number of strategies to make it appear as if there
is no queer international theory and as if there is no need for queer international theory.
Second, even though some Feminist IR and “Queer IR” scholars have long argued that
sexuality is a fundamental organizing aspect of international politics, it was only recently
that examples of powerful international mobilizations of “queer sexualities” became so
obviously integrated into foreign policy that so-called Disciplinary IR could no longer ig
nore them. Primary among these is U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s 2011
declaration that “gay rights are human rights,” and the Obama administration’s leverag
ing of this declaration as a fundamental aspect of its foreign policy.
Finally, as more IR scholars have begun to recognize the importance of “queer” sexuality
and its relationship to international relations, they have until recently66 often lacked theo
retical and methodological frameworks that would allow them to explore these questions
in a rigorous analytical fashion (although see, for example, Browne & Nash, 2016).
As Queer IR theories and methodologies demystify how all manner of IR scholars can bet
ter comprehend and perform Queer IR research, Queer IR contributions to IR are increas
ingly viewed as vital to understanding core IR concerns.
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Notes:
(1.) Peterson (1999).
(2.) Agathangelou, Bassichis, and Spira (2008), and Lind and Keating (2013).
(3.) Shepherd and Sjoberg (2012).
(4.) Weber (1999, (2016a).
(5.) Weber (2014b), Sjoberg and Weber (2014); Langlois (2015a, 2015b); and Thiel (2014).
(6.) Weber (2016b).
(7.) Peterson (1999, 2013, 2014a), Weber (2016a), and Rao (2010).
(8.) Richter-Montpetit (2014b).
(9.) Hagen (2016).
(10.) Peterson (2014b, 2016), Rao (2012, 2015b), and Smith (2016).
(11.) Weber (2016a).
(12.) Weber (1999).
(13.) Amar (2013), and Richter-Montpetit (2014a).
(14.) Howell (2014).
(15.) Owens (2010), and Richter-Montpetit (2014a).
(16.) Manchanda (2015), and Richter-Montpetit (2007).
(17.) Manchanda (2015), and Owens (2010).
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(18.) Wool (2015), and McEvoy (2015).
(19.) Langlois and Wilkinson (2014), Rao (2014b), Picq and Thiel (2015), LaViolette and
Whitworth (1994), and Wilkinson (2013).
(20.) Nayak (2015).
(21.) Weber (2016a).
(22.) Howell (2011, 2014).
(23.) Howell (2014), Shephard and Sjoberg (2012), and Wilcox (2015).
(24.) Weiss and Bosia (2013).
(25.) Bedford (2009), Griffin (2007), Lind and Share (2003), and Lind (2010a, 2010b).
(26.) Smith (2016).
(27.) Rahman (2014).
(28.) Leigh (2015).
(29.) Agathangelou (2013).
(30.) Rao (2015b).
(31.) Baker (2016).
(32.) Ayoub (2015, 2016), and Holzhacker (2013, 2014).
(33.) Rao (2010).
(34.) Rao (2014a, 2016b).
(35.) Cohen (1997), Lorde (1985), Moraga and Anzaldúa (1981), and Somerville (1994,
2000).
(36.) Lorde (1984), and McRuer (2003, 2006).
(37.) Ferguson (2004); Hennessy (1994), and Sears (2005).
(38.) Chavez (2013), Cruz-Malavé and Manalansan (2002), Luibhéid (2002), Manalansan
(2003), and Reddy (2005).
(39.) Stoler (1995), Driskill (2004), and Driskill et al. (2011).
(40.) Agathangelou (2013), Bassichis and Spade (2014), Holland (2012), Johnson and
Henderson (2005), Sharpe (2009), and Walcott (2013).
Page 33 of 35

(41.) Alexander (1994, 1997, 2005), Bell and Valentine (1995), Cruz-Malavé and Man
alansan (2002), Povinelli and Chauncey (1999), Eng (2001), David et al. (2005), Ferguson
(2000, 2004), Gopinath (2005), Manalansan (2006), Muñoz (1999), Oswin (2008), Puar
and Rai (2002), Puar (2002, 2007), Reddy (2005), Schulman (2012), Hoad (2000), Luib
héid (2008).
(42.) Bosia and Weiss (2013), Langlois (2015a, 2015b), LaViolette and Whitworth (1994),
Lind (2014), Piecq and Thiel (2014), Rahman (2015), Wilkinson (2014), and Wilkinson and
Langlois (2014).
(43.) Bosia and Weiss (2013), Piecq and Thiel (2014), and Wilkinson and Langlois (2014).
(44.) Ayoub (2014, 2015, 2016), Ayoube and Paternotte (2014), Holzhacker (2012, 2013,
2014), and Thiel (2014).
(45.) Langlois (2015a, 2015b), Lind (2014), Weber (2016a), and Wilkinson (2014).
(46.) Agathangelou, Bassichis, and Spira (2008).
(47.) Agathangelou (2013), and Richter-Montpetit (2014b).
(48.) Rahman (2015), see also Rao (2010, 2012.
(49.) Leigh (2015), and Richter-Montpetit (2014b).
(50.) For a symposium discussion of Weber’s argument and its impact on IR, see Sjoberg
(2016), Selbin (2016), Rao (2016a), Langlois (2016), Dunn (2016), and Weber (2016c).
(51.) Baker (2016), Peterson (1999, 2013), Rao (2010), 2014b, 2015a), Weber (2016a),
and Wilkinson (2014).
(52.) Peterson (1999, p. 52, see also Åhäll (2015), Baker (2015), Belkin (2012), Bulmer
(2011, 2013), Cohn (1998), Crane-Seeber (2016), D’Amico (2000, 2015), McEvoy (2015),
Nayak (2014), Peterson (1999), Richter-Montpetit (2014b), Sjoberg (2012), Whitworth
(2004), and Wool (2015).
(53.) Agathangelou, Bassichis, and Spira (2008), Agathangelou (2013), Britt (2015), Lan
glois (2015a, 2015b), Leigh (2015), Lind (2014), Nayak (2014), Rao (2010, 2012, 2014a,
2014b, 2014c), Richter-Montpetit (2014b), Weber (2016a, 2016b), Wilkinson (2014).
(54.) Agathangelou and Ling (2004), Manchanda (2015), Owens (2010), Richter-Montpetit
(2007, 2014a, 2014b), and Weber (2002, 2016a, 2016b).
(55.) Bergeron (2009), Griffin (2007), Lind (2009, 2010a, 2010b), Lind and Share (2003),
Peterson (2005, 2014b, 2016), and Smith (2011, 2015, 2016).
(56.) See also Peterson (2014a, 2014b), and Rao (2015b).
Page 34 of 35

(57.) See also Bedford (2009), Bergeron (2010), Jauhola (2013), Griffin (2007, 2009), and
Lind (2009, 2010a, 2010b).
(58.) Rao (2010, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2015a, 2015b).
(59.) Baker (2016), and Wilkinson (2014).
(60.) Amoureux (2016).
(61.) Agathangelou (2013), Rao (2014a, 2015a, 2016b), Richter-Montpetit (2016b), and
Weber (2016b).
(62.) Sjoberg (2014).
(63.) Wilcox (2013).
(64.) Langlois (2015b), Peterson (2016), and Weber (2016b).
(65.) For a similar discussion in Political Science, see Smith and Lee (2015).
(66.) See ISQ Blog debate (2016), and Weber (1998a, 1998b, 2016b).
Melanie Richter-Montpetit
The Department of Politics, University of Sheffield
Cynthia Weber
Department of International Relations, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex
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Queer International Relations

Queer International Relations

Summary and Keywords

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

securitization,14 torture,15 terrorism,16 and counter-insurgency,17 militaries and mili­

Definitions, History, and Intellectual Concerns

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

plications of binary and non-binary constructions of identity, by understanding identity as

• Critical genealogical investigations of powerful formations and mobilizations of

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

From Queer to Queer IR

Among the key questions Queer IR scholars ask are these:

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

• How are processes of modern state formation connected to heteropatriarchal family

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Key Contributions of Queer IR Research

LGBT Rights Promotion and Diffusion

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

State and Nation Formation

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

processes of reproduction, resistance, and reconfiguration. Peterson’s Queer IR scholar­

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

War and Peace

Gender, Peace, and Security

For example, scholars’ and practitioners’ common assumptions about heterosexuality as

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Military Masculinities and Soldiering

Contrary to commonsense understandings of soldiering involving only “manly” tasks,

A burgeoning body of Queer IR scholarship examines the increasing inclusion of LGBT

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of Military Interventions

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

International Political Economy (IPE)

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

policies associated with neoliberal globalization on non-normative sexualized and gen­

Production and Social Reproduction

Development Studies and the International Financial Institutions

Historically, Development theory and practice excluded women as agents of development

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Despite the growing prominence of LGBT populations in development discourse, even

Trends and Directions for Future Research

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Emerging Queer IR research provincializes Western sexualities—and Queer IR. With

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Alexander, M. J. (1997). Erotic autonomy as a politics of decolonization: An anatomy of

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Alexander, M. J. (2005). Pedagogies of crossing: Meditations on feminism, sexual politics,

Ayoub, P. M. (2015). Contested norms in new-adopter states: International determi­

Baker, C. (2015). “Ancient Volscian border dispute flares”: REPRESENTATIONS OF

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Bedford, K. (2010). Markets and sexualities: Introduction. Feminist Legal Studies,

Bergeron, S. (2010). Querying feminist Economics’ straight path to development: House­

Bosia, M. J. (2015). To love or to loathe: modernity, homophobia, and LGBT rights. In M.

Subscriber: Shiv Nadar University; date: 03 November 2019

Crane-Seeber, J. P. (2016). Sexy warriors: The politics and pleasures of submission

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and

Cruz-Malavé, A., & Manalansan, M. F. (Eds.). (2002). Queer globalizations: Citizenship

securitization,14 torture,15 terrorism,16 and counter-insurgency,17 militaries and mili

processes of reproduction, resistance, and reconfiguration. Peterson’s Queer IR scholar

policies associated with neoliberal globalization on non-normative sexualized and gen

Ayoub, P. M. (2015). Contested norms in new-adopter states: International determi

Bergeron, S. (2010). Querying feminist Economics’ straight path to development: House

Ferguson, R. A. (2004). Aberrations in black: Toward a queer of color critique. Minneapo

Hoad, N. (2000). Arrested development or the queerness of savages: Resisting evo

Manchanda, N. (2015). Queering the Pashtun: Afghan sexuality in the homo-nation

Nayak, M. (2015). Who is worthy of protection?: Gender-based asylum and U. S. immigra

Peterson, V. S. (1999). Political identities/nationalism as heterosexism. International Femi

Peterson, V. S. (2014b). Sex matters: A queer history of archives. International Femi

Povinelli, E. A., & Chauncey, G. (1999). Thinking sexuality transnationally: An intro

Rao, R. (2015a). Re-membering Mwanga: same-sex intimacy, memory and belong

Richter-Montpetit, M. (2014b). Beyond the erotics of orientalism: Homeland security, lib

Sjoberg, L. (2016). Faking it in 21st century IR/global politics. Millennium—Journal of In

Sjoberg, L. (2016a). Introduction: Faking it in 21st century IR/global politics. Mil

Weber, C. (2002). ‘Flying planes can be dangerous’. Millennium—Journal of Interna

Whitworth, S. (2004). Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis. Boul

Wiegman, R., & Wilson, E. A. (2015). Introduction: Antinormativity’s queer conven

Wilcox, L. B. (2015). Bodies of violence: Theorizing embodied subjects in international re