International Relations Theory and Global Sexuality Politics

DOI10.1111/1467-9256.12108
Published date01 November 2016
AuthorAnthony J. Langlois
Date01 November 2016
Subject MatterSpecial Section: Resurrecting IR TheoryGuest Edited by Kyle Grayson (Newcastle University, UK), Martin Coward (The University of Manchester), and Robert Oprisko (Independent Scholar)
/tmp/tmp-17AJZhyepWehj2/input 606663POL0010.1177/0263395716606663
research-article2016
Special Section Article
Politics
2016, Vol. 36(4) 385 –399
International Relations Theory
© The Author(s) 2016
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and Global Sexuality Politics
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9256.12108
pol.sagepub.com
Anthony J. Langlois
Flinders University
Abstract
Responding to efforts to ‘resurrect’ International Relations theory, this article suggests that the
study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) – and, more controversially perhaps, queer
– global sexuality politics can bring new and transformative insights to the discipline. The study of
this global sexuality politics is replete with ideas and approaches that can and should be integrated
with IR theory. The article f‌irst considers the general absence of global sexuality politics within IR,
and why this is signif‌icant for theorising the international. It then surveys some recent scholarship
which shows how the study of global sexuality politics can speak to and within IR.
Keywords
global sexuality politics, homophobia, Human Rights, International Relations theory, LGBT,
queer, security
Introduction
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that the struggle for the protection of
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights is ‘one of the great, neglected
challenges of our time’ (United Nations, 2013). In 2011, the UN released its f‌irst report
on LGBT rights, demanding an end to the neglect by governments and intergovern-
mental bodies of violence and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual
orientation (UNHCHR, 2011). Key international leaders have condemned discrimina-
tion and violence towards LGBT people. US President Barak Obama has made many
clear statements to this end (White House, n.d.) and former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton caused a signif‌icant impact when she declared in 2011 that ‘gay rights are
human rights’ (Clinton, 2011). British Prime Minister David Cameron, less helpfully,
has argued that states that do not recognise LGBT rights should have their aid cut
(BBC, 2011). Institutionally, for the European Union and other states and intergovern-
mental agencies, consideration of LGBT rights is factored into decisions about policy
cooperation (including aid provision). States that f‌launt their rejection of these norms
have received much public and diplomatic attention (e.g. Russia and Uganda; Bosia,
2014; Wilkinson, 2014). Clearly, the matter is on the table.
Corresponding author:
Flinders University, UK.
Email: anthony.langlois@flinders.edu.au

386
Politics 36(4)
While we cannot predict the future course and vicissitudes of global sexuality politics
itself, a politics which of course extends beyond same-sex matters, this article will suggest
that the study of LGBT – and, more controversially perhaps, queer (Q) global sexuality
politics – can bring new insights to IR theory. In line with this special issue’s theme,
‘Resurrecting International Relations Theory’, I argue that the study of global sexuality
politics is replete with ideas and approaches which can and should be integrated with IR
theory. While LGBTQ global sexuality politics is most commonly referenced within the
high-prof‌ile and media-attractive domain of human rights abuse and norms violation, there
are many additional thematic dimensions of IR theory that are engaged once analysis of
these cases proceeds beyond noting such breeches. We could start with the questions of
why certain cases of norm violation, in certain states, at certain times are highlighted. We
could examine how these claims produce certain subjects and constitute others as threats;
and how these practices feed into discourses of order, disorder, security, economy, identity
and threat within international politics. Various critical and queer analyses of global sexu-
ality politics have much to say about the international. Their critical interrogation of estab-
lished discourses of order and anarchy should be welcomed by those seeking to transcend
current thought traditions within IR (Sjoberg and Weber, 2014; Thiel, 2014).
In what follows, I f‌irst consider in more detail the way in which global sexuality poli-
tics is – or is not – theorised within IR, and why this is signif‌icant for the overall project
of theorising the international. Then I discuss three examples of theoretical work in IR
that arise out of global sexuality politics. I end by discussing the complex relationship
between LGBTQ rights and human rights.
IR theory and global sexuality politics
In their introductory article to the recent European Journal of International Relations
(EJIR) special issue on ‘The End of IR Theory’, Dunne et al. suggest that two questions
must remain before us as we think about the future of IR theory: ‘One is that while “the
real world” always comes to us imprinted by the theoretical lens through which we view
“it”, we also need to keep asking whether there are processes, objects, “things” that are
not caught by the lens we are currently using’ (Dunne, Hansen and Wight, 2013, p. 419).
The second is the question of where ‘the international’ begins and ends. Both of these
questions open up possibilities for understanding global sexuality politics as an intrinsic
aspect of the study of IR; in doing so, however, both also set an agenda for the transforma-
tion of the discipline.
The ‘lens’ metaphor very simply helps us to see why this is the case. Attach a wide
angle lens to your camera, and you will see a broad reach in front of you. With a telephoto
angle your view will be narrower, but you will also see more, in greater detail, within that
frame. A powerful zoom lens will enable you to capture (or in the case of video, follow)
a particular subject – although the activities of other key actors may well be out of view.
But there is also the agent who is the view-f‌inder, the one choosing what to photograph,
which lens to use, how to regard and frame the subject. The failure of global sexuality
politics to appear in the frame of most IR theorists raises questions about the discipline
and the processes and habits of view-f‌inding among its practitioners. This is not a new
problem for IR, as anyone who has done work on gender or feminism within the disci-
pline could attest (Peterson and Runyan, 2009; Pettman, 1996; Richter-Montpetit, 2007;
Soreanu and Hudson, 2008; Tickner, 2014; see Rao (2014a) on the intersection and
mutual disruption of the Woman Question and ‘Q questions’).

Langlois
387
Dunne et al. suggest that IR theorists need to be constantly asking themselves
whether there are ‘processes, objects, “things” ’ we miss using our current lens.
Scholars of global sexuality politics and global queer studies argue that different sets
of lenses are in fact required for understanding the international and, in particular – to
address Dunne et al.’s second question – the international’s beginning and end. The
two elements of the lens metaphor come into play here. It is not just that certain theo-
retical lenses will help us to see global sexuality politics – its processes, objects and
things – within the f‌ield of the international. Rather, and much more fundamentally, it
is that global sexuality politics and queer theory are crucial lenses for looking at the
international, for doing IR theory.
There is a burgeoning interest in this claim among IR scholars. It is taken up and
explored, for example, in a path-breaking volume edited by Manuela Picq and Markus
Thiel (Picq and Thiel, 2015). What is crucial to their project is the recognition that
LGBTQ claims are not just new processes or ‘things’ that must be recognised and theo-
rised by IR scholars because they are clearly happening and present in a way that is new
and unprecedented. Beyond this, LGBTQ claims require a rethinking and transformation
of IR theory itself. Rather than, for example, slotting gay rights claims into the now famil-
iar space within IR theory occupied by human rights, a serious investigation of the phe-
nomenon of gay rights claiming may in fact unsettle that familiar human rights conceptual
space and indeed go on to have broader implications for the thinking of rights claims of
all sorts in the international (Langlois, 2015).
Picq and Thiel bring us a range of critical case studies which re-think IR from periph-
eral standpoints – theoretical, as well as regional and cultural. These peripheral perspec-
tives challenge generalising accounts and standard normativities. They are a critical
aspect of the project to enliven and de-ossify IR theory, which crucially concerns their
intention to blur the core-periphery distinction. Doing this in terms of place is a relatively
established practice within IR; it is well-recognised within the discipline that location
matters (Lennox and Waites, 2013). But as Picq and Thiel (2015, p. 9) suggest: ‘Sexualities,
in their various meanings and experiences, constitute such a location in the conceptual
non-core that permits (us) to unlearn established theoretical fames, using positionality
and ref‌lexivity to turn what is familiar into something strange.’ They continue:
To think through an LGBTQ lens… is not simply to say that sexuality (like place) matters. To
think from the non-core is an epistemological project. By the non-core we indicate more than
those places in the global South def‌ined as failed states that epitomize underdevelopment. The
non-core is… what theoretical canons can only...

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