Framing Feminist Foreign Policy: Hillary and Margot in Comparison

As policy makers, scholars and activists scramble to further define and debate feminist foreign policy, attention to the frames in use is crucially important – we should not underestimate the importance of how we frame issues and events. Our initial framings not only shape responses today, but also circumscribe what is seen as worthy of attention in the future as well as whose contributions matter – and it becomes difficult to make adjustments once the initial narrative frames have been set (Wibben 2011). The current moment, therefore, is crucially important because the debates we have now will considerably shape future thinking about feminist foreign policy. As such this moment also provides an opening for critical, engaged feminist scholars to insert their varying insights and challenge liberal feminist idea(l)s that tend to dominate feminist foreign and security debates. The proposed paper compares the approached to feminist foreign policy exemplified by Hillary Clinton and Margot Wallström respectively to outline this more general point, but also addresses the paradox that foreign policy’s state-centrism is at odds with critical feminists’ analyses of direct, structural and epistemic state violence.