Feminist Foreign Policy vs Militarisation

Nearly three decades after the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and 25 years since the adoption of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda, various states have begun to enact feminist foreign policies (FFP) that seek to elevate gender equality across foreign policy domains.
But, feminist agendas in global politics are advancing, we are witnessing a surge in defence spending and militarisation, partly triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Feminist scholarship on international relations tend to regard increased defence spending with the perpetuation of patriarchal norms and masculinist approaches to conflict resolution that counteract the very substance of a feminist agenda to foreign policy.
This panel aims to scrutinise these developments and contradictions from a feminist peace perspective. The discussion will also navigate the complexities of defending state borders from a feminist perspective during conflicts such as in Ukraine and Afghanistan, evaluating the impact of feminist foreign policy on peace promotion and the inherent challenges in defining peace within feminist praxis.