• Scotland has become the first part of the UK to adopt a feminist foreign policy
• Feminist foreign policies are far from politically homogenous, but most focus on supporting women’s involvement in decision-making processes
• Involving women in diplomacy helps nations achieve their foreign policy goals

In late 2023, Scotland became the first part of the UK to adopt a feminist foreign policy.

“We want a feminist policy that questions colonialism, that’s actively anti-racist, that targets patriarchy and in some ways the capitalist, imperialist, male-dominated power structures,” Scotland’s International Development Minister Christina McKelvie told Euronews.

Holyrood has a limited foreign policy scope under its devolved powers from Westminster, but the Scottish Government’s decision places it as the latest country to adopt a feminist approach to diplomacy and international relations.

The first country to do so was Sweden back in 2014. The announcement by then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström was met with criticism from the foreign policy establishment, which viewed the idea as both ham-fisted and naïve.

Less than a decade later, over a dozen countries have adopted a feminist foreign policy, though a new conservative Swedish government decided to stop using the term in 2022.

This can be viewed in the context of a pushback against women’s rights seen across the world, from Afghanistan to Europe and the US, which sees feminist foreign policy as being too radical, a strategic update from LSE IDEAS, the London School of Economics’ foreign policy think tank, suggests.

Indeed, in McKelvie’s own words, “When we announced [a feminist foreign policy], we had the usual ‘this is Wokeness gone mad’ or ‘what does it mean? It’s all about being fluffy and cuddly’. Patriarchal organisations will laugh, but we know we are committed to making a difference for people around the world.”

What is a feminist foreign policy?

According to Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program Fellow Saskia Brechenmacher, feminist foreign policies are far from politically homogenous. Generally, they involve “strong skepticism toward military solutions to security challenges, a prioritisation of human rights and civil society engagement, and an overarching focus on demilitarisation, multilateralism, and diplomatic engagement.”

The LSE IDEAS paper, co-authored by members of the Women in Diplomacy team Caroline Green, Marta Kozielska, and Professor Karen E. Smith, reveals how the implementation of feminist foreign policies differs across countries, with a view to discovering whether they significantly increase and strengthen the role of women in diplomacy.

“Women’s representation in diplomacy is important as a goal in and of itself: more diversity among decision-makers is increasingly considered to lead towards better, more legitimate, and therefore effective decision-making,”

– Caroline Green, Marta Kozielska, and Professor Karen E. Smith, taken from an LSE IDEAS strategic update.

The researchers find that almost all feminist foreign policies commit to supporting women’s representation in general. This includes in the Women, Peace and Security agenda, adopted as Resolution 1325 by the UN Security Council in 2000 and highlighted as an area of focus by Spain, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Libya. The agenda broadly aims to promote gender-sensitive political and conflict analysis, and to build a stronger role for women in peace-building processes. Germany, Canada, and Chile have also pledged to support women’s leadership in action on climate change.

However, the report notes that feminist foreign policies “do not tend to focus explicitly on fostering greater participation of women in international organisations or diplomatic negotiations.”

Rather, “Women’s representation is often highlighted as part of broader commitments to women’s political representation and participation of women in all areas of society, or as international development programming focused on engaging women and girls in decision making – at national or international level.”

In addition to the goal shared by many countries of improving women’s participation in decision-making, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and other nations have committed to ensuring gender equality within their foreign ministries. This involves increasing the number of women in senior positions and cracking down on discrimination and sexual harassment at work.

The researchers suggest this “appears to be an acknowledgement that [feminist foreign policies] should not practice double standards or hypocrisy, as well as perhaps anticipating that domestic pressure groups and other NGOs could seize on the [feminist foreign policy] commitments to focus attention internally; on the need to improve gender balance and diversity within foreign ministries and diplomatic services.”

Why are feminist foreign policies important?

Whether it comes under the label of a feminist foreign policy or not, improving women’s engagement in diplomacy has a measurable impact in helping nations achieve their foreign policy goals.

A global study on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 found that peace processes that included women as witnesses, signatories, mediators, or negotiators led to a 20 per cent increase in the probability a peace agreement would last at least two years and a 35 per cent increase in the probability it would last for 15 years.

“While feminist foreign policy has seen exponential growth in the last few years, further progress is not assured. If a series of progressive election victories is what brought us this movement, a wave of conservative victories can take it away just as quickly,”

– Lyric Thompson, Founder and Chief Executive of the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative.

In a broader sense, women’s participation in all areas of society is beneficial for countries’ stability and security. The World Bank reports that greater gender equality correlates with societies that are generally less prone to violent conflict, more likely to comply with international norms and treaty agreements, and less predisposed towards using military force to resolve disputes with other countries.

Economically speaking, a McKinsey report published in 2015 reveals the price of gender inequality. The report finds that true gender equality across the world would raise global gross domestic product by up to $28 trillion.

“Women’s representation in diplomacy is important as a goal in and of itself: more diversity among decision-makers is increasingly considered to lead towards better, more legitimate, and therefore effective decision-making,” write the authors of the LSE IDEAS report.

The challenges for feminist foreign policies

“Gender equality is a core value for Sweden and this government, but we will not conduct a feminist foreign policy,” were the words of Tobias Billstrom, shortly after being appointed Sweden’s new foreign minister in 2022.

“Because labels on things have a tendency to cover up the content,” he said.

The first country in the world to adopt a feminist foreign policy was also the first to scrap it. Prime Minister Ulf Kristerrson’s government followed up on the announcement with the news that it would decrease its peace-building budget by 40 per cent and tighten immigration restrictions.

Writing in the New York Times last September, Lyric Thompson, Founder and Chief Executive of the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative, cautioned, “While feminist foreign policy has seen exponential growth in the last few years, further progress is not assured. If a series of progressive election victories is what brought us this movement, a wave of conservative victories can take it away just as quickly.”

For examples, she indicates “so-called pro-family forces in Russia, Poland and Hungary,” and “crackdowns on women’s liberty in Iran and Afghanistan and reproductive and trans rights in the United States.”

Green, Kozielska, and Smith offer a similar assessment. “In the face of such strong countervailing tendencies that push back against gender equality domestically and internationally, the adoption of [feminist foreign policies] by a growing number of states may help to accelerate change. Yet attention must also be paid to ensuring that a widespread domestic consensus in favour of the adoption and implementation of a [feminist foreign policy] is fostered, as otherwise elections or personnel changes could lead to the abandonment of a [feminist foreign policy] – as the case of Sweden has shown.”

In short, while the growing number of countries adopting a feminist foreign policy is encouraging for women’s participation in diplomacy and sliding issues of gender equity higher up the list of foreign policy priorities, it’s not a golden ticket to achieving worldwide gender equality.

What it is, is an invitation to collaborate with a group of like-minded nations to forge progress on a particular issue, to diversify foreign ministries and diplomatic services, and to offer mutual support pushing policies that will make a difference for people around the world.

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