realism doesn’t account for the root cause of competition –feminist analysis of policy-making reveals gender hierarchy shapes power relations between states and drives militarization

Inter-state interaction: does gender hierarchy shape political processes? The third manifestation of international system structure, according to Waltz, is that structure shapes the political processes among units, and insures the basic continuity of political processes so long as the structure remains. Though there are a number of political processes between states that could be discussed as related to gender hierarchy, including diplomacy (Enloe 2000), interstate jurisprudence (Charlesworth et al. 1991), and international institutions (Moser and Moser 2005), this brief exploration will focus on two aspects: competitive power between states generally and militarization specifically. As mentioned in the last section, a patriarchal social order in the international system incentivizes unit competition. The international system gender hierarchy is also manifested in the processes by which that competition takes place. Particularly, feminist scholars have argued that the gendered competition among states selects for a particular (masculinized) sort of power (dominance). Allen (2000) delineates three sorts of power: power-over, or dominance, the sort of power that is most recognized in the international arena; but also power-to (the ability to act contrary to dominant forces despite their preponderance or power-over); and power-with (the ability of weaker actors to act together for counter- hegemonic purposes). If power is the driving force behind interstate relations and global politics (an assumption made by much if not most of IR theory and most structural theory), then seeing power as power-over means that the accumulation of power is necessarily competitive and zero-sum, making conflict likely if not necessary as power-seeking states for relative position. Viewing power as zero-sum also presumes a stark and delineable distinction between self(state) and other(state) where accumulated power is a resource the advantages of which can be confined to its accumulator. This narrow view dominates interstate processes, where ‘gendered power is the victory of certain ideas over others in social [and political] inter- action because they are associated with valorized gender’ (Sjoberg 2006a, 33). In this way, gender ‘a particular kind of power relation central to understanding international processes’ (Steans 1998, 5). States that lack power-over are not necessarily powerless, but alternative, non-competitive versions of power are feminized and devalued in the international arena in competitions for masculinized dominance. This is why, in states’ competitions, in war, trade, or sport, the winner’s masculinity is implicitly and often explicitly affirmed, while the loser’s masculinity is subordinated or doubted. Other processes are possible, however. As Allen argues, ‘to think about power solely in terms of domination neglects y empowerment’ (Allen 1999, 122). While, ‘by emphasizing plurality and community [feminist theory] consciously seeks to distance power from domination’ and understand power collaboratively, the gender-hierarchical international system is blind to such an alternative (Allen 1999). Policy options like empathy (Sylvester 1994), positive-sum collaboration (Lennie 1999), unilaterally deconstructing the cycle of violence (Elshtain 1992), care (Robinson 2011), or empowerment (Hill Collins 2000) are often outside of states’ (perceived) toolboxes because the gendered system selects for power-over rather than power-to or power-with as a political process among units. The dominance of power-over as how states relate is relatively stable so long as the system remains gender hierarchical. Feminist scholars have seen gender hierarchy inspiring power-over relationships despite other possibilities in human rights discourses in Latin America (Brysk 2000), international interactions with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (Sjoberg 2006a), the United States in the ‘war on terror’ (Young 2003), in Asia-Pacific Relations (D’Costa and Lee-Koo 2008), among states in post-Cold War Eastern Europe (Waylen 1994), and inter-Arab League relations (Tessler and Warriner 1997). Countless other examples from realist analyses of foreign policy- making show the dominance of competitive approaches to power among states; feminist work suggests that the source of the dominance of these approaches is in gendered competition as a political process, possibly inspired by structural gender hierarchy in the international system. If gendered competitions through power-over are one political process that international system gender hierarchy can be seen to shape, a number of related processes can also be discussed in these terms.19 For the purposes of space, here, we will discuss one, militarization. Peterson and Runyan (1999, 258) defined militarization as ‘processes by which characteristically military practices are extended into the civilian arena.’ Though war is an essential condition of militarism – the apex or climax – militarization is much broader than war, activating an underlying system of institutions, practices, and values. Feminists have pointed out that the militarization pervasive in global politics ‘occurs through gendered workings of power’ (Enloe 1993, 246). In the gendered process of militarization, military–industrial complexes need men to be willing to kill and die on behalf of their states to prove their manhood and women to behave as properly subservient to meet the needs of militaries (Enloe 1983, 212; Peterson and Runyan 1999, 118). Militarization is shaped by gender hierarchy in its aims (competitive power-over), its means (the military–industrial complex), its language (of strength and domination), and its impacts (which disproportionately affect women).