United States-India Nuclear Relations Post-9/11: Neo-Liberal Discourses, Masculinities and Orientalism in International Politics

Citation:

Das, Runa. 2013. “United States-India Nuclear Relations Post-9/11: Neo-Liberal Discourses, Masculinities and Orientalism in International Politics.” Journal of Asian and African Studies. 

Author: Runa Das

Abstract:

In this article I explore how the post-9/11 neo-liberal climate of globalization has served as the context within which is articulated masculinist and orientalist forms of nuclear discourses between India and the United States (US). To this extent, I draw from feminist international relations (IR), that security is a gendered phenomenon, to explore the linkages between masculinities and nuclear weapons as underpinning the nuclear security discourses between India and the US. Yet considering issues of international hierarchy and power relations between India and the US, I also draw from Edward Said’s Orientalism to explore how assumptions of orientalism are also sustained in these masculinist nuclear discourses. My contribution lies in enriching feminist IR with a post-colonial angle by suggesting that feminist IR continue to engage with post-colonial feminist perspectives to comprehend the masculinist and orientalist forms of identity politics that underpin security relations/discourses between Western and post-colonial states.

Keywords: globalization, India, masculinity, nuclear security, orientalism, Pakistan, United States

Topics: Armed Conflict, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Globalization, Security, Violence, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, South Asia Countries: India, United States of America

Year: 2013