Foreign Security Policy, Gender, and US Military Identity / Gender and Politics (PDF)

Elgin Medea Brunner was a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies. She holds a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Vienna, a Master in Political Science and a Master in International Relations both from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Her research focus lies on gender issues in security studies and international relations, risk analysis and resilience as well as critical (information) infrastructure protection and cyber conflicts.

What do military doctrines and propaganda leaflets have to do with national identity and gender? Everything, argues Elgin Brunner in this wide-ranging and innovative book. Theoretically sophisticated, methodologically thorough, and refreshingly not loath to inject an updated notion of ideology into her post-structuralist approach, the book adds a new spin to feminist contentions that link foreign policy to gendered constructions of state identity. A multiple reading of texts and silenced intertexts reveal an 'information age' military with neoliberal traits, Orientalist productions of hypermasculine enemies and feeble civilian others, and stealth performances of US identity. A dizzying tour through the discursive corridors of the US military that shakes our understanding of what foreign policy and military strategy are all about!

Elisabeth Prügl, Deputy Director, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland

This timely book engages with the hereto insufficiently researched subject area of US military perception management doctrine and practice in an analytically deep and critically sophisticated manner. By unearthing war schemes of power through gendered constructions of identity and by showing the implications of these constructions for the state, its society, and its foreign policy from a wealth of documents, the book positions itself as a highly relevant and thought-provoking volume in the poststructuralist research tradition.

Myriam Dunn Cavelty, lecturer in security studies and senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland