Linear predictions of state behavior rely on the false presumption of internal coherence and rationality. This view from nowhere ensures self-fulfilling wars and gendered violence.

“Some dyadic accounts of war are interested in how states’ interactions lead to (or help prevent) conflict between them in the sense of signaling, rather than in the sense of relating. “Steps-to-war” models lay out “a set of closely related paths to war that involve a series of steps between states that are roughly equal in power.”50 As Levy and Thompson explain, “they show each ‘step’ increases the probability of war, and that the process is cumulative.”51 Relatedly, rivalry theories of war see specific interstate relationships as more likely to lead to war than others. They suggest that because states “focus selectively on the states that appear to represent the greatest threat,” the act of singling out antagonists is key in predicting interstate wars, suggesting that “repetitive war behavior” points to conflict probability.52 In this view, states’ interactions are cumulative in causing conflict and war(s), and some states’ rivalries account for the majority of wars.” “Another theoretical approach to war that takes account of interaction focuses on bargaining. bargaining theories of war are interested in why war(s) happen(s) despite the(ir) cost, and therefore focus on why war-fighting parties were unable (or unwilling) to reach a (cheaper) negotiated settlement to their dispute(s),53 with emphasis on possible pathologies in negotiations, including commitment problems,54 private information (and/or incentives to misrepresent),55 the lack of a “bargaining” space of outcomes that are mutually preferred to war,56 and/or indivisible issues.57 This work implies that it is difficult to reach a negotiated settlement even when such a deal would be optimal for all parties involved.58” “All three of these models assume that states interact with some linear action and reaction, in which “the primary factors in determining war and peace are the foreign policy strategies adopted by states to deal with their disputes.”59 All three models also assume an internal coherence, or unitary nature, of the actors interacting, whereby each is making decisions for an internally united whole. The bargaining models add the assumption that the unitary actors interacting progressively do so rationally and calculate cost–benefit analysis in conflict decision-making. Feminist research has questioned each of these assumptions, arguing that states interact more relationally than reactively; suggesting that states are, rather than unitary, diverse and full of internal conflict that should not be neglected when defining (or critiquing the idea of) “interest”; and that states are not the rational actors that bargaining theorists assume them to be.60” “Action and Reaction

As I mentioned above, a number of dyadic-level theories of the causes of war either do not theorize how states interact explicitly,61 or, in the case of bargaining, rivalry, and steps-to-war models, assume states’ interactions are individuated and progressive. by individuated and progressive, I mean that one state acts, the other (or others) respond, and then the first actor acts again in a sequence of interaction that can be understood chronologically62 and told as a coherent story.

Feminist theorists’ understandings of the incomplete independence of decision makers and their decisions 63 frequently suggest that this picture needs to be complicated significantly. For our purposes now, the idea of state interaction in these theoretical approaches takes account of (as discussed in chapter 3) Allen’s ideas of power-over (as domination) and power-to (as resistance of domination)64 but takes inadequate account of power-with, both directly (as states can act together) and in its implications for interpreting state interactions (as neither necessarily individuated or progressive).” “Power-with, or the ability to act in concert, pooling (symbolic or material) power, resources, and/or knowledge, suggests that a model of state behavior in which we understand actions and responses to actions dichotomously does not tell the whole story. Discussing methods such as participatory planning,65 multisited feminist social criticism,66 and empowerment,67 feminist theorists have suggested both that actors are interdependent and that they can act together, simultaneously, and in role-similar and role-differentiated ways.68 In this view, instead of seeing policy as (always) assertion and/or response, it can be seen as responsiveness, more complicated constitutively (in terms of who the actor is) and directionally (in terms of where policies are going).69 For process-based dyadic war theorizing, this suggests that there may be different, more empirically nuanced, ways of looking at the nature of relationships between states to understand how it is that they end up in conflict, particularly in terms of their (gendered) war narratives and (gendered) cycles of violence. before sketching out what that might look like, this section continues to think about the problems with assumptions of state unity, state rationality, and the gender neutrality of the “gender neutrality of the process to war in process-based theories.

Unitary Units

Feminist scholars have also interrogated the unitary nature of the state, pointing out that efforts to maximize the state’s security interests often threaten the security of people inside the state. Specifically, as I discussed in the previous section, the state’s most marginalized citizens are often made insecure by state security-seeking, making it clear that a state does not have a single interest in interstate interaction but many that conflict. J. Ann Tickner contends that “an explanation of the historical development of state sovereignty and state identities as they have evolved over time does indeed suggest deeply gendered constructions that have not included women on the same terms as men.”70 This is because, according to Tickner:”

“From the time of their foundation, states have sought to control the right to define political identity. Since their legitimacy has constantly been threatened by the undermining power of subnational and transnational loyalties, states’ survival and success have depended on the creation and maintenance of legitimating national identities; often these identities have depended on the manipulation of gendered representation.… Drawing on metaphors that evoke matrimonial and familial relations, the nation has been portrayed as both male and female.… The sense of community implicit in these family metaphors is deeply gendered in ways that not only legitimate foreign policy practices but also reinforce inequalities between men and women.71”

“Using these gendered metaphors, the state can, while shoring up its “national interest,” both threaten the interest of marginalized citizens inside it and reinforce power inequalities among its groups. Catherine MacKinnon has explained that the “state’s structures and actions are driven by and institutionalize strategy based on an epistemic angle of vision” that can “distinguish public from private, naturalize dominance as difference, hide coercion beyond consent, and conceal politics beyond morality.”72 These structures require a certain standard of behavior from some members of the state,73 while suppressing the voices of others altogether.74”

“With these tools, the state can appear unitary by suppressing its diversity and presenting one concept of national interest, autonomous of and not necessarily representative of its citizens. In this understanding, the sovereign state can be “an extension of the separation-minded realist man, also autonomous to various degrees from the diverse ‘domestic’ interests he-it allegedly exists to protect.”75 Additionally, states are complicit with gender subordination when they fail to intervene in domestic violence, perpetuate a heterosexist bias in education, exercise discrimination in welfare policies, and operate on patriarchal laws.76”

“In this conception, the unitary state is a misleading and malignant construction. Two implications for the process of state interaction follow: states that interact often promote unrepresentative interests, and those unrepresentative interests exclude gender, racial, and cultural minorities. In this sense, states’ elites often make wars (or fail to) “representing” a limited group or groups among their populations, while claiming full representativeness, effectively rendering a significant portion of their supposed “constituency” invisible in the process of interacting with other states. Empirically, this means that there are a number of levels of interstate interaction, many of which are omitted from process-based notions of dyadic war theorizing. Normatively, it suggests that our conceptions of how states interact (and the content of those interactions) are problematically skewed.”

“Rationality in Interaction

This skew is particularly evident in the assumption of rationality.77 The rationality assumption implies that the knower/actor can separate himself/herself from the “other” in interactions with that other. Feminists have argued that knowledge is always perspectival and political; therefore, states and their leaders’ decisions about how to interact with others are not rational, but informed by their situational and political biases. In this view, the rationality assumption may be seen as at once itself a political bias and obscuring other political biases. As Naomi Scheman argues, perceived rational cost–benefit analysis about war-making and war-fighting should “always be seen as especially problematical when… constructed only by those in positions of privilege… [which provide] only distorted views about the world.”78 In this view, rational calculation is not an objective, attainable, and desirable end, but a partial representation of both interest and actors’ representation of those interests. In this way, through gender lenses, rationality has been seen as importantly incomplete, leaving out significant (if not the most significant) factors that go into decision-making.79”

“In addition to understanding the rationality assumption as partial (and therefore unrepresentative), feminist research has pointed out links between rationality and masculinism.80 As Karen Jones notes, advocates of rationality as a guide for interstate interactions81 assume:

1.  Available… conceptions of rationality and reason represent genuinely human norms and ideals;

2.  The list of norms and ideals contained within available conceptions of rationality and reason are sufficiently complete; and

3.  The external normative functions assigned to reason and rationality are unproblematic.82”

“Looking through gender lenses shows problems with each of these assumptions. Feminists have argued that “the identity of the modern subject—in models of human nature, citizenship, the rational actor, the knowing subject, economic man, and political agency—is not gender-neutral but masculine (and typically European and heterosexual).”83 This impacts not only how we see the rational subject, but how we predict and understand his decisions, at the state level as well as at the individual level. According to Margaret Atherton, the possibility of rationality has “been used in a disturbing fashion to mark a gender distinction. We have, for example, on the one hand, the man of reason, and, on the other, the woman of passion.”84 In rationality assumptions, traits associated with masculinity are normalized and traits associated with femininity are excluded. The impact is compounded because (masculinized) rationality and its (feminized) alternatives are not on equal playing fields. As a result, Karen Jones notes that “women’s assumed deficiency in rationality” has been used to exclude both women and knowledge associated with femininity from accepted views of the world.85 The alleged gender neutrality of rationality, then, “is often a covert form of privileging maleness “and omission of “what has traditionally counted as ‘feminine.’”87

Still, adding women and values associated with femininity to current concepts of rationality is unlikely to create a gender-neutral concept of rationality.88 This is because, epistemologically, the sovereign rational subject constructs artificial gendered boundaries between rationality and emotion, male and female, and knower and known.89 Among states, those boundaries are not benign. Instead, they breed competition and domination that inspire and foster war(s) and conflict(s).90 This competition frequently relies on contrasting the state’s own masculinity to the enemy’s (actual or perceived) femininity. This cycle of genderings is not a series of events but a social continuum. In these gendered relationships, as Zillah Eisenstein argues, “gender differentiation will be mobilized for war and peace,” especially moving forward into the age of an American empire focused on manliness.91 Feminists have long argued that competitions between hegemonic masculinities and subordinate masculinities play a role in causing war(s).92”

“Hidden beneath the assumed independence, rationality, and unity of state interaction leading to war are gendered interstate interactions that cause, constitute, and relate to war and wars. Feminist scholars have recognized the extent to which the preeminence of masculine values dominates (particularly conflictual) accounts of interstate interactions, wherein “rational” interactions often become “a self-reproducing discourse of fear, suspicion, anticipated violence, and violence” in which “force is used to checkmate force.”93 Interstate interactions leading to wars often show the gendered nature of war narratives, war logics, and war languages, which produce (and reproduce) gendered cycles of violence.”