Description
States whose international identity had rested on liberal normative leadership have historically aligned the defense of gender equality with national security. In this regard, Thomson (2022) successfully argued that states which adopted a feminist foreign policy have leveraged liberal norms to enhance their international status. This is evident as late as 2024 in Canada’s defence policy, which “recognizes gender inequality as a root cause of conflict” (Canada 2024, 14). However, research also tells us that once adopted, feminist commitments can be coopted, sidelined, or quietly erased (Von Hlatky 2022; Zahar and Deschamps-Laporte 2023). Despite Canada’s self-proclaimed feminist leadership, the insertion of feminist perspectives into security discourse remains fragmented and in flux.
This chapter interrogates the contested afterlives of feminist commitments within multilateral security settings; particularly as they confront anti-gender backlash and a fragmenting liberal order. Focusing on the Canadian case, we ask when, why and how feminist norms are defended, dimmed, or abandoned by states that claim a feminist identity; and, crucially, when they are framed in tension with national security imperatives. To provide an answer, we map the operationalization and afterlives of feminist commitments across Canada’s engagement in two multilateral sites (the United Nations and NATO). Both sites have recently been the setting of heated debates around international security challenges related to the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza conflict. The analysis draws on official statements, public documents and policy instruments produced between 2017 and 2025, alongside 20 semi-structured interviews with Canadian officials directly involved in advancing feminist commitments in these arenas. The chapter offers a nuanced analysis of the intersection between feminist and security commitments in a changing world order. It provides an initial response to what drives competing hierarchies of order, contributing to broader reflections on gender, power, and international society (Towns, Dunne, and Reus-Smit 2017).
