Feminist foreign policy

At the panel Heinrich Böll Stiftung Istanbul Office organized on 24 November at the Orient-Institut Istanbul, the speakers were Syrian women. While they acknowledged concerns about women’s rights in a country undergoing transition, they also delivered a clear message: “We are not just victims, but political agents.”

Adopting a feminist approach in foreign policy or peace processes is usually perceived solely as increasing the number of women participants of the process. Although equal representation is an important aspect, it is not the only one. In this article, Dr. Pınar Sayan goes through a few feminist principles that can be adopted for the normalization process between Armenia and Turkey.

This article, aimed at contributing to policy changes based on the new paradigm, suggests how Germany’s policy towards Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, whose political relevance has increased for Berlin due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, could become feminist.

In Iran, feminist foreign policy demands both short-term interventions to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population and a long-term approach to deal with the state’s structural violence against its own citizens.

Proposing a feminist foreign policy would raise eyebrows in Armenia, a country that has been involved in armed conflict and has conventional threats to its security and sovereignty in a complicated geopolitical environment.

This article critically discusses feminist foreign policy and applies a comprehensive understanding of it to Azerbaijan’s foreign policy and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.   

This article argues that the notion of gender equality is crucial to creating peace and triggering a transformation in political stalemates (and violent conflict). 

The German government is currently working out guidelines for its feminist foreign policy (FFP). If it adopted a thorough approach, it would have to reassess bilateral cooperation with Egypt in all fields, including security, the economy, and migration.