Masculinities, IR and the 'Gender Variable': A Cost-Benefit Analysis for (Sympathetic) Gender

Sceptics
Author(s): Charlotte Hooper
Source: Review of International Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1999), pp. 475-491
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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 Review of International Studies (1999), 25, 475-491 Copyright ? British International Studies Association

Masculinities, IR and the 'gender variable5:

a cost-benefit analysis for (sympathetic) gender
sceptics
CHARLOTTE HOOPER1

Abstract. While it is commonplace to argue that international relations reflects a 'masculinist'

world of men, this article reverses the argument and asks whether international relations

might also discipline men and help produce masculinities. In thinking through this question,
the article provides an alternative route to understanding the feminist argument that the

'gender variable' cannot simply be added to mainstream analysis. By drawing attention to the

epistemological and methodological problems which would arise even with empirically
oriented research on the subject, the limitations of mainstream approaches to this hitherto
largely neglected area of research are highlighted, and alternatives suggested.

Introduction

One point feminist contributors to IR have made on numerous occasions, and which
even sympathetic mainstream academics seem particularly resistant to, is the idea
that gender cannot just be grafted onto existing explanatory approaches which are
profoundly 'masculinist'. An adequate analysis of gender requires more radical
changes, including an ontological and epistemological revolution.2 In arguing this,
feminists have tried to counter the naive approach to gender which argues along the
following lines: if international relations marginalises both women and the feminine,
then why can't women and the feminine be brought in to mainstream approaches in
the same way that other previously neglected variables have been incorporated?3 For
that matter, in the interests of 'balance', why can't a gender focused analysis of men
and masculinity also be incorporated into mainstream approaches?4 This article
would like to argue that while in some limited way, it might be possible to add the

1
The author would like to thank the Economic and Social Science research Council for financial help
during the research for this article, and also members of the International Politics Research Group at
the University of Bristol for their helpful comments.
2
For example: Rebecca Grant, of Gender
'The Sources Bias in International Relations Theory', in
Rebecca Grant and Kathleen (eds.), Gender and International
Newland Relations (Milton Keynes:
Open University Press, 1991), pp. 8-26; J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations (Oxford,
1992); V. Spike Peterson, 'Introduction', in V. Spike Peterson (ed.) Gendered States: Feminist
(Re) Visions of International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 1-64;
Christine Sylvester, Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994).
3
See RobertO. Keohane, 'International Relations Theory: Contributions of a Feminist Standpoint',
Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 18:2 (1989) pp. 245-50; on incorporating feminine
qualities into IR, and the critical reply by Cynthia Weber, 'Good Girls, Little Girls and Bad Girls:
Male Paranoia in Robert Keohane's Critique of Feminist International Relations', Millennium, 23:1
(1994), pp. 377-^9.
4
See Adam Jones, 'Does Gender Make the World go Round? Feminist Critiques of International
Relations', in Review of International Studies, 22:4 (1996), pp. 405-30.

475
476 Charlotte Hooper

'gender variable' to the long list of variables which are variously deemed to inform
the practices of international relations, to do so would be to exclude analysis of the
most salient ingredients of the relationship between gender and international
relations. Such ingredients should be of interest to mainstream IR scholars because
they are bound up with power politics?albeit power politics of a different sort from
the ones usually focused on in the discipline.
While, as indicated above, this is hardly a novel argument in feminist circles, it has
not been readily understood or accepted by others, beyond a few post-positivist sym
pathisers. Mainstream critics of feminist approaches, who might consider themselves
open to persuasion with regard to the 'gender variable', have been baffled by both
the language and concerns of feminists, and have accused them?particularly post
structuralist feminists?of failing to produce a relevant research agenda.5 Feminist
discussions of the epistemological limitations and inherent masculinism of main
stream IR have on the whole started from the premise that international relations
reflects men and 'masculinity' and excludes women and 'femininity'. Their sub
sequent explanations that one cannot merely add women and the feminine because
gender constructions are relationally defined, that they are linked to a whole series of
gendered dichotomies in which masculine traits are valued and feminine ones
devalued (forming a residual 'other'); and that scientific methodologies reflect valued
masculine traits rather than devalued feminine ones, appear to fall on deaf, or at
least sceptical ears.
But the argument
that mainstream approaches are ontologically and epistemo
logically inadequate to deal with gender can also be approached from a different
angle, one which would perhaps provide another opportunity for sceptics to
reconsider their dismissal of the relevance of feminist claims, and to think through
the possible range of consequences of acknowledging gender in their work. Rather
than focusing on what is excluded from the discipline as conventionally defined, one
can focus on what is included: that is the activities of men in the international arena.
While it is commonplace to argue that international relations reflects a world of men
and masculinity, it is also worth examining the possibility of a current of influence
running in the other direction. One could ask whether international relations plays
any role in the shaping, defining and legitimating of such masculinity or mascu
linities? Might causality, or at least the interplay of complex influences, run in both
directions, in mutually reinforcing patterns? Might international relations discipline
men as much as men shape international relations?6
In order to investigate the intersections between gender identities and inter
national relations, one cannot rely on approaches which would take gender identities

5
Keohane, 'International Relations Theory'; J. Ann Tickner 'You Just Don't Understand: Troubled
Engagements Between Feminists and IR Theorists', unpublished paper given at the School of
International Relations, University of Southern California, August 1996.
6
This question has occasionally been asked by feminists before, most often specifically in relation to
soldiering and war.
See for example Barbara Ehrenreich 'Foreword', in Klaus Theweleit, Male
Fantasies, vol.
1. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. ix-xvii; Cynthia Enloe, The
Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1993); and Joanna Bourke, Dismembering theMale: Men's Bodies, Britain and the Great War
(London, 1996). In more general terms the question remains relatively neglected, although itwas
raised recently by Marysia Zalewski and Cynthia Enloe in 'Questions about Identity in International
Relations' in Ken Booth and Steve Smith (eds.), International Relations Theory Today (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1995).
 Masculinities, IR and the 'gender variable' All

as 'givens', or as independent, externally derived variables.7 Instead one would need

to move towards those which could examine the (international) politics of identity
construction. As this article will argue, such a move, even if it is primarily concerned
with the generation of an empirical research agenda with regard to the production
of masculine identities through practices which form the so-called 'core' of the
discipline (such as war, foreign policy, and the globalisation of the world economy)
will almost certainly reveal some of the ontological, methodological, and ultimately,
the epistemological limitations of mainstream approaches. This is because such
approaches attempt to restrict the relevant field to the 'public' if not the 'inter
national' levels of analysis, and also treat theory as entirely separate from the subject
matter being investigated?whether the purpose of such theory is scientific
'explanation' or more historically oriented 'interpretation'.8

International Relations and the production of masculinities

In asking whether international relations might influence masculinity or masculini

ties, there is an assumption that masculinity is not a fixed, biologically based set of
personality characteristics, but is in some way malleable to social influences. While
lack of space precludes a long discussion on the construction of gender identities, it
is worth briefly noting that historical and anthropological research suggests that
there is no single 'masculinity' or 'femininity' and that both are subject to numerous
and fairly fast-changing historical and cultural variations.9 For example, dominant
forms of Anglo-Saxon masculinity have drawn on an eclectic mix of competing and
partially overlapping and historical archetypes. The main ones include, firstly, a
Greek citizen/warrior model which combined militarism with rationalism and
equated manliness with citizenship in a masculine arena of free speech and politics.
This was joined by a patriarchal Judaeo/Christian model with a domesticated ideal
of manly responsibility, ownership and the authority of the father of fathers. Later
came an aristocratic honour/patronage model in which personal bonds between
men, military heroism and taking risks were highly valued, with the duel as the
ultimate test of masculinity. Finally, there developed a Protestant bourgeois
rationalist model which idealised competitive individualism, reason and self
control?and combined respectability as breadwinner and head of household with

7
External to the relevant practices of international relations, that is. Of course as Kenneth Waltz
argues, not everything that varies is a variable?nor are any variables truly independent of the
theoretical perspectives in which they are embedded. See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International
Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), ch. 1.
8
Terms as used by Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, in Explaining and Understanding International
Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
9
See for example Peter N. Steams, Be aMan: Males inModern Society (London: Holmes and Meier,
1979); J. A. Mangan and James Walvin (eds.), Manliness and Morality: Middle Class Masculinity in
Britain and America 1800-1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987); Michael Roper and
John Tosh (eds.), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (London: Routledge, 1991);
R. W Connell, 'The Big Picture: Masculinities in Recent World History', Theory and Society, 22
(1993), pp. 579-623; Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne (eds.), Dislocating Masculinity:
Comparative Ethnographies (London: Routledge, 1994); Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman (eds.),
Theorizing Masculinities (London: Sage, 1994).
478 Charlotte Hooper

calculative rationality in public life.10 Elements from and combinations of all these
models are still in cultural circulation today.
Gender also intersects with other social divisions such as class, race and sexuality
to produce complex hierarchies of (gendered) identities in which the relevant
ingredients of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' may vary considerably. For example,
while 'rationality' has historically been associated with masculinity in European
modernity, in racist hierarchies black men have been deemed incapable of this trait.
Meanwhile the physical frailness of Victorian femininity was also apparently
confined to white women.11
What, one might ask, has any of this to do with international relations? Firstly, if
there is no single 'masculinity' attributable to all men, but rather a range of
historically and culturally specific masculinities, than perhaps it might be worth
examining whether specific gender identities embodied by groups of actors produce
patterns of predictable behaviour. If so, such patterns might act as explanatory
variables which
could be incorporated into strategic analysis in much the same way
as other 'cultural' or 'ethnic' variables.12 Particular processes of gender identi
local
fication may inform other, more conventionally defined political and military
struggles identified in IR literature. For example, US foreign policies in the latter
part of the Vietnam War and its aftermath?up to and including the Gulf War, may
have been inflected by a desire to rescue and bolster American manhood after its
humiliation at the hands of the Vietcong (sometimes characterised as a bunch of
women and children) as much as by rational foreign policy interests.13 However, the
picture generated by an analysis of gender motivations would not be very illumi
nating, if it ignored the effects on gender identity produced through the practices of
international relations. The model of gender identification put forward here does not
confine its interest to developmental matters but rather implicates all areas and levels
of social and political life in the production and maintenance of gender identities.
International relations would be no exception. Indeed, as international relations,
conventionally defined, ismade up largely of the activities of men, then itmay be an
area of life that is particularly significant for the production and maintenance of
masculinities. It is likely that political events and masculine identities are both
simultaneous products of men's participation in the practices of international
relations.

Considering the three dimensions of gender identity discussed above, all the
possible links between men and the practices of international relations are illustrated
by the arrows in Figure 1.
The two way arrows indicate that not only do men make international relations
but that international relations may discipline men and help produce and maintain

10
Sources: Steams, Be aMan; Jean Bethke Elshtain, Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and
PoliticalThought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981); Joan Cocks, The Oppositional
Imagination: Feminism, Critique and Political Theory (London: Routledge, 1989); David H. JMorgan,
Discovering Men (London: Routledge, 1992); Connell, 'The Big Picture'; Victor J. Seidler, 'Fathering,
Authority and Masculinity', in Rowena Chapman and Johnathan Rutherford (eds.), Male Order:
Unwrapping Masculinity (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988), pp. 272-302. As both Seidler and
Morgan argue, Weber's seminal work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism can be
fruitfully read as a discussion of modern bourgeois masculinity.
11
Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (London: Virago, 1990).
12
See Ole Waever, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup and Pierre Lemaitre, Identity Migration and the New
Security Agenda in Europe (London: Pinter, 1993), for a recent example.
13
Zalewski and Enloe, 'Questions about Identity'.
 Masculinities, IR and the (gender variable' 479

Embodiment

Institutional
Men Practices International Relations

i
Symbolic
Dimension

Figure 1. The relationship between men and international relations.

masculine identities through the same channels in reverse. The separation of

elements in this diagram is illustrative only. Of course there are complex relation
ships between the dimensions of embodiment, institutional practices and symbolic
meanings?which are often all present in the same 'event'. Nevertheless for
explanatory purposes the connections are separated here. To illustrate this diagram
and explain these connections there follows a fairly arbitrary selection of examples
drawn from existing research. Some illustrate the links through all three dimensions,
while others operate most clearly through one or two dimensions. All have been
chosen to highlight the influence of international relations on masculinities rather
than vice versa, as this is the direction of influence under consideration.
Military combat in the pursuit of wars is a clear example of how international
relations helps to shape men. War has been deemed central to the discipline itself,
and has historically played a large part in defining what itmeans to be a man in the
modern era, symbolically, institutionally and through the shaping of men's bodies.
Firstly, the symbolic dimension: the argument that men take life while women give it
is a cornerstone of one powerful ideology of gender differences. This ideology has
been central to modern warfare and underpins the masculinity of soldiering and the
historic exclusion of women from combat. In symbolic terms, engaging in war is
often deemed to be the clearest expression of men's enduring natural 'aggression', as
well as their manly urge to serve their country and 'protect' their female kin, with
the one implying the other.14 The popular myth is that military service is the fullest
expression of masculinity, and in 1976 there were about 20 million men under arms
in about 130 standing armies world-wide.15

14
J. Ann Tickner, 'Identity in International
Relations Theory: Feminist Perspectives', in Yosef Lapid
and Friedrich Kratochwil (eds.), The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner, 1996), pp. 147-62.
15
Bob Connell, 'Masculinity, Violence and War' inMichael S. Kimmel and Michael A. Messner (eds.),
Men's Lives (New York: Macmillan, 1989), p. 194. This figure allows for an estimated 2 million
women in total armies of 22 million.
480 Charlotte Hooper

However, as Barbara Ehrenreich argues, 'it is not only men that make wars, it is
wars that make men'16?literally and physically. Military service has served as a rite
of passage for boys to be made men throughout much of the modern era, while at
the level of embodiment, military training explicitly involves the physical and social
shaping of the male body. Indeed it can be argued that 'war and the military
represent one of the major sites where direct links between hegemonic masculinities
and men's bodies are forged'.17 Joanna Bourke has examined the relationship
between masculinities and embodiment in Britain in the First World War, when
soldiering became intimately bound up with notions of masculinity.18 Soldiering
disciplined the male body, helping to shape its style of masculinity as well as its
physical contours. This shaping was inflected by class. As one middle-class soldier,
Ralph Scott, graphically noted in his diary:
I looked at my great murderous maulers and wondered idly how they had evolved from the
sensitive manicured fingers that used to pen theses on 'Colloidal Fuel' and The Theory of
Heat Distribution in Cylinder Walls.' And I found the comparison good.19

If middle class men found themselves transformed

from bourgeois rationalists to
warrior-citizens, then for the working classes, the emphasis was much more on basic
fitness. At the beginning of the war British authorities had been horrified at the
quality of their raw material, as British manhood was by and large malnourished,
disease ridden, stunted in their growth and poorly educated. Such men had to be
'converted' into soldiers, both physically and mentally. The increased surveillance
and regulation of male bodies which this entailed was sustained through the inter
war years, when regular exercise through military type drills was widely adopted in
schools and other institutions. Military drill therefore constituted an institutional
practice which had been established through war and which had a widespread effect
on men's bodies. Drill was also deemed to make men economically efficient, to
promote emotional self control, and even to enhance brain development.20
Men who did not fight were looked down on, while the 'real' men who fought
carried a high risk of death or physical disablement. The return of thousands of
youthful war-mutilated servicemen, who were hailed as masculine heroes, changed
the medical and technological approach to disablement for good, and even modified
public attitudes for a while. Initially, although the most disfigured were kept out of
sight, the lightly maimed soldier was regarded as 'not less but more of a man'.21
These were 'active' rather than 'passive' sufferers, who deserved respect, not pity, and
who were even deemed especially attractive to women.22 To be physically maimed
was far more manly than to be a 'malingerer' or shell shock victim. The dead were
also heroes. In the long term however, sympathy changed to disgust at the carnage
involved, and disabled ex-servicemen who could not fulfil a role as breadwinners
became increasingly marginalised and feminised.

16
Ehrenreich, 'Introduction' inMale Fantasies, p. xvi (see fh.6 above).
17
David H. JMorgan, 'Theatre of War: Combat, the Military and Masculinities', in Brod and
Kaufman, Theorizing Masculinities, p. 168.
18
Bourke, Dismembering theMale (see fn.6 above).
19
Quoted in ibid., pp. 15-16.
20
Ibid., pp. 178-80.
21
Ibid., p. 58.
22
Ibid., p. 56.
 Masculinities, IR and the 'gender variable' 481

Although Bourke finds evidence to suggest that the majority of soldiers inWorld
War I retained a longing for a quiet domestic life, at the extreme the relationship
between masculinity, male bodies and war can be brutal and misogynistic. Klaus
Theweleit investigated the literary fantasies of the Freikorps.23 This was a volunteer
army, derived in part from World War I 'shock troops', who helped to put down the
attempted socialist revolution in Germany following World War I, and who later
became the core of Hitler's SA. These troops lived for battle and had a reputation
for enjoying violence. In their novels and memoirs communists and the rebellious
working class were represented as a feminised 'flood' or 'tide' threatening to break
down both masculine integrity and established social barriers. Meanwhile their own
male bodies were constructed as dry, clean, hard, erect and intact, but always
threatened by contamination from feminine dirt, slime and mire. Physical violence
was integral to the construction of the masculine self?without it the Freikorps
could not sustain their bodily integrity in the face of desire, pain, and internal
viscera?the feminine 'other' forever lurking within.24 While the image of male
bodies going into battle as clean and hard, and the f?minisation of awkward
adversaries (as indicated by terms such as 'quagmire' applied both to Vietnam and
Bosnia) are relatively commonplace in popular culture, it has to be said that the
experience of the majority of conscripts was far more prosaic and that the
homoerotically tinged extreme misogyny of the Freicorps has been untypical in
practice.

Continuing with the military example, militarisation as an institutional process

has followed differentpaths under different international circumstances. Cynthia
Enloe has discussed the varied relationships between women, degrees and types of
militarization, constructions of masculinity and international practices in different
locations and at different times.25 That the links between masculinity and militarism
are contingent and are produced through institutional practices is highlighted in her
account. For example, under British colonial rule, the construction of imperial
armies was no mean feat, as colonized groups of men often took some persuading
that soldiering was in any way a manly pursuit. Where coercion alone would not
secure sufficient loyalty and competence, complex bargains over conditions of
service had to be struck, depending on differing local requirements of manly respect
ability.26 Recruitment policies have also helped to define hegemonic and subordinate
masculinities. In many countries, while for the majority of men conscription has
been the price of adult citizenship, ethnically or religiously subordinate groups of
men, along with homosexuals, have been barred from active military service or given
restricted roles.27 Such restrictions, justified by nationalist security ideologies, have
helped to construct the subordinate status of these groups more generally, through
the implicit and explicit links between military service and citizenship. Full citizen
ship rights are often denied to men who do not participate in defending the state, in
much the same way as they have been for women.28

23
Theweleit, Male Fantasies (see fn. 6 above).
24
Ibid., pp. 385-^38.
25
Enloe, The Morning After (see fn. 6 above).
26
Ibid., p. 79.
27
Cynthia Enloe, Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in a Divided Society (Harmondsworth, Middlesex:
Penguin, 1980).
28
A contemporary example that springs to mind is of Arab citizens of Israel, and of Palestinians in
many other Arab countries.
482 Charlotte Hooper

Within the military itself, institutional practices also help to shape different
masculinities and masculine identities. Bob Connell argues that the basis of military
organisation was historically a relationship between two masculinities?one based
on physical violence but subordinate to orders, and another dominating and
organisationally competent (in Britain this relationship between 'officers' and 'ranks'
has reflected and helped consolidate the class system). In the last century a third
masculinity?that of the technical specialist, has become increasingly important,
necessitating a 'general staff' of planners, strategists, and latterly technicians,
separate from the command of combat units.29
Moving on from the military example, the symbolic and institutional practices of
European colonialism have also helped to consolidate hegemonic and subordinate
masculinities on a global scale. A global, racialised hierarchy of masculinities was
created as part of the institutionalisation of a complex set of race and gender
identities sustaining European imperialism, and which still have a cultural legacy
today. At the symbolic level, British and French imperialists imagined the 'Orient' as
an exotic, sensual, and feminised world, a kind of half way stage between 'Europe's
enlightenment' and African savagery'. While 'Oriental' men were positioned as
effeminate (and 'Oriental' women as exotic), black Africans of both sexes were
deemed uncivilized and, in a projection of European sexual fantasies, were seen as
saturated with lust. In Britain, sex was seen as both natural (uncivilised) and a threat
to the moral order. White women were regarded as 'pure' symbols of this moral
order who were always in danger of being raped by black males, if they were not
protected. The 'English gentleman' positioned himself at the top of this hierarchy, as
a self-disciplined, naturally legitimate ruler and protector of morals. He regarded his
sexuality as overlaid and tempered by civilization. He became the embodiment of
imperial power, seeming to rule effortlessly, and justifying his colonial mission as a
civilizing one. As a type then, the Victorian English Gentleman was at least as much
a product of imperial politics, as of domestic understandings of Englishness,
aristocracy and masculinity. This point is worth emphasising because it is a clear
example of how a distinct and apparently domestic masculine type (the English
Gentleman) was in fact formed through the international politics of colonialism. In
the USA a similar sexualisation of race took place under slavery, where the con
struction of white women as chaste, domesticated and morally pure was accom
plished through the positioning of black slave women as promiscuous, black men as
brutes and potential rapists, and white men as protectors. Chinese immigrants
occupied the halfway house of indentured labour. They were seen as effeminate
because they often did so-called 'women's work' in laundries and kitchens. However
they were also regarded as a sexual threat to white women.30
Turning to sport, the production of masculinities and disciplining of male bodies
through competitive team games is another legacy of the Victorian colonial era with
strong contemporary relevance in institutional and embodiment as well as symbolic
terms. Promulgated at first through elite western educational establishments but

29
Connell, 'Masculinity, Violence and War'.
30
Sources: Segal, Changing Masculinities, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, 'Introduction' in Chandra
Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres (eds.), Third World Women and the Politics of
Feminism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991); Richard Fung, 'Burdens
of Representation, Burdens of Responsibility' inMaurice Berger, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson
(eds.), Constructing Masculinity (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 291-98.
 Masculinities, IR and the 'gender variable' 483

soon becoming institutionalised on a global scale, they affect not only sporting
relations between states and the lives of international sportsmen, but also the
everyday lives of boys and men in schools, clubs and leisure activities, across the
globe. The training techniques and the languages of sport and war overlap
considerably, with each being used as a metaphor for the other, strengthening the
connections between them. At the symbolic level, international sporting com
petitions, particularly in gender segregated team games such as football, rugby and
cricket, also mobilise and fuse national feeling, masculine identification and male
bonding amongst players and spectators alike.31
Specific foreign policies also lead to the institutionalisation of particular kinds of
masculinity. Take for example, the Cold War, which according to Cynthia Enloe:
is best understood as involving not simply a contest between two superpowers, each trying to
absorb as many countries as possible into its own orbit, but also a series of contests within
each of those societies over the definitions of masculinity and femininity that would sustain
or dilute that rivalry.32

David Campbell argues that in the American case, an explicit goal of foreign
policy was the construction and maintenance of an American identity. A 'society of
security'33 was created in which a vigorous loyalty/security program sought to define
Americans by excluding the communist 'other', both externally and internally.
Campbell notes the gendered nature of such exclusionary practices, so that, for
example, communists and other 'undesirables' were linked through f?minisation, as
indicated by the abusive term 'pinko'. Although he doesn't emphasise the point, this
American identity which was constructed through communist witch hunts and the
associated tests of 'loyalty' was essentially a masculine identity. Indeed it was the
very same form of masculinity which was also shaped by fear of 'latent homo
sexuality' as discussed by Barbara Ehrenreich.34 The threat of effeminacy, or latent
homosexuality, was used to coerce American men into forming a reliable work force
who would voluntarily support wives and children in the 1950s. Masculinity was
equated with adulthood, marriage and the bread winning role, and homosexuality
was demonised as the ultimate escapism. This ideology was backed up by theories
from a host of psychological, medical and sociological experts. Any man who failed
to fully live up to the bread winning role by walking out on his wife or job (or worse
still?remained unmarried or unemployed in the first place) might be diagnosed as
suffering from 'latent' or 'pseudo' homosexuality. Every heterosexual man was on his
guard against such possibilities. It was the equation of latent homosexuality with
femininity rather than with sexual deviance which guaranteed its effectiveness as a
threat.

Integrating Campbell's and Ehrenreich's work, it becomes clear that vigilance

against the possibility that unsuspecting liberals might unwittingly help the

31
David Jackson, Unmasking Masculinity (London: Routledge, 1990); Michael J. Shapiro 'The
Sport/War Intertext' in James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro (eds.), InternationallInter textual
Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989),
pp. 69-96.
32
Enloe, The MorningAfter, pp. 18-19.
33
David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 166.
34
Barbara Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment
(London: Pluto Press, 1983).
484 Charlotte Hooper

communist cause, paralleled and intersected with the vigilance needed to ward off
the threat of 'latent homosexuality'. While the institutional practices which
supported this identity were eventually reduced in reach and scope, Ehrenreich
suggests that the symbolic legacy lasted longer, so that 'communism kept masculine
toughness in style long after it became obsolete in the corporate world and the
consumer
marketplace'.35
Finally, the popular media and current affairs operate largely through the
symbolic dimension of the links between men and international relations (see Figure
1). Between them they disseminate a wealth of popular iconography which links
western masculinities to the wider world beyond the borders of the state. There is a
long-standing and continuing association of foreign adventure with virile mascu
linity in the popular media: from boys stories in the 19th century, through the legend
of Lawrence of Arabia and the myth of the French Foreign legion, to contemporary
pot-boilers and adventure films.36 Diplomacy, spying and the reported activities of
presidents and statesmen have helped to define hegemonic masculinities in the
popular imagination. For example, the Cold War relationship between the real and
fictional worlds of espionage has been close, with influences in both directions.
James Der Derian has identified an intertextual blurring of boundaries between fact
and fiction in Cold War spy culture which he argues

represents a field of ideological contestation where national security strategies, with their

endgames of
impossibly real wars of mass annihilation, can be played and re-played for mass
as a simulation of war in which states compete, interests clash, and spy counters
consumption
... In the confusion
spy, all in significant fun and complexity of international relations, the
realm of the spy becomes a discursive space where realism and fantasy interact, and

seemingly intractable problems are imaginatively and playfully resolved.37

Popular fictional accounts of espionage borrowed heavily from real life, while real
spies not only consumed vast amounts of spy fiction, but also modelled themselves
on fictional characters. Spy culture glamourises the alienated world of realpolitic,
and its popularity crossed all classes in the Cold War period: even American
presidents helped to allay their fears of nuclear annihilation and national insecurity
by reading spy fiction?with John Kennedy reportedly being a fan of Fleming's
James Bond, while Ronald Reagan enjoyed Tom Clancy novels.38
The symbolic link between espionage and hegemonic masculinity is demonstrated
by James Bond films, which promoted a 'gentlemanly' and 'aristocratic' ideal of
manhood: a man of leisure leading a glamorous lifestyle?updated for Cold War
politics. James Bond, suave, sophisticated, and never too busy to frequent casinos or
date women as well as outwit the thinly veiled Cold War enemy, epitomises the
'playboy' lifestyle identified by Ehrenreich.39 This is one of conspicuous con
sumption and heterosexual flight from domesticity; but with the added bonus of an

35
Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men, p. 103.
36
Helen Kanitkar, '"Real True Boys", Moulding the Cadets of Imperialism' in Cornwall and
Lindisfarne, Dislocating Masculinity, pp. 184-96; Graham Dawson, 'The Blond Bedouin: Lawrence of
Arabia, imperial adventure and the imagining of English-British masculinity', in Roper and Tosh,
Manful Assertions, pp. 113-44.
37
James Der Derian, 'Spy Versus Spy: The Intertextual Power of International Intrigue' in Der Derian
and Shapiro, Internationall Intertextual Relations, pp. 163-74.
38
Der Derian, 'Spy Versus Spy', p. 172.
39
Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men.
 Masculinities, IR and the 'gender variable' 485

aristocratic English twist. With his aristocratic background, his unflappable cool,
ruthlessness and superior brain, he embodies all the virtues of an Anglicised version
of a Machiavellian prince, his intrigues updated for a technocratic twentieth century
with electronic wizardry and consumerism thrown in. His later, post 1970s appear
ances may have become more parodie,40 but they are still a potent signifier of
masculine power and a glamorous international elitism.
In the post-Cold War world this playboy image has been transferred to the globe
trotting businessman. For example in the mid nineteen nineties The Economist
newspaper (a prominent business and international relations newspaper with a
global readership) was still metaphorically invoking the world of Bond fairly
regularly, through such images as 'The Economist Intelligence Unit's Foreign Report
(presented as 'Your private intelligence service'); a picture of James Bond (Piers
Brosnan) in a watch advertisement;41 and the appearance of ex diplomat (and
master at diplomatic intrigue) Henry Kissinger, featured sitting next to an
Economist reading businesssman on a plane journey in a film/television promotional
42 to reinforce fiction with fact, the paper
advertisement for the paper. Meanwhile,
carried a CIA recruitment advertisement offering 'the ultimate overseas career' with
'the clandestine service'.43 Clearly diplomacy and spying and foreign adventure still
resonate with post-Cold War constructions of elite masculinity.
Meanwhile, in the news and current affairs, media attention is focused on
personalities, 'international players' who are icons of glamorous wealth and power.
Statesmen and presidents are presented as the ultimate hero figures (and sometimes,
villains)?popularised larger than life images of exemplary masculinity, judged
constantly in terms of their manliness or lack of it (of course this imagery relates to
the symbolic role of presidents and statesman, not their actual practices). Even
language reveals the gendering of the world beyond state borders: not just explicitly
sexual phrases such as 'conquest of virgin territory' but also more mundane phrases
and slogans such as 'aman of the world'; and 'join the army, see the world'; invite
men to flee the domestic hearth in the search of manhood?the further the better.
Much of the appeal of these glamorised connections between international
adventure and masculinity is that the worlds depicted are worlds where women have
traditionally been entirely absent, or were presented as threats to masculinity. The
very word 'international' implies privileged access to a higher plane above and
beyond the borders of the state behind which historically most ordinary people have
rarely ventured. Although this may no longer be literally the case in the era of cheap
jet travel, it still carries symbolic meaning. These cultural connections between
notions of masculinity and the 'international', together with media representations
of glamorised masculinities in an international context, are no less important in
constructing masculinities than practices on the ground. They provide a continuing
source of imaginative inspiration which informs the meaning of such practices, and
also help to reflect and produce the highly gendered cultural framework within
which such practices are shaped and interpreted. While they are not all directly
relevant to international politics, they form a network of cultural meanings within

40
Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men, p. 104.
41
Advertisement for Omega watches. The Economist, 6/4/96, p. 4.
42 on Sunday, 20/10/96,
Discussed in the Independent review p. 34.
43
The Economist, 9/9/95, p. 9.
486 Charlotte Hooper

which international relations is embedded, and without which its practices cannot be
fully understood.

Academic IR and the politics of identity44

The above discussion indicates that there may be numerous ways in which inter
national relations are implicated in the construction of masculinities and masculine
identities: through the direct disciplining of male bodies, through political and
institutional practices, and through broader cultural and ideological links. In con
trast IR as a discipline has generally shown little interest in, and has been ill
equipped to deal with, issues related to the politics of identity construction. The
consequence of this is not only that mainstream international relations remains
blind to its own masculinist reflections, but also that the construction of gendered
identities through the practices of international relations is rendered invisible to the
discipline. Before the intervention of feminists, the closest mainstream IR got to
acknowledging the relevance of gender identities was in the assumptions about
(masculine) human nature which underpinned theory in the classical tradition, and
which tended to mirror the prevailing naturalised discourses of gender. For example,
Keohane quotes Morgenthau as describing the 'limitless character of the lust for
power' which 'reveals a general quality of the human mind', and which accounted
for war.45 After the Second World War, much of IR theory was revolutionised by
behaviourism, which sought to turn it into a science of quantifiable and measurable
exactness. Such assumptions were questioned and criticised as being vague and
unprovable, but rather than criticisms opening up a series of interesting political
questions about the absence of foundational identities in politics, attempts were
made to contain questions of identity in bureaucratic or psychological models of
human behaviour; to mechanise them in the ubiquitous rational actor model, or to
do away with them (along with many other relevant topics) by resorting to purely
systemic explanations, all in the name of science.46 Given these moves to either
codify, or, inWaltz's case, to remove 'human nature' from the discipline it is hardly
surprising that the politics of identity construction has been neglected.
Leaving the epistemological questions raised by the behavioural revolution aside,
one can see that one reason for the inability of IR to deal with questions of gender
identity is ontological, and is connected to the way in which the discipline itself has
historically been conceptualised in mainstream theory and analysis. International
politics has been divorced from politics within states in disciplinary terms because of
apparently distinct features which make international politics qualitatively different
from other kinds of politics. In the 1950s and 60s, the dominant view was that while
politics and 'the good life'47 could be pursued within the secure borders of states,

44
Some of the arguments made in this section have been adapted from an earlier discussion in
Charlotte Hooper 'Masculinist Practices and Gender Politics: the Operation of Multiple
Masculinities in International Relations', inMarysia Zalewski and Jane Parpart, (eds.), The Man
Question in IR (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997).
45
Robert O. Keohane, 'Realism, Neorealism and the Study of world Polities', in Robert O. Keohane
(ed.), Neo-Realism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 11-12.
46
E.g. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (see fn.7 above).
47
Martin Wight, 'Why is there no International Theory' in Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (eds.),
Diplomatic Investigations (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966), p. 30.
 Masculinities, IR and the 'gender variable' 487

survival, fragile laws, and uneasy alliances and balances were all that could be
expected in an international arena which is above all characterised by anarchy. With
anarchy (between states) and sovereignty (within states) as its principal guiding
forces, IR theory found it easy to 'black box' the state, deeming all that goes on in it
as irrelevant except where it is expressed as 'national interests'.
As the discipline of IR has developed since then, the domestic politics/
international relations division has not been strictly adhered to. It has often been
breached, for example in foreign policy analysis, when both the domestic
determinants of foreign policy and the international determinants of domestic
politics have been examined. Such breaches have led to debates over the 'levels of
analysis' problem, which asks whether international relations should be explained by
reference to properties of the system of states, to the behaviour of individual states,
to pressures arising from domestic politics, or to the activities of individual people
such as particular statesmen.48 Moreover, characterisations of international
'anarchy' have also become much more varied and sophisticated.49 It would be
unfair and inaccurate to say that mainstream IR now 'black boxes' the state, except
in one or two influential examples. However, anarchy of one kind or another is still
the defining feature of international relations for mainstream analysis, and the
domestic politics/international relations divide retains a crucial symbolic import
ance, as it remains the principal justification for the existence of a separate discipline
of IR in the first place.
Breaching the domestic politics/international relations division, however, will not
in itself lead to a clearer understanding of the involvement of international relations
in the politics of identity construction or the production of masculinities. This is
because of a second boundary (or rather series of overlapping boundaries) which is
rarely referred to inmainstream IR literature but which is also highly relevant to its
conceptual space. This is the boundary between the public sphere of politics (and
economics) and the private sphere of families, domestic labour and reproduction,
which has been challenged by feminists.50 Domestic and family life has tended to fall
outside both the state and civil society in liberal schemes. As for the newer
distinction between the public realm and personal life, the right to privacy has
merely tended to reinforce the idea that family relations should be exempt from
questions of public and social justice.51
Putting these private/public and domestic/international boundaries together,
modern life has been conceptually divided into a number of separate spheres (a
division which has only been strengthened by the disciplinary separation of IR from
Politics and Government). These spheres can be categorised in a number of ways,
but include the domestic/private (which can be divided into familial and personal);
the non-domestic/public (which can be further divided into the public state and
private civil society); and the international. Thus personal life, domestic and family
life, and even much of civil society has been evacuated from IR. Where IR dips into
the 'black box' of the state it is usually to deal with public political or economic
issues and affairs of the state?and even liberal perspectives that emphasise trans

48
Hollisand Smith, Explaining and Understanding.
49
See for example Barry Buzan, Charles Jones and Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy :Neorealism to
Structural Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
50
See for example, Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988).
51
Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
488 Charlotte Hooper

nationalism rarely transgress the public/private divides. The production of mascu

linities through the practices of international relations, as illustrated above, is
rendered invisible by these divisions that discourage an examination of the inter
connections between the international, and the private world of personhood.
Questions of gender identity are generally assumed to be private aspects of adult
personality (invoking the right to privacy from public scrutiny), and are rooted in
the domestic realm of childhood and family life (invoking the familial/non-familial
or domestic/non-domestic divide), if not determined at birth?far from the reach of
IR's focus of analysis.
One might argue that transcending the levels of analysis problem and widening
the remit of international relations to include an analysis of domestic and personal
subject areas previously excluded would solve the problem of how to analyse the
connections between international relations and masculine identities more
thoroughly. This would also bring into view women and their traditional supporting
roles, as advocated by Cynthia Enloe, who coined the phrase 'the personal is
international'.52 Such a move would go a long way towards bringing gender into
view, but only if accompanied by appropriate methodologies. In terms of scientific
methodologies, while more profound and extensive criticisms could be and have been
made in relation to gender,53 it should be immediately apparent from the discussion
above that if gender identities are simultaneously causes and effects of international
relations then there is no clear-cut unit of analysis on which to base explanations.
Rational actor models and otherof analysis are totally unsuited
such units to the
task of investigating how identities themselves are formed. They would have to bear
yet another round of improbable modification and qualification or be dispensed
with altogether. Assuming this could be done, the scientific language of cause and
effect, with its emphasis on being able to isolate distinct and measurable phenomena,
would also probably have to give way to one of mutually reinforcing influences. Nor,
given the scientific interest in uncovering behavioural regularities, and making
predictions on the basis of these, are scientific methods as generally applied in IR
particularly suited to the analysis of phenomena that are undergoing rapid and
multidimensional historical change.
If scientific or explanatory approaches are not particularly suited to this type of
investigation then perhaps the traditional alternative of historical analysis would be
more applicable. Drawing on the methods of the humanities this approach leans
more towards understanding than explanation and involves a less constraining
methodology. However, while such an approach may better capture the complexities
of the two way influences between masculinities and international relations there
would remain an epistemological problem that might block a full analysis of these
interconnections. This problem is connected to the symbolic dimension of gender
identities, and the problem is that both the discipline of IR and the perspectives and
theories produced within it form part of the symbolic realm. Thus IR scholarship is
itself implicated in the production of masculinities through the symbolic dimension
of gender identification. No perspective that treats theory as distinct and separate
from social reality can fully explore this aspect of the relationship between inter

52
Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Relations
(London: Pandora, 1990), p. 195.
53 in Feminism
See for example, Sandra Harding, The Science Question (Milton Keynes: Open
University Press, 1986).
 Masculinities, IR and the 'gender variable' 489

national relations and the gender identities of men. Therefore, when it comes to
analysing IR's own contribution to the production of masculine identities, post
positivist or reflectivist epistemological positions which can examine the symbolic
and discursive functions of IR scholarship itself would be the most effective. Such
approaches need not be unduly abstract or ephemeral. For example, Campbell's
analysis of the symbolic and discursive functions of US foreign policy,54 discussed
above, is a good example of historically detailed post-structuralist scholarship.
Reflectivist methods can uncover or deconstruct the ways in which masculinities
are inscribed into the discipline. Feminist critiques of IR's masculinism already
provide a wealth of information on this point and make a good starting place for
further investigation. Tickner, for example, finds 'three models of man' inscribed
into different perspectives on IPE.55 Building on Tickner's observations, one can see
that the different archetypes of hegemonic masculinity mentioned above are
variously incorporated into different IR perspectives. Neorealism embodies an
eclectic and often contradictory combination of the warrior-citizen (Machiavelli),
patriarchal (Hobbes) and bourgeois rational (scientific language and rational actor)
models. Meanwhile neo-liberal institutionalism more clearly reflects bourgeois
rational masculinity which is itself closely connected to liberalism. The often fierce
inter-paradigm debates which have marked the development of the discipline may
include a dimension of rivalry between these different masculinities.56 New forms of
elite Anglo-American masculinity associated with technocracy and globalisation are
also emerging, both within the discipline and on the ground.57
Returning to the private/public/international divides discussed above, an
important feature of such divides is their highly gendered nature. The conceptual
relegation of women and the 'feminine' to the domestic and the private, in classical
and liberal theory is well documented as is their almost total practical exclusion
from the international and all but the lowliest of public spheres.58 International
relations then symbolically forms a wholly masculine sphere of war and diplomacy,
at the furthest conceptual extreme from the domestic sphere of families, women and
reproduction in the private/public/international divides of modernity.59 Gender
divisions and inequalities depend to a great extent on the segregation of social life
into separate spheres for men and women, so that gender differences can be con
structed and the lines of difference made visible.60 The cultural and social
production of gender differences and gendered character traits segregates the sexes
in various ways, in order to construct and make visible the lines of difference
54
Campbell, Writing Security.
55
Tickner, Gender in International Relations (see fn. 2 above).
56
The inscription of different masculinities into the discipline and the rivalries between them is
discussed inmore detail in Hooper 'Masculinist Practices and Gender Politics' (see fn. 44 above).
57
Some post-structuralist scholarship in IR may embody a new informal and playful but technocratic
form of hegemonic masculinity associated with globalisation. See Hooper 'Masculinist practices and
Gender Polities', and also Charlotte Hooper 'Hegemonic Masculinity in Transition: The Case of
Globalization', inMarianne Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan (eds.), Gender and Global
Restructuring: Shifting Sights and Sightings (London: Routledge, forthcoming).
58
Pateman, The Sexual Contract; Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy. The position of women
and children in families was devalued in classic liberal discussions of justice and freedom.
59 on international
Which is why much feminist scholarship relations, which bridges these divides, is
often seen as irrelevant. See Tickner, 'You Just Don't Understand'.
60
It has been argued that in societies where there is greater segregation of the sexes, there are generally
more marked gender inequalities. See David Gilmore, Manhood in theMaking (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1990).
490 Charlotte Hooper

between them. Generating gendered constructions is an integral part of any such

segregational practice.
As the private/public /international divisions inscribe international relations as a
virtually all-male sphere, then it follows that the activities and qualities associated
with this gender-segregated space cannot help but inform the definition and
production of masculinities. The emphasis on power politics in both theory and
practice then reinforces the associations between such masculinities and power itself,
associations that are crucial to masculinism. Having inscribed an all-male sphere
which serves as an arena for the production of masculinities, the private/public/
international divisions simultaneously obscure this process. The structuring of IR
theory to exclude questions of the politics of identity has some interesting effects. It
both serves to uphold the existing gender order and also indirectly confirms the
importance of international politics as one of the primary sites for the production
and naturalisation of masculinities in the modern era.

Conclusions

This article challenges the disciplinary assumption that international relations and
the politics of identities (including gender identities) are discrete areas of research
that have no important interconnections. It has not been concerned to answer in any
adequate way the question of how international relations helps produce masculine
identities, but rather to demonstrate how merely asking the question and beginning
to consider how itmight be answered highlights some of the ontological, methodo
logical and epistemological problems of mainstream approaches to IR with regard
to gender. If breaching the domestic/international and private/public divides which
help to define the discipline of IR in order to examine the production of masculine
identities through international relations would profoundly alter the ontology of the
discipline, then a full examination of the symbolic dimension of gender identi
fication also raises epistemological issues about the role of theory and the discipline
itself. This is a case where the attempt to create an applied, empirical research
agenda might quickly lead to the post-positivist revolution in order to facilitate a
more comprehensive analysis of the so-called 'gender variable'.
That an account of the relationship between masculine identities and inter
national relationswould be extremely difficult within conventional approaches
should be clear. One cannot simply take mainstream IR and merely add 'men' or
'masculinities' to get a gendered analysis, any more than one can take mainstream
approaches and add either 'women' or 'femininity'. Gender issues profoundly
disturb conventional forms of analysis. Molly Cochran argues that even empirically
oriented feministIR scholarship may have implications too radical for its easy
incorporation into mainstream analysis.61 This echoes the feminist argument that
even liberal feminism (often seen as the mildest form), if carried through to its
conclusion, would have profoundly disturbing consequences for liberal politics.62

61
Terrell Carver, Molly Cochran and Judith Squires, 'Gendering Jones: Feminisms, IRs, Masculinities',
Review of International Studies, 24:2 (1998), pp. 283-97.
62
Zillah Eisenstein, The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981).
 Masculinities, IR and the 'gender variable' 491

Therefore, because of its ultimately radical potential, empirical and historical

analysis of the relationship between (masculine) gender identities and international
relations would be helpful, even where overtly reflectivist approaches are rejected
(after all, feminists themselves adopt a variety of epistemological positions).
In many ways this question of the 'gender variable' parallels the security debate63
and forms part of the question of identities and culture more generally.64 The
salience of such questions for international relations has been highlighted recently,
both in the post-Cold War resurgence of ethnic rivalry and of identity politics in
domestic, and transnational
international situations, and in the writings of post
positivist academics.
As Yosef Lapid argues, 'a swing of the pendulum toward
culture and identity is .. . strikingly evident in post-Cold War theorizing'.65 This is
in response to an awareness amongst IR scholars' of their mounting theoretical
difficulties with apparently 'exponential increases in global heterogeneity and
diversity'.66 As a consequence, constructivist approaches to identity and security
have begun to influence mainstream IR academics, although not unprob
lematically.67 As Tickner argues, most feminist scholarship also takes a broadly
constructivist (although not necessarily structuralist) approach to gender.68
If it is important at this juncture for IR scholarship to get a grip on both gender
and the politics of identities, then at the minimum, sympathetic mainstream
academics who are willing to look at constructivist arguments with regard to
security and cultural identities, need to expand their horizons to include gender. At
the same time, they could usefully draw on the insights of feminism with regard to
the politics, social construction and embodiment of identities more generally. They
would need to be willing to transcend the 'levels of analysis' problem and transgress
the private/public/international divides. They would probably have to make fairly
major methodological changes if they are used to working with scientific rather than
historical methods. Hopefully, sooner or later, they might also find themselves
willing to actively engage with the substance, if not the language, of post-positivist
debates and positions with regard to the role of theory.69 What is completely
inadequate to the task of dealing with the issue of gender identity however, even in
empirical terms, is the straightforward grafting of a 'gender variable' on to main
stream analysis.

63
In which Campbell, for example, calls for a serious engagement with post-positivism. See Campbell,
Writing Security.
64
See Zalewski and Enloe, 'Questions about Identity' (see fn. 6 above).
65
Yosef Lapid, 'Culture's Ship: Returns and Departures in International Relations Theory', in Lapid
and Kratochwil, The Return of Culture and Identity (see fn. 14 above), p. 3.
66
Lapid, 'Cultures Ship', p. 7.
67
See Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power polities', in
International Organization, 46, 2 (1992), pp. 391^125; and the debate in Lapid and Kratochwil, The
Return of Culture and Identity. Wendt divides constructivists into modern and post-modern varieties.
However, Wendt's own (modern) constructivism leans problematically towards an overly deterministic
structuralism, which, while avoiding some of the problems of methodological individualism, can only
examine one direction of influence in the two-way traffic between identity construction and
international relations.
68
Tickner, 'Identity in International Relations Theory'.
69 In
feminist literature at least, such debates have been articulated with reference to the need for applied
research agendas. See Harding, The Science Question.