A FEMINIST THEORY OF WAR THROUGH DIALOGICAL HERMENEUTICS

Laura Sjoberg's ambition is bold. She challenges international relations, war, and security studies by arguing that they have studied “the meaning, causes and consequences of war” but have not been able to come up with a “single theory of what wars are and why they happen” (2–3). Sjoberg's aim is to advance a feminist theory of war by bringing feminist critical scholarship to the center of war theorizing. She follows a tradition pioneered by Ann Tickner (Reference Tickner1992) and Christine Sylvester (Reference Sylvester1994), which is distinguishable by its active engagement with mainstream IR theory. Their critical analysis exposes how theories are gendered by revealing their masculinist underpinnings. Sjoberg's critical analysis follows this tradition as she challenges scholarship in the study of war in international relations and in security studies.

Her methodology is based on a critical reading of mainstream theories on war and conflict through a dialogical hermeneutic approach (287). The strength of the approach is that it engages with differences and includes those who do not share the same assumptions. Differences, even contradictions, can be used constructively to raise questions and point to problems in theories on war. Sjoberg uses divergences in both feminist and IR theories to problematize multiple levels of causations, tactics, and strategies of war. The dialogue between distinct positions, where each one raises different questions, offers the hermeneutics and adds the transformative potential. Sjoberg argues that feminist theory can influence mainstream theories only by engaging them. She recognizes, however, that this move may also challenge dominant assumptions in feminist IR, such as contesting the antimilitarist/pacifist tendencies in feminist studies of war and conflict (44–67).

Although I am both highly sympathetic to and impressed with Sjoberg's approach, it poses some difficulties. First, it demands that the reader be extremely well read across the vast field of war and conflict studies, perspectives on war in IR, different feminist IR theories, and feminist studies of war and conflict. Sjoberg demonstrates extensive expertise and provides ample footnotes and references to substantiate her argument. I used Sjoberg's book in a graduate-level class, Theories of War and Peace—with 12 students (8 men)—and found that the majority of students thought it was useful to help them articulate how gender and masculinity relate to war, especially on the systemic level. Sjoberg's continuous engagement with mainstream theory of war is particularly stimulating for students of IR, peace and conflict, war or security studies who are familiar with the claims and arguments of that literature. As a result, they tend to be more receptive to the feminist critique and the argument of the book. Because of the extensive engagement with a breadth of IR theory, the book is best suited for students at the graduate level.

Second, Sjoberg advances an understanding of war and conflict as conducted between states. One weakness of this conception is that it does not include what Mary Kaldor (Reference Kaldor1999) coined “new wars.” New wars focus on conflicts between nonstate actors in ethnic-religious conflicts, terrorism, and insurgencies. These have become salient issues in global politics, highlighting aspects of war such as the political economy of war and military actions of international missions.

GENDERING GLOBAL CONFLICT

The structure of Sjoberg's book reflects the dialogical hermeneutic approach and her wish to engage in conversation with mainstream theories of war. It begins with an overview of research in IR, security, and war studies. The first chapter reads as a brief introduction to the study of war and serves well to orient the reader because it is comprehensive and richly referenced. Next is the chapter that presents the dialogical hermeneutic approach, followed by six chapters that are organized according to common distinctions of mainstream theories. Causes of war can be found at different levels of analysis: the level of the international system (Chapter 3), the relations between states (Chapter 4), within the nation state and its leadership (Chapter 5). Two chapters about strategies (Chapter 6) and tactics (Chapter 7) of war follow. In each chapter, Sjoberg demonstrates how gender subordination and gender relations are key in explaining war. She underscores that no matter which IR perspective or theory is used, war cannot be understood or explained unless it engages with feminist theorizing. Below I outline a few highlights from the chapters.

The mainstream understanding of the anarchic character of the international system is of an invariable condition of competition that is permissive of war (Chapter 3). Sjoberg draws a parallel between the structural condition of the international system and how gender is constitutive in structuring social and political life, and she argues that gender hierarchy is a key structural component of the international system. She claims that gender provides a more accurate explanation than anarchy because “genders in the gender hierarchy among states vary both at the system level (over time) and within the system (with context)” (99). Central to the international system is the competition for dominance between states with a preference for a particular power, domination, and militarization that is masculinized. Gender relations across states are different, and hypermasculine states are most aggressive and likely to be warring. (102)

The relations between states are discussed in further detail in Chapter 4. Sjoberg argues that when states are treated as unitary, as they are in mainstream theories, it obscures diversities within states, renders gender hierarchy within states invisible, and makes states complicit in gender subordination. It is necessary to consider states not as unitary rational actors, but in terms of how their identity impacts decisions. An example of this is paying attention to how the state's self-image as the protector of women and children at home relates to emotional dynamics in foreign policy decision making. Emotions such as honor, prestige, and pride often influence decisions to go to war as well as which strategies to pursue or tactics to use. Sjoberg suggests that feminist theory can help advance another kind of international relations with a guiding ethos of empathy and care in decision-making rather than competition (132).

In Chapter 5, Sjoberg stresses the need to take on insights from feminist IR that theorize war as a continuum. This is helpful to unravel the multiple effects of war not only between states, but also within states. Effects last over time and involve relations between institutions, leaders, and citizens. The international realm becomes personal because war impacts peoples' lives far beyond the battlefield. Sjoberg also highlights that those at the margins matter in war making, a theme covered in depth in Cohn's book, Women and Wars, which will be discussed later. State leadership is associated with the protector identity and, thus, the good decision maker in war has characteristics such as masculine virility and heroism (Sjoberg, 144). War strategies tap into this gendered protector-protected dichotomy, and women's bodies become the battleground. Targeting civilians with sexual violence can be a strategy directed at the male enemy population and as an assault on the masculinity of the enemy (205). When the soldier or leader is not able to protect the female population from sexual violence, he fails to perform his duty as the protector.

SELF-IMAGE AND STATE IDENTITY: A GENDERED U.S. MILITARY IDENTITY

While state identity relates to the role of the masculine protector, it varies among, for example, Russia, the United States, or the Nordic states. The variation in a state's masculine identity influences state behavior: the “more competitive a state's hegemonic masculinity, the more likely that state is to make war” (Sjoberg, 147–49). Elgin Medea Brunner analyzes this link between state gender identity and security performance in her book on U.S. state identity and thereby expands on a theme in Sjoberg's book.

Brunner scrutinizes the link between state identity and foreign policy from the perspective of feminist post-structuralism using discourse analysis (4). She argues that “war stories are fundamentally about the production of identity” (3) through a reciprocal relation wherein security and military policies write identity, and identity also writes them. Her choice of material is motivated by the desire to look at specific state discourses and practices to study the gendered reproduction of the state (11). The empirical focus is on U.S. military doctrine and propaganda leaflets that illustrate military perception management in practice. Post-structuralist feminist IR views gender identity as something constantly enacted. Gender meaning is mediated through text and performance. Brunner is particularly interested in how gender identity is written into new developments in military affairs, such as the use of new technologies and ways of receiving and disseminating information (17).

POST-STRUCTURAL FEMINISM AND STATE IDENTITY

Through a meticulous study of documents, Brunner demonstrates that “security-related statecraft relies on mechanisms of Othering and Selfing that performatively forge constructions that are heavily gendered” (172). Her book is as much about feminist poststructural methodology as it is about understanding the gendered state through foreign security policy. This is a strong contribution. The choice of methodology is thoroughly elaborated, and each step of the analysis is carefully laid out before the reader, making it possible to follow the entire research process. Brunner's poststructural methodology can be applied to other state's military doctrines for a comparison, but I suggest that it has an even broader general applicability for anyone conducting a post-structural feminist analysis. At the same time, this implies that its readership within IR is likely smaller and more limited than either Sjoberg's general approach to theories of war or Cohn's textbook on women in wars.

In Chapter 2, Brunner discusses the problem of studying gender in a space where it is invisible. In militaries, maleness is the norm but assumed to be naturally so; hence, there is a silence on gender. Brunner argues that it is possible to study what is not explicitly articulated by deconstructing text and questioning naturalized assumptions and through the search for intertextual references in multiple readings. Brunner draws on Lene Hansen's (Reference Hansen2006) proposition that every text will appeal to naturalized discourses in order to establish authority. The more implicit the intertextual reference is, the more likely that it refers to a well-established and normalized discourse such as gender stereotypes. Intertextuality “helps make visible the invisible and to problematize the unproblematic” (Brunner, 51). The methodology also uses Judith Butler's (Reference Butler1990) concept of performativity meaning that articulation brings things into being (Brunner, 49). In terms of concrete methods in deconstructing the text, the researcher looks for iterations and repetitions to demonstrate the continuous reproduction of gender identifications (51).

Brunner argues the U.S. “Self” that emerged in her reading of U.S. military doctrine documents from 1991–2007 (Chapter 2) is a technologically omnipotent, flexible, networked “Self” with integrated capabilities. It is a military information-age identity that is conjured against the U.S. military Cold War “Self,” understood as no longer effective (95). The new mental frame evoked by this “Self” marks a shift from a patriarchal heroic war model to a rational neoliberal masculinity (105, 112). It rests on both the willingness to sacrifice for others and “on overt domination of others and claims to superiority” (110). This shift has occurred within an institutional setting where the principle of masculinist protection remains valid.

GENDERING MILITARY PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT

Brunner also studies practice in military perception management by way of an analysis of the leaflets that the U.S. military dropped in conflicts between 1991 and 2003 (Chapter 4). Compared to military doctrine texts, the leaflets are directed to an audience and are more explicit about identities, which makes it possible to study the relationship between the U.S. “Self,” the Enemy Other and the Civilian Other. Brunner articulates that the U.S. “Self” projects a multirelational identity that is both heavily gendered and highly orientalist (117); this “Self” is a savior and protector but also imbued with technological and military supremacy (138). She notes, interestingly, that the Enemy Other, which represents a country or a collective, is always portrayed in the leaflets as one person. For example, the Enemy Other is Saddam Hussein (not Iraq), Slobodan Milošević (not Yugoslavia), or Osama Bin Laden (not the al-Qaeda network). These men are endowed with many similar traits, “simultaneously both evil and brutal and cowards.” (120) Brunner argues that this portrayal renders the Enemy Other feeble and weak, not manly enough to be honorable, hence not deserving any respect or to be spared (144). It invokes orientalism in a way that links the orient Enemy Other with domination, also found in the relationship between the “Self” and the Civilian Other. This relationship is depicted as one of power asymmetry and of dependence. The civilian Other is a highly feminized orient Other who depends on being rescued from the enemy Other by the “Self,” who is the savior and protector (147).

To anyone familiar with feminist scholarship critical of the U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, the findings are not surprising (e.g., Hunt and Rygiel Reference Hunt and Rygiel2006; Young Reference Young2007). What is unique in Brunner's work is the material she uses and her careful and transparent methodology. However, she could have foregrounded her methodological ambition—for example, in the title—to appeal to a broader range of readers.

WOMEN LIVING GENDERED LIVES IN WARS

In the final chapter of her book, Sjoberg moves from critical analysis of theory to the perspective of women in wars and conflict and thus connects to a long-established area of feminist IR scholarship that follows a line of work pioneered by Cynthia Enloe. Enloe encourages scholars to begin their research by asking the following questions: Where are the women in wars and conflict? What can women's stories tell us about conflict and war? Carol Cohn's edited book Women & Wars follows this tradition. It is an introductory textbook for students and serves this purpose well. It is articulate and accessible and includes illustrative tables, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading. The book is empirically well researched and carefully edited to bring coherence to ten different chapters with eleven authors.

Cohn's conceptual framework challenges a dominant narrative that conceives of war as a masculine realm and women as peripheral to it. Cohn encourages a discussion of war that is “more complexly gendered than this masculinized story allows” (1). She writes that “one cannot understand either women's relation to war or war itself without understanding gender, and understanding the ways that war and gender are, in fact, mutually constitutive” (1). A key message of the book is that masculinity should not be considered something natural or given in war; rather, it is a social construction that is produced through the daily enactments of war (24), thereby echoing Brunner's as well as Sjoberg's critical positions.

Cohn proceeds by explaining how gender is understood and can be analyzed. The conceptual framework is based on feminist theory and discusses how gender is related to sex, identity, and gender meaning that enables hierarchical structuring of different categories of people and different human activities (14). Gender is a structural power relation in which masculinity and femininity serve to categorize, order, and express power. Gender power is related to masculinity and embedded in institutions. Cohn argues that while “institutions rely on particular ideas about gender in order to function, they are also producers of ideas about appropriate masculinities and femininities—and these, in turn, have cultural and structural impacts beyond the bounds of the institution itself” (19). This is relevant for institutions related to war, like security and defense ministries of states and their militaries or armed groups, but also for organizations that deal with war refugees, peace negotiations, disarmament, and peace building. These institutions are important and discussed in many of the chapters of the book.

GENDER ANALYSIS OF WOMEN IN THE NEW WARS

The various accounts of women and wars in Cohn's edited volume reflect the feminist idea about war as a continuum (Cockburn Reference Cockburn2010) rather than as a discreet event, and the kind of wars that are in focus resemble “new wars” (Kaldor Reference Kaldor1999) or the “war in the age of risk” (Coker Reference Coker2009) instead of wars between states. For example, in the chapter “Women and the Political Economy of War,” Angela Raven-Roberts shows how formal and illicit market structures intersect with war and conflict. Wars are not only military endeavors, but also have political and economic implications. Political economies of war often reach far beyond the immediate locations and times of the fighting (Cohn, 53), such as establishing illicit economies based on sex and trafficking that continue long after conflict has ceased.

Many chapters address women's vulnerability in war (e.g., as victims of rape and sexual abuse, as refugees, as deprived of health and of livelihood). However, the authors also show how women have agency in war, in the informal economy, as peace negotiators and activists, as members of nongovernmental as well as governmental military forces, as soldiers and terrorists. Cohn's volume demonstrates how gender structures can both deprive women of agency and enable them, but in complex ways. Gendered stereotypes are often confirmed, but they are also challenged. As an example, Chapter 7, “Women, Girls, and Non-State Armed Opposition Groups,” by Dyan Mazurana, shows how gendered notions of women as fighters are bent and reformed against the functional and instrumental needs of armed opposition groups. Female suicide bombers are a case in point. They are considered particularly useful because they can benefit from gender stereotypes when on a suicide mission. Perceived as peaceful, perhaps as mothers, women are expected to do no harm and are not considered a security threat. Femininity is used strategically when it can serve the cause.

Women's political mobilization against war based on “motherhood” provides another illustration of the way gender stereotypes are simultaneously challenged and confirmed (Chapter 5 by Carol Cohn and Ruth Jacobson and Chapter 8 by Malathi de Alwis, Julie Mertus, and Tazreena Sajjad). Drawing on gendered understandings of women as mothers and as peaceful is problematic because it can depoliticize their actions; yet it can be strategically useful to gather around motherhood and peacefulness. Such symbolic associations were ground for cooperation between women across ethnic boundaries in the Balkans and a base from where to mobilize action for the peace talks in Liberia. It is clear from reading these chapters that women are active agents in war. At the same time, their agency is circumscribed and contested because women find themselves in masculine institutions, where maleness is the norm and masculine practices are privileged.

ANALYZING WITH A DOUBLE VISION

Cohn writes that gender analysis has to be conducted with a double vision (Chapter 1) by looking for structural and individual factors shaping women's experiences while also paying attention to women's agency in the contexts where they have room to act. This is a good starting point, from which Cohn's conceptual framework flows nicely. She captures the relevant feminist work in the field and communicates it in a straightforward and accessible manner. Yet, except for the appeal for a double vision, there is no account for how the framework can be applied in the book's following chapters. Concepts reappear, but the impression is that the framework has not been consistently or explicitly applied throughout. The book lacks a concluding chapter to bring the analysis and overall results together. A general sense is that the gender order and the association with masculinity and institutions of war remain highly resilient despite being contested. This is shown clearly in many chapters (3, 4, 8, 9, and 10) but not further elaborated later in the book.

It is notable that in the chapter on nonstate armed opposition groups by Dyan Mazurana, gender categories appear as easily pliable, while findings in other chapters illuminate their stability. Different armed opposition groups change their gender ideologies substantially, and this varies over time within the same organization. Although a functionalist explanation is not articulated in the chapter, it could indicate that gender is used to achieve operational effectiveness. Women's agency seems highly volatile, while male leaders manipulate gender understandings to serve organizational needs. It would be interesting to read more about the possible structural elements that override gender stereotypes to the benefit of achieving military objectives, be it a guerilla action or a suicide attack. Despite the lack of follow-through on theoretical ambitions set out in the introductory chapter, Women & Wars remains profoundly useful as a textbook. It introduces students to the topic of women's relationship to war and conveys the important overall insight that there is no one single way to think of it, but rather that it is highly contextual and multifaceted (100). Nor can we hope for universal solutions in feminist IR for how to treat women refugees or rape victims; how to think about disarmament, demobilization, and state-building; whether women should join military service or rebel groups or choose to become antimilitarist activists. There are only multiple narratives and perspectives.

Feminist IR analysis seems all the more relevant as new expressions of masculinities come to the fore in current conflicts and global politics. The more blatant expression of hypermasculinity in Russia by President Putin in his relations with Ukraine is one example. The ongoing conflict in Syria, the ethnoreligious struggles in the Central African Republic, and the demobilization in Afghanistan would all benefit from feminist analysis, based on the recent contributions to the field by Sjoberg, Brunner, or Cohn.