Gender and International Relations: An Introduction

The second edition of Jill Steans' successful and highly respected book offers a comprehensive overview of feminist scholarship and feminist contributions to international relations, and provides an in-depth discussion of how feminist IR has sought to re-think key concepts and central areas of concern in the field. Its ten chapters cover core topics, such as feminist theories; international relations theory; gender in the theory and practice of 'state-making'; feminist perspectives on war and peace; feminist approaches to security; the gender dimension of international political economy; gender and the politics of development; and women's human rights as both a 'universal project' and a political tool. The book also discusses some of the key debates and exchanges that have taken place between feminist IR scholars and those located both in the 'mainstream' of IR and the newly constructed 'middle ground' of IR. It concludes by exploring the affinities between feminist IR and other 'critical' theories of IR and identifies new research trajectories and potentially productive lines of future theoretical inquiry in the discipline. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of international relations. It will also be useful to the general reader interested in exploring the complexities of thinking about gender issues and feminism in a global context.