Feminist International Relations

Feminist International Relations is a new title in the Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in International Relations. Edited by Christine Sylvester, a leading scholar in the field, it is a five-volume collection which brings together the best and most influential cutting-edge and canonical feminist IR scholarship.

Feminist International Relations can be seen as a project by feminists to influence international relations—both as a set of practices (e.g. war, diplomacy, terrorism, aid, and trade) and as a set of theories (such as realism, liberal institutionalism, and constructivism). Adopting a combined thematic and chronological structure, the collection brings together the work of indisputable luminaries in this project, as well as vital research from new generations of scholars.

Volumes I and II (‘Muses’) cover the years before 1985 and collects key works that influenced early feminist IR thinking. Work from women’s studies, philosophy, history, sociology, and the history of science is included here. Volume III (‘1985–96’) brings together the most important earliest recognizably feminist IR writings from that period. The fourth volume in the collection (‘Wider Influences’) gathers the best of newer writings from cognate fields and from the rise of cultural theory, postcolonial studies, and gay and lesbian studies. The final volume (‘1997–2009’) focuses on scholarship produced from the mid-1990s to the present day, material that is characterized by a broadening of themes, geographical interests, and theories.

With comprehensive introductions to each volume, newly written by the editor, which place the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Feminist International Relations is an essential collection destined to be valued by scholars and students of IR—and those working in cognate disciplines—as a vital research resource.