Description
All Global North states pursuing a feminist foreign policy (FFP) are former colonial powers or actively participated in the colonial system and perpetuated its ideology. However, there remains a deafening silence around colonial legacies in FFPs (Ansorg et al. 2021) — with one exception: the German FFP guidelines are the first and, to date, only FFP document to mention colonial histories and legacies. We ask how does German FFP address this issue and with what consequences? We offer a discourse-theoretical analysis (Doty 1993) of the FFP guidelines and other policy documents and set this against previous foreign policy commitments to addressing colonial history. We find that within its FFP, Germany’s colonial past is framed as part of cultural and societal foreign policy and in relation to responsibility and reflexivity, while externalizing the reflexive work to former colonies. We argue that, first, colonialism remains invisible in relation to other policy issues including ‘hard’ security and the doing of foreign policy itself. Thus, FFP glosses over how colonial structures persist and are inherent to German foreign policy today. Second, we suggest that references to colonial histories with a feminist veneer become part of a performative power within the ‘do’s and ‘don’ts’ of Global North FFPs, rather than prioritizing matters of social justice.
