Executive Summary
Authors: Jolene Kong (Geneva Graduate Institute), Richard Burzynski (UNAIDS)... more Executive Summary
Authors: Jolene Kong (Geneva Graduate Institute), Richard Burzynski (UNAIDS), Cynthia Weber (University of Sussex)
Over the past few years, digital technologies, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) have emerged as a significant force in the response to HIV. These tools will speed up clinical research and improve access and delivery of HIV services. However, these tools also present challenges to the people-centred approach that characterizes the HIV/AIDS response as the potential for human rights violations increase. Through case studies and scenarios, this paper explores three forces that intersect on this issue: the role of stakeholders to reach the globally agreed upon final target of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths,the technological advances and their availability, the political narratives framing AI and its uptake, and how the HIV/AIDS response needs to evolve considering the above. It concludes by highlighting three key considerations for the future of the HIV/AIDS response to limit human rights violations as new forms of fear, stigma and discrimination evolve in the digital era.
This article argues that while the linguistic turn in mainstream IR is important in broadening ho... more This article argues that while the linguistic turn in mainstream IR is important in broadening how IR approaches global communications, the linguistic turn has its limitations because mainstream IR tends to, in Mattelart's terms, 'ex-communicate' the visual from the linguistic. This is highly problematic, considering, firstly, that popular visual language is increasingly the language that amateurs and experts rely upon in order to claim contemporary literacy and, secondly, that much politics is conducted through popular visual language. If the challenge of this Special Issue is to think about how to bring the discipline of IR to meaningful, political life, then a very good place to start is by asking mainstream IR (again) to take popular visual language seriously as an important aspect of contemporary global communication. This article makes this demand of the discipline of IR. It does so by presenting a case-study – the official US remediation of United Airlines Flight 93 – as an illustration of how contemporary global communications move from the textual to the visual and of what is lost in not taking this move seriously. In particular, it claims that by failing to analyse popular visual language as integral to global communications, mainstream IR risks misunderstanding contemporary subjectivity, spatiality, and temporality.
Modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, and this is nowhere more apparent than in
the con... more Modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the contemporary US. Currently there is a frenzy around US citizenship – who has it but shouldn’t have it, who should have it but doesn’t have it, who had it but renounced it. The sheer volume of ideas, images, and events and their mass circulation makes it almost impossible not to notice how unsettled and unsettling contemporary US citizenship has become. If, as designer Bruce Mau suggests, the success of a design is its invisibility, then it seems that the design of contemporary US citizenship is anything but a success. Taking seriously the claim that modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, this article focuses on howcitizenship is designed and redesigned through history. Its central research question is: what are the design principles ofmodern liberal citizenship, and how are they experienced in the contemporary US? Noting that modern liberal citizenship emerged fromstate security debates and that security concerns preoccupy those in the contemporary US, this article investigates not only how citizenship is designed but how safe citizenship is designed. As such, it is less concerned with the legal definition of citizenship than with the practical packaging of citizenship as part of a design for safe living.
A [George Bush] administration official notes, "We must recognize...that Panama's ability to resp... more A [George Bush] administration official notes, "We must recognize...that Panama's ability to responsibly pursue its own interest -- and hence the long-term future of the canal -- cannot be assured in the context of political instability." He goes on to stress that democracy is "an essential element of political stability on the isthmus." The "firm" position of the Bush administration is that "securing the long-term future of democracy in Panama and of the canal" are two elements that are "indissolubly linked." "[Manuel Antonio Noriega]'s continuation in power is a threat....And...it will be the canal's users who ultimately must face the burden of bearing the costs."(45)Democracy is valued, then, for its stabilizing influence -- for its ability to calm formless feminine fluids so they may serve masculine purposes. Until a democratic environment could be established in Panama -- until the Endara government could be seated -- the United States had to retain administrative control of the canal. So long as Noriega governs Panama, he endangers the U.S. "broad national interest" of maintaining "a safe, efficient, and neutral Panama Canal."(46) "Broad" in this context may refer to both the scope of U.S. interests and to a vernacular expression of the feminine component of U.S. interests. In the Bush administration discourse, a distinction is drawn between preserving Panamanian sovereignty and removing Noriega from power. What this suggests is that the Bush administration does not want to become the only user of the canal. Rather, the "neutrality" of the canal must be ensured so that the United States and Panama can be among the canal's users. The achievement of this goal entails separating the disruptive masculine subject (Noriega) from his feminine object (the canal). By denying Noriega his feminine object, the United States effectively denies Noriega's masculine subjectivity. And as a head of state without a state, Noriega is no longer a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region. A joke by a senator at the Joint Congressional Hearings on Events in Panama explicitly links masculine subjectivity with the feminine object. When a man testifying before the committee announced, "I was confirmed in June," a senator added, "No pun intended."(48) Read as the proper name of a woman rather than as a month, "June" signifies the body in which masculine subjectivity is achieved. It is not so much the pun as it is the pun's structure that is of interest here. Notice that it is the U.S. senator who substitutes the unconscious impulse (confirmation of male subjectivity in a female body) for the corporal signifier (June read as a woman's body), thereby revealing the hysterical subtext of the hearings.(49) Two final implications of the invasion are suggested by this reading. If, as Freud and [Jacques Lacan] argue, it is through the castration complex that subjects enter the symbolic order and become "civilized," then the castration of the former hegemon marks the end of one symbolic order and the beginning of a new order. During the invasion the United States confronts its own castration, which it then mimes through its intervention strategy of encirclement. This encounter with its castration and feminization in international politics leads the United States and Bush to reinscribe the symbolic order in terms that can accommodate the refigured United States. In this "New World Order" two quite different models of "civilization" or "meaning" are at work. For Panama the terms of the old international order are still meaningful. Although Noriega has been effectively castrated by the United States, Panama without Noriega appears in this order as simply "immature." It can reach maturity under the terms of the "old" world order when it receives possession of the Canal Zone at the turn of the century. The United States, in contrast, is mature but impotent. In its old age, it must go through a recivilizing process into a "New World Order" in which its international interactions will be expressed by the body of a man acting as a woman. The posthegemonic state is a postphallic state because it grafts female modalities of action onto a male subject.
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 cisnormativity as well as through queer logics of statecraft. Recently, Queer IR has gained unprecedented traction in IR, as IR scholars have come to recognize how Queer IR theory, methods, 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, intervention, security and securitization, torture, terrorism and counter-insurgency, militaries and militarism, human rights and LGBT activism, immigration, regional and international integration, global health, transphobia, homophobia, development and International Financial Institutions, financial crises, homocolonialism, settler colonialism and anti-Blackness, homocapitalism, political/cultural formations, norms diffusion, political protest, and time and temporalities
How are the aesthetics of fear politically mobilised and politically mobilising? This article dir... more How are the aesthetics of fear politically mobilised and politically mobilising? This article directs this question to a specific series of events beginning with the bombing of the London transportation system on 7/7, the near repeat performance of this event on 7/21, and the `Shoot to Kill to Protect' policy's first application which resulted in the killing of electrician Jean Charles de Menezes on 7/22. In particular, it addresses itself to one specific aestheticisation of fear, the images posted on the website Werenotafraid.com and the incessant circulation and discussion of these images since 7/7. The article a rgues that the asetheticisation of the London bombings through this specific website illustrates the often overlooked second movement in the Kantian sublime: the movement from rupture to a restoration of o rder and of closure. What interests me are the aesthetic strategies by which Werenotafraid.com effects a restoration of order and gives c losure to the breakdown of the British imagination, of not only national security but also unity. This article first traces the reliance of these aesthetic strategies on a Kantian morality. It then explains how these Kantian-inflected strategies repair the breakdown of the British imagination of security through a very specific `panhuman' restoration of British unity. Finally, it analyses the failures of the Werenotafraid.com project, politically and morally.
Part of a Special Commentary and Provocation Section on Denise Altman and Jonathan Symons' new bo... more Part of a Special Commentary and Provocation Section on Denise Altman and Jonathan Symons' new book Queer Wars. My piece considers the benefits and especially limitations of framing 'queer wars' as Altman and Symons do through the idea of 'international polarization'.
An application of a Queer IR analysis to the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of... more An application of a Queer IR analysis to the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the US.
My reflections on two of my Queer IR publications - my 1999 book Faking It and my 2016 book Queer... more My reflections on two of my Queer IR publications - my 1999 book Faking It and my 2016 book Queer International Relations - as the concluding piece of a symposium on 'Faking It in 21th Century IR/Global Politics', to be published in Millennium (45:1, in 2017 - edited by Laura Sjoberg, with contributions from Eric Selbin, Laura Sjoberg, Anthony Langlois, Rahul Rao, and Kevin Dunn).
Peter Thiel speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention in support of businessman Donald ... more Peter Thiel speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention in support of businessman Donald Trump recalls for me the arguments I made about Thiel, business, and 'good citizenship' in this short chapter. Looking at a variety of combinations of citizenship and values, it argues that we must be attentive to how citizenship and value - as ‘good citizenship’, ‘bad citizenship’, or indeed ‘non-citizenship’ - are constantly combined, defined and redefined as well as attached to and detached from individuals, institutions and political communities to complete sentences like this one – ‘Good citizenship is…’.
A [George Bush] administration official notes, "We must recognize...that Panama's ability to resp... more A [George Bush] administration official notes, "We must recognize...that Panama's ability to responsibly pursue its own interest -- and hence the long-term future of the canal -- cannot be assured in the context of political instability." He goes on to stress that democracy is "an essential element of political stability on the isthmus." The "firm" position of the Bush administration is that "securing the long-term future of democracy in Panama and of the canal" are two elements that are "indissolubly linked." "[Manuel Antonio Noriega]'s continuation in power is a threat....And...it will be the canal's users who ultimately must face the burden of bearing the costs."(45)Democracy is valued, then, for its stabilizing influence -- for its ability to calm formless feminine fluids so they may serve masculine purposes. Until a democratic environment could be established in Panama -- until the Endara government could be seated -- the United States had to retain administrative control of the canal. So long as Noriega governs Panama, he endangers the U.S. "broad national interest" of maintaining "a safe, efficient, and neutral Panama Canal."(46) "Broad" in this context may refer to both the scope of U.S. interests and to a vernacular expression of the feminine component of U.S. interests. In the Bush administration discourse, a distinction is drawn between preserving Panamanian sovereignty and removing Noriega from power. What this suggests is that the Bush administration does not want to become the only user of the canal. Rather, the "neutrality" of the canal must be ensured so that the United States and Panama can be among the canal's users. The achievement of this goal entails separating the disruptive masculine subject (Noriega) from his feminine object (the canal). By denying Noriega his feminine object, the United States effectively denies Noriega's masculine subjectivity. And as a head of state without a state, Noriega is no longer a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region. A joke by a senator at the Joint Congressional Hearings on Events in Panama explicitly links masculine subjectivity with the feminine object. When a man testifying before the committee announced, "I was confirmed in June," a senator added, "No pun intended."(48) Read as the proper name of a woman rather than as a month, "June" signifies the body in which masculine subjectivity is achieved. It is not so much the pun as it is the pun's structure that is of interest here. Notice that it is the U.S. senator who substitutes the unconscious impulse (confirmation of male subjectivity in a female body) for the corporal signifier (June read as a woman's body), thereby revealing the hysterical subtext of the hearings.(49) Two final implications of the invasion are suggested by this reading. If, as Freud and [Jacques Lacan] argue, it is through the castration complex that subjects enter the symbolic order and become "civilized," then the castration of the former hegemon marks the end of one symbolic order and the beginning of a new order. During the invasion the United States confronts its own castration, which it then mimes through its intervention strategy of encirclement. This encounter with its castration and feminization in international politics leads the United States and Bush to reinscribe the symbolic order in terms that can accommodate the refigured United States. In this "New World Order" two quite different models of "civilization" or "meaning" are at work. For Panama the terms of the old international order are still meaningful. Although Noriega has been effectively castrated by the United States, Panama without Noriega appears in this order as simply "immature." It can reach maturity under the terms of the "old" world order when it receives possession of the Canal Zone at the turn of the century. The United States, in contrast, is mature but impotent. In its old age, it must go through a recivilizing process into a "New World Order" in which its international interactions will be expressed by the body of a man acting as a woman. The posthegemonic state is a postphallic state because it grafts female modalities of action onto a male subject.
A short piece published on openDemocracy.net that draws on the arguments I make in my book Queer ... more A short piece published on openDemocracy.net that draws on the arguments I make in my book Queer International Relations to explore how western stories about development, im/migration, terrorism and sexuality figure the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen.
In Simulating Sovereignty Cynthia Weber presents a critical analysis of the concept of sovereignt... more In Simulating Sovereignty Cynthia Weber presents a critical analysis of the concept of sovereignty. Examining the justifications for intervention offered by the Concert of Europe, President Wilson's Administration, and the Reagan-Bush administrations, she combines critical international relations theory and foreign policy discourses about intervention to accomplish two important goals. First, rather than redefining state sovereignty, she radically deconstructs it by questioning the historical foundations of sovereign authority. Secondly, the book provides a critique of representation generally, and of the representation of the sovereign state in particular. This book is thus an original and important contribution to the understanding of sovereignty, the state and intervention in international relations theory.
Using Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 as its analytical point of departure, this essay explores how... more Using Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 as its analytical point of departure, this essay explores how Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 engages themes of censorship, political and pictorial trustworthiness, and crime and criminality to critique the Bush administration. What makes Moore’s film both fascinating and troubling, it argues, is that each of these themes can be critically turned back onto Moore and his film, making us wonder about the moralities of Moore’s personal brand of political resistance. The conclusion assesses the dangers of Moore’s strategy of domesticating the feminine as the moral foundation of his discourse of resistance, pondering the implications of this move for what is a central motif of Moore’s work: the relationship between justice and security.
Using Minority Report as its interpretive guide, this essay considers how the securitisation of t... more Using Minority Report as its interpretive guide, this essay considers how the securitisation of the unconscious is performed in primarily fiction (film) but also ‘fact’ (US foreign policy). The essay makes two general arguments. Implicitly, it argues that American moralities and what I call US moral grammars of war are not only formulated in traditional realms of politics but in geopolitical moral imaginaries in which US foreign policy intersects with popular (often filmic) imaginaries as well as with narratives about the family. Elaborating on this final point about the family, the essay explicitly argues that the feminine is the keystone of the US moral grammar of war in the war on terror because it is the foundational figure upon whom a specific articulation of a moral US ‘we’ is constructed. What this means is that as the US ‘we’ looks ahead to who a future moral American US ‘we’ might become (which is the theme of Minority Report and a theme in everyday post-11 September American life), it ought to begin by understanding how the feminine both secures and insecures the complex relationship between justice and security, particularly as it functions in relation to the present-day Bush administration’s policies of securitising the unconscious.
This essay identifies the Theory/Practice problematic as one of - if not the main - axis of conte... more This essay identifies the Theory/Practice problematic as one of - if not the main - axis of contemporary IR studies as it is used to determine the relative worth of differing IR approaches. It details how the debates on 'IR Theory in Practice: Entirely Academic?' trace the intellectual journey made by IR scholars through the Enlightenment (by Realism) and Romantic accounts (by Critical Theory) to the 'Enlightened Romantic' approach of social constructivism. The essay concludes that it is through this type of ritual return to the question of the relationship between Theory and Practice in international relations that IR as an academic discipline is normalised and legitimised, and in this way resists the potentially destabilising influences of the real 'dissident margins'.
Information about my new book published in the Oxford Studies on Gender and International Relatio... more Information about my new book published in the Oxford Studies on Gender and International Relations Series. Includes description, table of contents, reviews and link to the book on the Oxford University Press website.
Collections of reflections on Queer International Relations, with contributions by Cynthia Weber,... more Collections of reflections on Queer International Relations, with contributions by Cynthia Weber, Amy Lind, V. Spike Peterson, Laura Sjoberg, Lauren Wilcox, and Meghana Nayak
Article first published online: 3 SEP 2015
DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12212
This article outlines two ... more Article first published online: 3 SEP 2015
DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12212
This article outlines two theoretical and methodological approaches that take a queer intellectual curiosity about figurations of “homosexuality” and “the homosexual” as their core. These offer ways to conduct international relations research on “the homosexual” and on international relations figurations more broadly, e.g. from “the woman” to “the human rights holder.” The first approach provides a method for analyzing figurations of “the homosexual” and sexualized orders of international relations that are inscribed in IR as either normal or perverse. The second approach offers instructions on how to read plural figures and plural logics that signify as normal and/or perverse (and which might be described as queer). Together, they propose techniques, devices and research questions to investigate singular and plural IR figurations – including but not exclusively those of “the homosexual” – that map international phenomena as diverse as colonialism, human rights, and the formation of states and international communities in ways that exceed IR survey research techniques that, for example, incorporate “the homosexual” into IR research through a “sexuality variable.”
Executive Summary
Authors: Jolene Kong (Geneva Graduate Institute), Richard Burzynski (UNAIDS)... more Executive Summary
Authors: Jolene Kong (Geneva Graduate Institute), Richard Burzynski (UNAIDS), Cynthia Weber (University of Sussex)
Over the past few years, digital technologies, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) have emerged as a significant force in the response to HIV. These tools will speed up clinical research and improve access and delivery of HIV services. However, these tools also present challenges to the people-centred approach that characterizes the HIV/AIDS response as the potential for human rights violations increase. Through case studies and scenarios, this paper explores three forces that intersect on this issue: the role of stakeholders to reach the globally agreed upon final target of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths,the technological advances and their availability, the political narratives framing AI and its uptake, and how the HIV/AIDS response needs to evolve considering the above. It concludes by highlighting three key considerations for the future of the HIV/AIDS response to limit human rights violations as new forms of fear, stigma and discrimination evolve in the digital era.
This article argues that while the linguistic turn in mainstream IR is important in broadening ho... more This article argues that while the linguistic turn in mainstream IR is important in broadening how IR approaches global communications, the linguistic turn has its limitations because mainstream IR tends to, in Mattelart's terms, 'ex-communicate' the visual from the linguistic. This is highly problematic, considering, firstly, that popular visual language is increasingly the language that amateurs and experts rely upon in order to claim contemporary literacy and, secondly, that much politics is conducted through popular visual language. If the challenge of this Special Issue is to think about how to bring the discipline of IR to meaningful, political life, then a very good place to start is by asking mainstream IR (again) to take popular visual language seriously as an important aspect of contemporary global communication. This article makes this demand of the discipline of IR. It does so by presenting a case-study – the official US remediation of United Airlines Flight 93 – as an illustration of how contemporary global communications move from the textual to the visual and of what is lost in not taking this move seriously. In particular, it claims that by failing to analyse popular visual language as integral to global communications, mainstream IR risks misunderstanding contemporary subjectivity, spatiality, and temporality.
Modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, and this is nowhere more apparent than in
the con... more Modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the contemporary US. Currently there is a frenzy around US citizenship – who has it but shouldn’t have it, who should have it but doesn’t have it, who had it but renounced it. The sheer volume of ideas, images, and events and their mass circulation makes it almost impossible not to notice how unsettled and unsettling contemporary US citizenship has become. If, as designer Bruce Mau suggests, the success of a design is its invisibility, then it seems that the design of contemporary US citizenship is anything but a success. Taking seriously the claim that modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, this article focuses on howcitizenship is designed and redesigned through history. Its central research question is: what are the design principles ofmodern liberal citizenship, and how are they experienced in the contemporary US? Noting that modern liberal citizenship emerged fromstate security debates and that security concerns preoccupy those in the contemporary US, this article investigates not only how citizenship is designed but how safe citizenship is designed. As such, it is less concerned with the legal definition of citizenship than with the practical packaging of citizenship as part of a design for safe living.
A [George Bush] administration official notes, "We must recognize...that Panama's ability to resp... more A [George Bush] administration official notes, "We must recognize...that Panama's ability to responsibly pursue its own interest -- and hence the long-term future of the canal -- cannot be assured in the context of political instability." He goes on to stress that democracy is "an essential element of political stability on the isthmus." The "firm" position of the Bush administration is that "securing the long-term future of democracy in Panama and of the canal" are two elements that are "indissolubly linked." "[Manuel Antonio Noriega]'s continuation in power is a threat....And...it will be the canal's users who ultimately must face the burden of bearing the costs."(45)Democracy is valued, then, for its stabilizing influence -- for its ability to calm formless feminine fluids so they may serve masculine purposes. Until a democratic environment could be established in Panama -- until the Endara government could be seated -- the United States had to retain administrative control of the canal. So long as Noriega governs Panama, he endangers the U.S. "broad national interest" of maintaining "a safe, efficient, and neutral Panama Canal."(46) "Broad" in this context may refer to both the scope of U.S. interests and to a vernacular expression of the feminine component of U.S. interests. In the Bush administration discourse, a distinction is drawn between preserving Panamanian sovereignty and removing Noriega from power. What this suggests is that the Bush administration does not want to become the only user of the canal. Rather, the "neutrality" of the canal must be ensured so that the United States and Panama can be among the canal's users. The achievement of this goal entails separating the disruptive masculine subject (Noriega) from his feminine object (the canal). By denying Noriega his feminine object, the United States effectively denies Noriega's masculine subjectivity. And as a head of state without a state, Noriega is no longer a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region. A joke by a senator at the Joint Congressional Hearings on Events in Panama explicitly links masculine subjectivity with the feminine object. When a man testifying before the committee announced, "I was confirmed in June," a senator added, "No pun intended."(48) Read as the proper name of a woman rather than as a month, "June" signifies the body in which masculine subjectivity is achieved. It is not so much the pun as it is the pun's structure that is of interest here. Notice that it is the U.S. senator who substitutes the unconscious impulse (confirmation of male subjectivity in a female body) for the corporal signifier (June read as a woman's body), thereby revealing the hysterical subtext of the hearings.(49) Two final implications of the invasion are suggested by this reading. If, as Freud and [Jacques Lacan] argue, it is through the castration complex that subjects enter the symbolic order and become "civilized," then the castration of the former hegemon marks the end of one symbolic order and the beginning of a new order. During the invasion the United States confronts its own castration, which it then mimes through its intervention strategy of encirclement. This encounter with its castration and feminization in international politics leads the United States and Bush to reinscribe the symbolic order in terms that can accommodate the refigured United States. In this "New World Order" two quite different models of "civilization" or "meaning" are at work. For Panama the terms of the old international order are still meaningful. Although Noriega has been effectively castrated by the United States, Panama without Noriega appears in this order as simply "immature." It can reach maturity under the terms of the "old" world order when it receives possession of the Canal Zone at the turn of the century. The United States, in contrast, is mature but impotent. In its old age, it must go through a recivilizing process into a "New World Order" in which its international interactions will be expressed by the body of a man acting as a woman. The posthegemonic state is a postphallic state because it grafts female modalities of action onto a male subject.
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 cisnormativity as well as through queer logics of statecraft. Recently, Queer IR has gained unprecedented traction in IR, as IR scholars have come to recognize how Queer IR theory, methods, 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, intervention, security and securitization, torture, terrorism and counter-insurgency, militaries and militarism, human rights and LGBT activism, immigration, regional and international integration, global health, transphobia, homophobia, development and International Financial Institutions, financial crises, homocolonialism, settler colonialism and anti-Blackness, homocapitalism, political/cultural formations, norms diffusion, political protest, and time and temporalities
How are the aesthetics of fear politically mobilised and politically mobilising? This article dir... more How are the aesthetics of fear politically mobilised and politically mobilising? This article directs this question to a specific series of events beginning with the bombing of the London transportation system on 7/7, the near repeat performance of this event on 7/21, and the `Shoot to Kill to Protect' policy's first application which resulted in the killing of electrician Jean Charles de Menezes on 7/22. In particular, it addresses itself to one specific aestheticisation of fear, the images posted on the website Werenotafraid.com and the incessant circulation and discussion of these images since 7/7. The article a rgues that the asetheticisation of the London bombings through this specific website illustrates the often overlooked second movement in the Kantian sublime: the movement from rupture to a restoration of o rder and of closure. What interests me are the aesthetic strategies by which Werenotafraid.com effects a restoration of order and gives c losure to the breakdown of the British imagination, of not only national security but also unity. This article first traces the reliance of these aesthetic strategies on a Kantian morality. It then explains how these Kantian-inflected strategies repair the breakdown of the British imagination of security through a very specific `panhuman' restoration of British unity. Finally, it analyses the failures of the Werenotafraid.com project, politically and morally.
Part of a Special Commentary and Provocation Section on Denise Altman and Jonathan Symons' new bo... more Part of a Special Commentary and Provocation Section on Denise Altman and Jonathan Symons' new book Queer Wars. My piece considers the benefits and especially limitations of framing 'queer wars' as Altman and Symons do through the idea of 'international polarization'.
An application of a Queer IR analysis to the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of... more An application of a Queer IR analysis to the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the US.
My reflections on two of my Queer IR publications - my 1999 book Faking It and my 2016 book Queer... more My reflections on two of my Queer IR publications - my 1999 book Faking It and my 2016 book Queer International Relations - as the concluding piece of a symposium on 'Faking It in 21th Century IR/Global Politics', to be published in Millennium (45:1, in 2017 - edited by Laura Sjoberg, with contributions from Eric Selbin, Laura Sjoberg, Anthony Langlois, Rahul Rao, and Kevin Dunn).
Peter Thiel speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention in support of businessman Donald ... more Peter Thiel speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention in support of businessman Donald Trump recalls for me the arguments I made about Thiel, business, and 'good citizenship' in this short chapter. Looking at a variety of combinations of citizenship and values, it argues that we must be attentive to how citizenship and value - as ‘good citizenship’, ‘bad citizenship’, or indeed ‘non-citizenship’ - are constantly combined, defined and redefined as well as attached to and detached from individuals, institutions and political communities to complete sentences like this one – ‘Good citizenship is…’.
A [George Bush] administration official notes, "We must recognize...that Panama's ability to resp... more A [George Bush] administration official notes, "We must recognize...that Panama's ability to responsibly pursue its own interest -- and hence the long-term future of the canal -- cannot be assured in the context of political instability." He goes on to stress that democracy is "an essential element of political stability on the isthmus." The "firm" position of the Bush administration is that "securing the long-term future of democracy in Panama and of the canal" are two elements that are "indissolubly linked." "[Manuel Antonio Noriega]'s continuation in power is a threat....And...it will be the canal's users who ultimately must face the burden of bearing the costs."(45)Democracy is valued, then, for its stabilizing influence -- for its ability to calm formless feminine fluids so they may serve masculine purposes. Until a democratic environment could be established in Panama -- until the Endara government could be seated -- the United States had to retain administrative control of the canal. So long as Noriega governs Panama, he endangers the U.S. "broad national interest" of maintaining "a safe, efficient, and neutral Panama Canal."(46) "Broad" in this context may refer to both the scope of U.S. interests and to a vernacular expression of the feminine component of U.S. interests. In the Bush administration discourse, a distinction is drawn between preserving Panamanian sovereignty and removing Noriega from power. What this suggests is that the Bush administration does not want to become the only user of the canal. Rather, the "neutrality" of the canal must be ensured so that the United States and Panama can be among the canal's users. The achievement of this goal entails separating the disruptive masculine subject (Noriega) from his feminine object (the canal). By denying Noriega his feminine object, the United States effectively denies Noriega's masculine subjectivity. And as a head of state without a state, Noriega is no longer a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region. A joke by a senator at the Joint Congressional Hearings on Events in Panama explicitly links masculine subjectivity with the feminine object. When a man testifying before the committee announced, "I was confirmed in June," a senator added, "No pun intended."(48) Read as the proper name of a woman rather than as a month, "June" signifies the body in which masculine subjectivity is achieved. It is not so much the pun as it is the pun's structure that is of interest here. Notice that it is the U.S. senator who substitutes the unconscious impulse (confirmation of male subjectivity in a female body) for the corporal signifier (June read as a woman's body), thereby revealing the hysterical subtext of the hearings.(49) Two final implications of the invasion are suggested by this reading. If, as Freud and [Jacques Lacan] argue, it is through the castration complex that subjects enter the symbolic order and become "civilized," then the castration of the former hegemon marks the end of one symbolic order and the beginning of a new order. During the invasion the United States confronts its own castration, which it then mimes through its intervention strategy of encirclement. This encounter with its castration and feminization in international politics leads the United States and Bush to reinscribe the symbolic order in terms that can accommodate the refigured United States. In this "New World Order" two quite different models of "civilization" or "meaning" are at work. For Panama the terms of the old international order are still meaningful. Although Noriega has been effectively castrated by the United States, Panama without Noriega appears in this order as simply "immature." It can reach maturity under the terms of the "old" world order when it receives possession of the Canal Zone at the turn of the century. The United States, in contrast, is mature but impotent. In its old age, it must go through a recivilizing process into a "New World Order" in which its international interactions will be expressed by the body of a man acting as a woman. The posthegemonic state is a postphallic state because it grafts female modalities of action onto a male subject.
A short piece published on openDemocracy.net that draws on the arguments I make in my book Queer ... more A short piece published on openDemocracy.net that draws on the arguments I make in my book Queer International Relations to explore how western stories about development, im/migration, terrorism and sexuality figure the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen.
In Simulating Sovereignty Cynthia Weber presents a critical analysis of the concept of sovereignt... more In Simulating Sovereignty Cynthia Weber presents a critical analysis of the concept of sovereignty. Examining the justifications for intervention offered by the Concert of Europe, President Wilson's Administration, and the Reagan-Bush administrations, she combines critical international relations theory and foreign policy discourses about intervention to accomplish two important goals. First, rather than redefining state sovereignty, she radically deconstructs it by questioning the historical foundations of sovereign authority. Secondly, the book provides a critique of representation generally, and of the representation of the sovereign state in particular. This book is thus an original and important contribution to the understanding of sovereignty, the state and intervention in international relations theory.
Using Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 as its analytical point of departure, this essay explores how... more Using Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 as its analytical point of departure, this essay explores how Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 engages themes of censorship, political and pictorial trustworthiness, and crime and criminality to critique the Bush administration. What makes Moore’s film both fascinating and troubling, it argues, is that each of these themes can be critically turned back onto Moore and his film, making us wonder about the moralities of Moore’s personal brand of political resistance. The conclusion assesses the dangers of Moore’s strategy of domesticating the feminine as the moral foundation of his discourse of resistance, pondering the implications of this move for what is a central motif of Moore’s work: the relationship between justice and security.
Using Minority Report as its interpretive guide, this essay considers how the securitisation of t... more Using Minority Report as its interpretive guide, this essay considers how the securitisation of the unconscious is performed in primarily fiction (film) but also ‘fact’ (US foreign policy). The essay makes two general arguments. Implicitly, it argues that American moralities and what I call US moral grammars of war are not only formulated in traditional realms of politics but in geopolitical moral imaginaries in which US foreign policy intersects with popular (often filmic) imaginaries as well as with narratives about the family. Elaborating on this final point about the family, the essay explicitly argues that the feminine is the keystone of the US moral grammar of war in the war on terror because it is the foundational figure upon whom a specific articulation of a moral US ‘we’ is constructed. What this means is that as the US ‘we’ looks ahead to who a future moral American US ‘we’ might become (which is the theme of Minority Report and a theme in everyday post-11 September American life), it ought to begin by understanding how the feminine both secures and insecures the complex relationship between justice and security, particularly as it functions in relation to the present-day Bush administration’s policies of securitising the unconscious.
This essay identifies the Theory/Practice problematic as one of - if not the main - axis of conte... more This essay identifies the Theory/Practice problematic as one of - if not the main - axis of contemporary IR studies as it is used to determine the relative worth of differing IR approaches. It details how the debates on 'IR Theory in Practice: Entirely Academic?' trace the intellectual journey made by IR scholars through the Enlightenment (by Realism) and Romantic accounts (by Critical Theory) to the 'Enlightened Romantic' approach of social constructivism. The essay concludes that it is through this type of ritual return to the question of the relationship between Theory and Practice in international relations that IR as an academic discipline is normalised and legitimised, and in this way resists the potentially destabilising influences of the real 'dissident margins'.
Information about my new book published in the Oxford Studies on Gender and International Relatio... more Information about my new book published in the Oxford Studies on Gender and International Relations Series. Includes description, table of contents, reviews and link to the book on the Oxford University Press website.
Collections of reflections on Queer International Relations, with contributions by Cynthia Weber,... more Collections of reflections on Queer International Relations, with contributions by Cynthia Weber, Amy Lind, V. Spike Peterson, Laura Sjoberg, Lauren Wilcox, and Meghana Nayak
Article first published online: 3 SEP 2015
DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12212
This article outlines two ... more Article first published online: 3 SEP 2015
DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12212
This article outlines two theoretical and methodological approaches that take a queer intellectual curiosity about figurations of “homosexuality” and “the homosexual” as their core. These offer ways to conduct international relations research on “the homosexual” and on international relations figurations more broadly, e.g. from “the woman” to “the human rights holder.” The first approach provides a method for analyzing figurations of “the homosexual” and sexualized orders of international relations that are inscribed in IR as either normal or perverse. The second approach offers instructions on how to read plural figures and plural logics that signify as normal and/or perverse (and which might be described as queer). Together, they propose techniques, devices and research questions to investigate singular and plural IR figurations – including but not exclusively those of “the homosexual” – that map international phenomena as diverse as colonialism, human rights, and the formation of states and international communities in ways that exceed IR survey research techniques that, for example, incorporate “the homosexual” into IR research through a “sexuality variable.”
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Authors: Jolene Kong (Geneva Graduate Institute), Richard Burzynski (UNAIDS), Cynthia Weber (University of Sussex)
Over the past few years, digital technologies, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) have emerged as a significant force in the response to HIV. These tools will speed up clinical research and improve access and delivery of HIV services. However, these tools also present challenges to the people-centred approach that characterizes the HIV/AIDS response as the potential for human rights violations increase.
Through case studies and scenarios, this paper explores three forces that intersect on this issue: the role of stakeholders to reach the globally agreed upon final target of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths,the technological advances and their availability, the political narratives framing AI and its uptake, and how the HIV/AIDS response needs to evolve considering the above.
It concludes by highlighting three key considerations for the future of the HIV/AIDS response to limit human rights violations as new forms of fear, stigma and discrimination evolve in the digital era.
the contemporary US. Currently there is a frenzy around US citizenship – who has it but
shouldn’t have it, who should have it but doesn’t have it, who had it but renounced it.
The sheer volume of ideas, images, and events and their mass circulation makes it almost
impossible not to notice how unsettled and unsettling contemporary US citizenship
has become. If, as designer Bruce Mau suggests, the success of a design is its invisibility,
then it seems that the design of contemporary US citizenship is anything but a success.
Taking seriously the claim that modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, this article
focuses on howcitizenship is designed and redesigned through history. Its central research
question is: what are the design principles ofmodern liberal citizenship, and how are they
experienced in the contemporary US? Noting that modern liberal citizenship emerged
fromstate security debates and that security concerns preoccupy those in the contemporary
US, this article investigates not only how citizenship is designed but how safe citizenship
is designed. As such, it is less concerned with the legal definition of citizenship than with
the practical packaging of citizenship as part of a design for safe living.
cannot be assured in the context of political instability." He goes on to stress that democracy is "an essential element of political stability on the isthmus." The "firm" position of the
Bush administration is that "securing the long-term future of democracy in Panama and of the canal" are two elements that are "indissolubly linked." "[Manuel Antonio Noriega]'s
continuation in power is a threat....And...it will be the canal's users who ultimately must face the burden of bearing the costs."(45)Democracy is valued, then, for its stabilizing
influence -- for its ability to calm formless feminine fluids so they may serve masculine purposes. Until a democratic environment could be established in Panama -- until the Endara
government could be seated -- the United States had to retain administrative control of the canal. So long as Noriega governs Panama, he endangers the U.S. "broad national interest"
of maintaining "a safe, efficient, and neutral Panama Canal."(46) "Broad" in this context may refer to both the scope of U.S. interests and to a vernacular expression of the feminine
component of U.S. interests.
In the Bush administration discourse, a distinction is drawn between preserving Panamanian sovereignty and removing Noriega from power. What this suggests is that the Bush
administration does not want to become the only user of the canal. Rather, the "neutrality" of the canal must be ensured so that the United States and Panama can be among the
canal's users. The achievement of this goal entails separating the disruptive masculine subject (Noriega) from his feminine object (the canal). By denying Noriega his feminine object,
the United States effectively denies Noriega's masculine subjectivity. And as a head of state without a state, Noriega is no longer a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region. A joke by a
senator at the Joint Congressional Hearings on Events in Panama explicitly links masculine subjectivity with the feminine object. When a man testifying before the committee
announced, "I was confirmed in June," a senator added, "No pun intended."(48) Read as the proper name of a woman rather than as a month, "June" signifies the body in which
masculine subjectivity is achieved. It is not so much the pun as it is the pun's structure that is of interest here. Notice that it is the U.S. senator who substitutes the unconscious
impulse (confirmation of male subjectivity in a female body) for the corporal signifier (June read as a woman's body), thereby revealing the hysterical subtext of the hearings.(49)
Two final implications of the invasion are suggested by this reading. If, as Freud and [Jacques Lacan] argue, it is through the castration complex that subjects enter the symbolic order
and become "civilized," then the castration of the former hegemon marks the end of one symbolic order and the beginning of a new order. During the invasion the United States
confronts its own castration, which it then mimes through its intervention strategy of encirclement. This encounter with its castration and feminization in international politics leads the
United States and Bush to reinscribe the symbolic order in terms that can accommodate the refigured United States. In this "New World Order" two quite different models of
"civilization" or "meaning" are at work. For Panama the terms of the old international order are still meaningful. Although Noriega has been effectively castrated by the United States,
Panama without Noriega appears in this order as simply "immature." It can reach maturity under the terms of the "old" world order when it receives possession of the Canal Zone at
the turn of the century. The United States, in contrast, is mature but impotent. In its old age, it must go through a recivilizing process into a "New World Order" in which its
international interactions will be expressed by the body of a man acting as a woman. The posthegemonic state is a postphallic state because it grafts female modalities of action onto a
male subject.
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 cisnormativity as well as through queer logics of statecraft. Recently, Queer IR has gained unprecedented traction in IR, as IR scholars have come to recognize how Queer IR theory, methods, 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, intervention, security and securitization, torture, terrorism and counter-insurgency, militaries and militarism, human rights and LGBT activism, immigration, regional and international integration, global health, transphobia, homophobia, development and International Financial Institutions, financial crises, homocolonialism, settler colonialism and anti-Blackness, homocapitalism, political/cultural formations, norms diffusion, political protest, and time and temporalities
cannot be assured in the context of political instability." He goes on to stress that democracy is "an essential element of political stability on the isthmus." The "firm" position of the
Bush administration is that "securing the long-term future of democracy in Panama and of the canal" are two elements that are "indissolubly linked." "[Manuel Antonio Noriega]'s
continuation in power is a threat....And...it will be the canal's users who ultimately must face the burden of bearing the costs."(45)Democracy is valued, then, for its stabilizing
influence -- for its ability to calm formless feminine fluids so they may serve masculine purposes. Until a democratic environment could be established in Panama -- until the Endara
government could be seated -- the United States had to retain administrative control of the canal. So long as Noriega governs Panama, he endangers the U.S. "broad national interest"
of maintaining "a safe, efficient, and neutral Panama Canal."(46) "Broad" in this context may refer to both the scope of U.S. interests and to a vernacular expression of the feminine
component of U.S. interests.
In the Bush administration discourse, a distinction is drawn between preserving Panamanian sovereignty and removing Noriega from power. What this suggests is that the Bush
administration does not want to become the only user of the canal. Rather, the "neutrality" of the canal must be ensured so that the United States and Panama can be among the
canal's users. The achievement of this goal entails separating the disruptive masculine subject (Noriega) from his feminine object (the canal). By denying Noriega his feminine object,
the United States effectively denies Noriega's masculine subjectivity. And as a head of state without a state, Noriega is no longer a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region. A joke by a
senator at the Joint Congressional Hearings on Events in Panama explicitly links masculine subjectivity with the feminine object. When a man testifying before the committee
announced, "I was confirmed in June," a senator added, "No pun intended."(48) Read as the proper name of a woman rather than as a month, "June" signifies the body in which
masculine subjectivity is achieved. It is not so much the pun as it is the pun's structure that is of interest here. Notice that it is the U.S. senator who substitutes the unconscious
impulse (confirmation of male subjectivity in a female body) for the corporal signifier (June read as a woman's body), thereby revealing the hysterical subtext of the hearings.(49)
Two final implications of the invasion are suggested by this reading. If, as Freud and [Jacques Lacan] argue, it is through the castration complex that subjects enter the symbolic order
and become "civilized," then the castration of the former hegemon marks the end of one symbolic order and the beginning of a new order. During the invasion the United States
confronts its own castration, which it then mimes through its intervention strategy of encirclement. This encounter with its castration and feminization in international politics leads the
United States and Bush to reinscribe the symbolic order in terms that can accommodate the refigured United States. In this "New World Order" two quite different models of
"civilization" or "meaning" are at work. For Panama the terms of the old international order are still meaningful. Although Noriega has been effectively castrated by the United States,
Panama without Noriega appears in this order as simply "immature." It can reach maturity under the terms of the "old" world order when it receives possession of the Canal Zone at
the turn of the century. The United States, in contrast, is mature but impotent. In its old age, it must go through a recivilizing process into a "New World Order" in which its
international interactions will be expressed by the body of a man acting as a woman. The posthegemonic state is a postphallic state because it grafts female modalities of action onto a
male subject.
DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12212
This article outlines two theoretical and methodological approaches that take a queer intellectual curiosity about figurations of “homosexuality” and “the homosexual” as their core. These offer ways to conduct international relations research on “the homosexual” and on international relations figurations more broadly, e.g. from “the woman” to “the human rights holder.” The first approach provides a method for analyzing figurations of “the homosexual” and sexualized orders of international relations that are inscribed in IR as either normal or perverse. The second approach offers instructions on how to read plural figures and plural logics that signify as normal and/or perverse (and which might be described as queer). Together, they propose techniques, devices and research questions to investigate singular and plural IR figurations – including but not exclusively those of “the homosexual” – that map international phenomena as diverse as colonialism, human rights, and the formation of states and international communities in ways that exceed IR survey research techniques that, for example, incorporate “the homosexual” into IR research through a “sexuality variable.”
Authors: Jolene Kong (Geneva Graduate Institute), Richard Burzynski (UNAIDS), Cynthia Weber (University of Sussex)
Over the past few years, digital technologies, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) have emerged as a significant force in the response to HIV. These tools will speed up clinical research and improve access and delivery of HIV services. However, these tools also present challenges to the people-centred approach that characterizes the HIV/AIDS response as the potential for human rights violations increase.
Through case studies and scenarios, this paper explores three forces that intersect on this issue: the role of stakeholders to reach the globally agreed upon final target of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths,the technological advances and their availability, the political narratives framing AI and its uptake, and how the HIV/AIDS response needs to evolve considering the above.
It concludes by highlighting three key considerations for the future of the HIV/AIDS response to limit human rights violations as new forms of fear, stigma and discrimination evolve in the digital era.
the contemporary US. Currently there is a frenzy around US citizenship – who has it but
shouldn’t have it, who should have it but doesn’t have it, who had it but renounced it.
The sheer volume of ideas, images, and events and their mass circulation makes it almost
impossible not to notice how unsettled and unsettling contemporary US citizenship
has become. If, as designer Bruce Mau suggests, the success of a design is its invisibility,
then it seems that the design of contemporary US citizenship is anything but a success.
Taking seriously the claim that modern liberal citizenship is a failing design, this article
focuses on howcitizenship is designed and redesigned through history. Its central research
question is: what are the design principles ofmodern liberal citizenship, and how are they
experienced in the contemporary US? Noting that modern liberal citizenship emerged
fromstate security debates and that security concerns preoccupy those in the contemporary
US, this article investigates not only how citizenship is designed but how safe citizenship
is designed. As such, it is less concerned with the legal definition of citizenship than with
the practical packaging of citizenship as part of a design for safe living.
cannot be assured in the context of political instability." He goes on to stress that democracy is "an essential element of political stability on the isthmus." The "firm" position of the
Bush administration is that "securing the long-term future of democracy in Panama and of the canal" are two elements that are "indissolubly linked." "[Manuel Antonio Noriega]'s
continuation in power is a threat....And...it will be the canal's users who ultimately must face the burden of bearing the costs."(45)Democracy is valued, then, for its stabilizing
influence -- for its ability to calm formless feminine fluids so they may serve masculine purposes. Until a democratic environment could be established in Panama -- until the Endara
government could be seated -- the United States had to retain administrative control of the canal. So long as Noriega governs Panama, he endangers the U.S. "broad national interest"
of maintaining "a safe, efficient, and neutral Panama Canal."(46) "Broad" in this context may refer to both the scope of U.S. interests and to a vernacular expression of the feminine
component of U.S. interests.
In the Bush administration discourse, a distinction is drawn between preserving Panamanian sovereignty and removing Noriega from power. What this suggests is that the Bush
administration does not want to become the only user of the canal. Rather, the "neutrality" of the canal must be ensured so that the United States and Panama can be among the
canal's users. The achievement of this goal entails separating the disruptive masculine subject (Noriega) from his feminine object (the canal). By denying Noriega his feminine object,
the United States effectively denies Noriega's masculine subjectivity. And as a head of state without a state, Noriega is no longer a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region. A joke by a
senator at the Joint Congressional Hearings on Events in Panama explicitly links masculine subjectivity with the feminine object. When a man testifying before the committee
announced, "I was confirmed in June," a senator added, "No pun intended."(48) Read as the proper name of a woman rather than as a month, "June" signifies the body in which
masculine subjectivity is achieved. It is not so much the pun as it is the pun's structure that is of interest here. Notice that it is the U.S. senator who substitutes the unconscious
impulse (confirmation of male subjectivity in a female body) for the corporal signifier (June read as a woman's body), thereby revealing the hysterical subtext of the hearings.(49)
Two final implications of the invasion are suggested by this reading. If, as Freud and [Jacques Lacan] argue, it is through the castration complex that subjects enter the symbolic order
and become "civilized," then the castration of the former hegemon marks the end of one symbolic order and the beginning of a new order. During the invasion the United States
confronts its own castration, which it then mimes through its intervention strategy of encirclement. This encounter with its castration and feminization in international politics leads the
United States and Bush to reinscribe the symbolic order in terms that can accommodate the refigured United States. In this "New World Order" two quite different models of
"civilization" or "meaning" are at work. For Panama the terms of the old international order are still meaningful. Although Noriega has been effectively castrated by the United States,
Panama without Noriega appears in this order as simply "immature." It can reach maturity under the terms of the "old" world order when it receives possession of the Canal Zone at
the turn of the century. The United States, in contrast, is mature but impotent. In its old age, it must go through a recivilizing process into a "New World Order" in which its
international interactions will be expressed by the body of a man acting as a woman. The posthegemonic state is a postphallic state because it grafts female modalities of action onto a
male subject.
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 cisnormativity as well as through queer logics of statecraft. Recently, Queer IR has gained unprecedented traction in IR, as IR scholars have come to recognize how Queer IR theory, methods, 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, intervention, security and securitization, torture, terrorism and counter-insurgency, militaries and militarism, human rights and LGBT activism, immigration, regional and international integration, global health, transphobia, homophobia, development and International Financial Institutions, financial crises, homocolonialism, settler colonialism and anti-Blackness, homocapitalism, political/cultural formations, norms diffusion, political protest, and time and temporalities
cannot be assured in the context of political instability." He goes on to stress that democracy is "an essential element of political stability on the isthmus." The "firm" position of the
Bush administration is that "securing the long-term future of democracy in Panama and of the canal" are two elements that are "indissolubly linked." "[Manuel Antonio Noriega]'s
continuation in power is a threat....And...it will be the canal's users who ultimately must face the burden of bearing the costs."(45)Democracy is valued, then, for its stabilizing
influence -- for its ability to calm formless feminine fluids so they may serve masculine purposes. Until a democratic environment could be established in Panama -- until the Endara
government could be seated -- the United States had to retain administrative control of the canal. So long as Noriega governs Panama, he endangers the U.S. "broad national interest"
of maintaining "a safe, efficient, and neutral Panama Canal."(46) "Broad" in this context may refer to both the scope of U.S. interests and to a vernacular expression of the feminine
component of U.S. interests.
In the Bush administration discourse, a distinction is drawn between preserving Panamanian sovereignty and removing Noriega from power. What this suggests is that the Bush
administration does not want to become the only user of the canal. Rather, the "neutrality" of the canal must be ensured so that the United States and Panama can be among the
canal's users. The achievement of this goal entails separating the disruptive masculine subject (Noriega) from his feminine object (the canal). By denying Noriega his feminine object,
the United States effectively denies Noriega's masculine subjectivity. And as a head of state without a state, Noriega is no longer a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region. A joke by a
senator at the Joint Congressional Hearings on Events in Panama explicitly links masculine subjectivity with the feminine object. When a man testifying before the committee
announced, "I was confirmed in June," a senator added, "No pun intended."(48) Read as the proper name of a woman rather than as a month, "June" signifies the body in which
masculine subjectivity is achieved. It is not so much the pun as it is the pun's structure that is of interest here. Notice that it is the U.S. senator who substitutes the unconscious
impulse (confirmation of male subjectivity in a female body) for the corporal signifier (June read as a woman's body), thereby revealing the hysterical subtext of the hearings.(49)
Two final implications of the invasion are suggested by this reading. If, as Freud and [Jacques Lacan] argue, it is through the castration complex that subjects enter the symbolic order
and become "civilized," then the castration of the former hegemon marks the end of one symbolic order and the beginning of a new order. During the invasion the United States
confronts its own castration, which it then mimes through its intervention strategy of encirclement. This encounter with its castration and feminization in international politics leads the
United States and Bush to reinscribe the symbolic order in terms that can accommodate the refigured United States. In this "New World Order" two quite different models of
"civilization" or "meaning" are at work. For Panama the terms of the old international order are still meaningful. Although Noriega has been effectively castrated by the United States,
Panama without Noriega appears in this order as simply "immature." It can reach maturity under the terms of the "old" world order when it receives possession of the Canal Zone at
the turn of the century. The United States, in contrast, is mature but impotent. In its old age, it must go through a recivilizing process into a "New World Order" in which its
international interactions will be expressed by the body of a man acting as a woman. The posthegemonic state is a postphallic state because it grafts female modalities of action onto a
male subject.
DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12212
This article outlines two theoretical and methodological approaches that take a queer intellectual curiosity about figurations of “homosexuality” and “the homosexual” as their core. These offer ways to conduct international relations research on “the homosexual” and on international relations figurations more broadly, e.g. from “the woman” to “the human rights holder.” The first approach provides a method for analyzing figurations of “the homosexual” and sexualized orders of international relations that are inscribed in IR as either normal or perverse. The second approach offers instructions on how to read plural figures and plural logics that signify as normal and/or perverse (and which might be described as queer). Together, they propose techniques, devices and research questions to investigate singular and plural IR figurations – including but not exclusively those of “the homosexual” – that map international phenomena as diverse as colonialism, human rights, and the formation of states and international communities in ways that exceed IR survey research techniques that, for example, incorporate “the homosexual” into IR research through a “sexuality variable.”