Queering European Union Foreign and Security Policy: Invisibility, Heteronormativity and Binaries in the EU's Approach to Women, Peace and Security

Abstract

Queer scholarship highlights and analyses how international politics are produced through sexuality and gender norms. Doing so, queer perspectives question and unpack binaries and the assumptions underlying dominant concepts in international politics such as sovereignty. Although there is some vibrant research on the European Union (EU) and the promotion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA+) human and citizenship rights, a systematic framework that adopts a queer perspective on the EU's role as a global actor and its foreign and security policy is lacking. To start tackling this gap, we study the EU's implementation of the United Nations Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda through a queer lens. We suggest that the focus on WPS allows us to open up a broader queer research agenda to study the EU's foreign and security policy by unpacking the dominant invisibilities, heteronormativity and binaries.