Gender, Race, and Power: Examining IR Through an Intersectional Lens

Kaufman and Williams present critical issues in international relations through an intersectional approach that examines race, gender, class, ethnicity, and power to arrive at better explanations for such core IR issues as war and peace, security, human rights, development and international political economy, and the global environment.

Their approach builds on early calls amongst feminist IR theorists, imploring ＂Where are the women?＂ It is only fairly recently that students of IR have broadened the approach to the field to incorporate the dimensions of race, ethnicity, and class as well as gender. Kaufman and Williams help guide readers exploring questions like: How does gender matter for understanding war and peace? How does race matter? Where are the men? What is intersectionality in IR? How does an intersectional approach change or broaden our understanding of international relations?

Joyce P. Kaufman is professor emerita of political science at Whittier College and Director of the Women, Peace and Security Program of the Institute of World Affairs. She is the author of numerous books, articles and papers on women and war, U.S. foreign and security policy, and international relations. She received her B.A. and M.A. from New York University and her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.Kaufman is the sole author of Introduction to International Relations, 3rd edition(Rowman and Littlefield, 2022); A Concise History of United States Foreign Policy, 5th edition (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021); andNATO and the Former Yugoslavia: Crisis. With Andrew Dorman she was co-editor of Providing for National Security: A Comparative Analysis (Stanford University Press, 2014); and The Future of Transatlantic Relations, (Stanford University Press, 2011) and contributed original chapters to both. She is also the author of a number of original articles including ＂Women and Political Violence in Northern Ireland: Newspaper Imagery during the Troubles,＂ Women’s History Review, 30:7 (2021); ＂The U.S. and NATO in a Trump Administration: Lessons of the Past and Prospects for the Future,＂ International Affairs, 93: 2 (2017) 251-66; and ＂NATO and the Former Yugoslavia,＂ in The Journal ofConflict Studies, Winter 2000.

Kristen P. Williams (PhD, UCLA) is professor of political science at Clark University. She is the author, co-author, and co-editor of several books, chapters, and journal articles on women/gender and war, nationalism and ethnic conflict, and hegemony and international relations. Williamsis the sole author of Despite Nationalist Conflicts: Theory and Practice of Maintaining World Peace (Praeger, 2001). With Neal G. Jesse, she co-authored Identity and Institutions: Conflict Reduction in Divided Societies (SUNY, 2005) and Ethnic Conflict A Systematic Approach to Conflict (CQ Press, 2011). She co-edited Beyond Great Powers and Hegemons: Why Secondary States Support, Follow or Challenge, (Stanford University Press, 2012). Her academic articles have been published in journals, including Political Psychology, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Journal of Research in Gender Studies, and International Politics, and Oxford Bibliographies in International Relations. Her most recent publication is a chapter in the edited volume, the Oxford Handbook of Gender, War and the Western World since 1600(Oxford University Press, 2020).