What is feminism in foreign policy? : A case study of the Latin American trend of implementing feminist foreign policy

Abstract: Recently, the implementation of feminist foreign policy (FFP) has gained traction in the Global South. The trend is most visible in Latin America, where Mexico, Chile, and Colombia have announced their commitment to the policy. Nevertheless, FFP has been dominated in the Global North sphere as Sweden pioneered the policy in 2014. Establishing the policy outside the Global North raises the question of how a Western-based policy will be adapted to the Latin American context and understanding of feminism. This study has aimed to investigate the feminist understanding and contextualization present in Mexico's, Chile's, and Colombia's FFPs. Based on previous research, this study has developed a framework of a Global North and Global South feminist discourse to analyze the foreign policies through feminist theory. A discourse analysis focusing on the policy texts' implicit and explicit representation of the central concepts of feminism: Structures, Oppression, and Change has been conducted. The policies include central aspects of feminist thought. The Global North feminist discourse dominates the FFPs, but distinctive elements of the Global South feminist discourse are present and adapted to international norms. However, this study also finds that the FFPs lack an explicit aim to address the fundamental causes of structural inequality and oppression. While the FFPs can still be a unifying framework for governments to promote gender equality internationally, the findings of this study raise questions about the possibilities of state-centered institutions to address the root causes of unequal societies since foreign policy tends to contain oppressive structures in itself.