To perspektiver på en verden i brand” af LASSE KOCH PEDERSEN & JEPPE BACH LERCHE

TO PERSPEKTIVER PÅ EN VERDEN I BRAND

af LASSE KOCH PEDERSEN & JEPPE BACH LERCHE

Fra Trump og Brexit til Kinas fremstormen og nye terrortrusler. Den verdenspolitiske scene har oplevet store omvæltninger det seneste årti. IP-faget er præget af mange forskellige teoretiske retninger og vi har på IPmonopolet ønsket at undersøge at hvordan enkelte retninger kan forklare og belyse de store forandringer verden her set de seneste år. Vi har derfor bedt to forskere om at give et henholdsvis feministisk og realistisk bud på dette.

Robin May Schoot er seniorforsker ved DIIS og har arbejdet med kønsrelaterede aspekter af international politik og konflikter. Hun giver et feministisk perspektiv på særligt valget af præsident Donald Trump, brugen af kønnede billeder og vigtigheden af kønsperspektivet i en tid med politiske kriser. Professor MSO ved Københavns Universitet Anders Wivel tager med udgangspunkt i den realistiske tradition også afsæt i valget af Trump og hans rolle i en verden præget af et stigende konfliktniveau.

GENDER AND (IN)SECURITY ROBIN MAY SCHOTT, SENIORFORSKER, DIIS

As a Danish-American dual citizen and feminist philosopher, it is hard for me to have ironic distance to what is taking place in the US, with the election of Trump -- who not only stalked Hilary Clinton during one of the presidential debates, but got elected despite (because of?) his bragging that he could “grab them by the pussy.” While half a million “pussyhats” grabbed back during a mass demonstration following Trump’s inauguration, and while women of my generation carry signs like, “I can’t believe that I still have to protest this fucking shit”, Trump has appointed anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court and numerous federal courts, which will affect the reproductive rights of women for a generation. Alabama has passed a near total ban on abortion, making it illegal for doctors to perform abortion even in cases of incest and rape. Georgia, Kentucky (where I formerly taught), and Ohio have passed the ‘fetal heartbeat’ law, outlawing abortion as early as six weeks after conception, when many women don’t even know that they are pregnant. It is a frightening reminder of Margaret Atwood’s claim that in The Handmaid’s Tale, “nothing went into that had not happened in real life somewhere at some time”.

Under the hashtag #MeToo women in the US and internationally have protested a culture which legitimates sexually harassment. Nonetheless, there is a tendency in the Danish media to portray this movement as a witch-hunt. This should worry us, as the 2014 report, Violence Against Women in the EU, published by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights, found that 55% of women in Denmark had experienced violence since their 15th birthday.

It would be seriously misguided to view these issues as merely domestic, or merely women’s issues (as one commonly hears), and not as embedded in the operations of violence and power. Walter Benjamin argued that violence is both law-making and law-preserving. One variation on this insight is that gendered violence justifies power.

Feminist researchers working in the fields of Holocaust and genocide studies, international relations, peace and conflict studies, philosophy, queer theory, security studies have brought feminist habits of analyzing violence, power, and oppression, to understanding both the world and their disciplines. vely, blonde Michelle, uncovered and happily self-confident” was at risk because of men from the “other” civilization. This is one of the ways in which sexuality and sexual violence becomes, as Miriam Ticktin notes, part of the discourse of border control.

There have been two distinctive but parallel paths for feminist reflections on violence. One path focuses on the role of gender and sexuality in justifying power: from the use of sexual violence against women and men (which the UN’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda has begun to address), to how representations of gender and sexuality are mobilized in debates about terrorism, refugees, and other critical issues of our times.

Gendered imaginaries are embroiled in how one thinks about one’s nation, the enemy, and the nature of security. This is evident in the depiction of terrorists as sexually deviant. After the attack against the World Trade Center on 9/11, posters appeared in Manhattan with an image of Osama bin Laden being anally penetrated by the Empire State building and with the words, “The Empire Strikes Back… So you like skyscrapers, huh, bitch?”

Gender has also been a central trope in the securitization of migration, where refugees mutated from being represented “at risk” to being represented “as risk”. While in Europe there was an initial perception of refugees as vulnerable, the gendered and racializing logics quickly positioned refugee men as hypermasculine, sexually aggressive, and a threat to societal security, while refugee womenandchildren (to use Cynthia Enloe’s phrase) were viewed as vulnerable. This shift in perception was accentuated by the terrorist attack in Paris on November 13, 2015, and by the numerous incidents of sexual harassment and assault in Cologne and other cities on December 31, 2015. The language of race and gender was galvanized as an instrument in the new clash of civilizations, when “lo

A second path for feminist reflections engages with questions of the political frames of violence. Who is visible, who receives recognition, who is treated with dignity, and who is not? How are exclusions from the frame of recognition a condition for the ongoing existence of such political and moral frames? Norms that are forged through war and the legacies of colonialism become mobilized in relation to the enemy that we fight, imprison, or torture abroad – as in the Orientalized other. Depicting racialized others as having a non-civilized sexuality is part of a tactic of Orientalizing others, as in the torture carried out by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib, which was explained away as the acts of a few bad apples, despite the culture of sexual violence that permeates the US military.

Gendered meanings play a particularly crucial role in times of political crisis and transition, as is evident in the anti-feminist universe of the radical right, both in secular and religious forms –as with the incel movement and with radical jihadism. Hence, it is crucial for research on politics and the political to engage with feminist questions.

In 2020, DIIS will host a series of public seminars on gender and (in) security, including topics of military cultures and gender norms; humanitarianism, border control and gendered bodies; the far right and anti-feminism. See https://www.diis.dk/events for dates of events. ▶

TRUMP ER IKKE NÆR SÅ VIGTIG, SOM HAN SELV OG ..VERDEN TROR. ANDERS WIVEL, PROFESSOR MSO, KØBENHAVNS ..UNIVERSITET

Transatlantiske skænderier, amerikansk-kinesisk handelskrig og en liberal verdensorden i krise. En amerikansk præsident i konstant twitter-krig på flere fronter og en dansk regering, der varsomt forsøger at finde balancen mellem at holde fast i egne principper og undgå diplomatisk udskamning og kritik fra sin væsentligste allierede. Det seneste par år har været turbulente i international politik og midt i turbulensen finder vi ofte den amerikanske præsident Donald Trump. I egen optik gør præsidenten det glimrende - en pointe han temmelig håndfast slår fast gang på gang i både tweets og på tv. I kritikernes øjne er præsidenten en katastrofe, der er godt på vej til at sætte verdensfred og internationalt samarbejde over styr. I denne optik er Præsident Trump ikke nær så vigtig som både han selv og hans kritikere tror. Godt nok kan Trumps mange tweets, hårde retorik og ukonventionelle forslag øge risikoen for misperception og overreaktion og dermed for konflikter og krige, som ingen ønsker, og som kunne have været undgået, hvis de diplomatiske spilleregler var blevet fulgt. Men i den realistiske forståelse er Trump ikke roden til den nuværende verdensordens konflikter og kriser, blot en blandt flere katalysatorer - en megafon for anarkiets negative konsekvenser. Roden til den aktuelle krise skal vi imidlertid finde et andet sted. Kinas vækst og voksende magt gennem de seneste årtier udfordrer den dominans, som USA opnåede i det internationale system efter Sovjetunionens kollaps i 1991, der effektivt afsluttede den bipolære æra med to supermagter og efterlod USA som den stærkeste supermagt i det moderne statssystems historie.

Anvender vi det realistiske perspektiv på international politik ser analysen noget anderledes ud. Realister tager udgangspunkt i det internationale systems anarkiske struktur. I modsætning til territorialstaten har det internationale system intet voldsmonopol samlet i en regering, der lovgiver og varetager centrale samfundsfunktioner som politi, retsvæsen og forsvar. Derfor er de politiske dynamikker mellem stater anderledes, end de dynamikker, som vi finder inden i staten. I det internationale system må hver stat sørge for sin egen sikkerhed gennem nationalt forsvar og alliancer med andre lande, og staterne vil ifølge de fleste realister tendere mod at balancere de stærkeste magter og største trusler for at mindske truslen mod den nationale sikkerhed. Anarkiet er årsagen til, at der findes krig, selv om den konkrete krig kan have mange forskellige udløsende årsager. Når det gælder stormagtskrige, så findes årsagen typisk i forskellige vækstrater, der udfordrer den etablerede orden. Opstigende magter ønsker øget indflydelse, mere status og flere privilegier, men de gamle stormagter vil ikke afgive, hvad har uden kamp. I den situation er der en vis logik i, at USA’s præsident sætter ”America First”, genforhandler handelsaftaler for at øge den amerikanske vækst og beder europæerne om at betale mere til deres eget forsvar. Amerikanernes problem er, at denne politik risikerer at underminere den liberale orden, der tjener amerikanske interesser, og at fremmedgøre de allierede, der skal hjælpe USA mod Kina. Alternativet er der imidlertid heller ikke meget ved: en langsom død som enesupermagt trukket ned af gamle forpligtelser og en dynamisk udfordrer uden moralske skrupler. Eller sagt med en af realisternes ofte gentagne pointer: international politik handler ikke om at søge den bedste løsning, men om at finde den mindst ringe ●