From Pariah to Priority

Elise Carlson Rainer

Description

From Pariah to Priority gives a unique, insider perspective that explains the unexpected incorporation of LGBTI rights into the United States and Swedish foreign policies. From original data, case study analysis, and interviews with high-level officials within the State Department, Swedish Foreign Ministry and international institutions, former diplomat Elise Carlson Rainer provides insights from leaders responsible for shaping emerging global LGBTI policies. The research findings highlight the advocacy process of reforming US and Swedish foreign policy priorities to include LGBTI rights, shedding light on how normative values evolve in foreign affairs. The book examines Sweden as the first country to implement a feminist foreign policy and commence formal LGBTI diplomacy. Through this lens, Rainer contextualizes the diplomatic precedent of revamping foreign assistance to Uganda when lawmakers there proposed a death penalty law for homosexuality. Scrutinizing effective tactics for advocacy to influence foreign policy, From Pariah to Priority explores not only current debates in the area of gender and sexuality in foreign affairs, but also offers pragmatic policy recommendations for civil society organizations, foreign policy leaders, and human rights practitioners.
Acknowledgments
Preface

1. Introduction: The Genesis of LGBTI Diplomacy and Reshaping International Relations

2. The Incorporation of LGBTI Rights into US Foreign Policy

3. Sweden's Pioneering Role in LGBTI Diplomacy

4. Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Law: A Global Sensitizing Event

5. Theoretical Framework of LGBTI and Human Rights Diplomacy

6. Conclusion: LGBTI Diplomacy and Policy Recommendations

Appendix 1: Interviews
Appendix 2: Participant Observation
Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• National
• Diplomatie (homonymie)
• Central
• Human rights
• Diplomacy
• Gay Studies
• Civil Rights

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438485805
• Langue: English

Extrait

From Pariah to Priority
SUNY series, Studies in Human Rights

Suzy Lee and Alexandria S. Moore, editors
SUNY series in Queer Politics and Cultures

Cynthia Burack and Jyl J. Josephson, editors
From Pariah to Priority
How LGBTI Rights Became a Pillar of American and Swedish Foreign Policy
Elise Carlson Rainer
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Rainer, Elise Carlson, author.
Title: From pariah to priority : how LGBTI rights became a pillar of American and Swedish foreign policy / Elise Carlson Rainer.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series in queer politics and cultures | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021023969 | ISBN 9781438485799 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438485805 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sexual minorities—Civil rights—United States—Case studies. | Sexual minorities—Civil rights—Sweden—Case studies. | Sexual minorities—Civil rights—International cooperation—Case studies. | Human rights—Government policy—Sweden—Case studies. | Human rights—Government policy—United States—Case studies. | Human rights—International cooperation—Case studies. | Sweden—Foreign relations—Case studies. | United States—Foreign relations—Case studies.
Classification: LCC HQ73.73.U6 R35 2021 | DDC 306.760973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023969
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I dedicate this book to my children, Tristan and Sonja Rainer, as well as to my father, Paul Carlson, who taught me how to love others. Thank you to my Swedish spouse, Stefan Rainer, who has been my love and support for nearly two decades.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1 Introduction: The Genesis of LGBTI Diplomacy and Reshaping International Relations
Chapter 2 The Incorporation of LGBTI Rights into US Foreign Policy
Chapter 3 Sweden’s Pioneering Role in LGBTI Diplomacy
Chapter 4 Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” Law: A Global Sensitizing Event
Chapter 5 Theoretical Framework of LGBTI and Human Rights Diplomacy
Chapter 6 Conclusion: LGBTI Diplomacy and Policy Recommendations
Appendix 1 Interviews
Appendix 2 Participant Observation
Notes
References
Index
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following individuals for their contribution to this research, foreign policy leadership, and/or decades of human rights advocacy: Randy Berry, Daniel Baer, Michael Posner, Daniel Mahanty, Mark Bromley, Todd Larson, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Anthony Adero, Jessica Stern, Amie Bishop, Katie Hultquist, Julie Dorf, Angeline Jackson, Sören Juvas, Maria Sjödin, Birgitta Ohlsson, Barbro Westerholm, and Helena Westin. Thank you to my brilliant diplomat colleague friends for their wisdom over the years: Saba Ghori, Adrienne Bory, Katie McLain, Karen Chen, Pamela Erickson, Anish Goel, Jessica Lieberman, Aaron Spencer, Dan Mahanty, Stacey May, Deborah Jones, and Hannah Rosenthal. While many others remain anonymous, I am grateful for the important work of many leaders and activists working around the globe, at times in great physical danger, towards a more just and equal world.
I am grateful for the encouragement, support and expertise from many people during this book project. Thank you to SUNY senior acquisitions editor Michael Rinella and SUNY Queer Politics and Cultures editor Cynthia Burack for supporting the publication of this book. Phillip Ayoub, thank you for inviting me to conferences and providing your depth of expertise in global LGBTI rights. I am in gratitude to Sabine Lang, Christine Ingebritsen, Dan Chirot, for supporting my research and shaping me as a scholar, as well as Karam Dana at the University of Washington for your mentorship. Thank you to the astute editing work of Kimberly Alecia Singletary from Humanities First, and Sean Butorac at the University of Washington. Thank you to my wonderful research assistants, Sacha Moufarrej and Hope Dorris; I could not have completed the book without your assistance. I am grateful to the stellar network of researchers at the University of Gothenburg Gender and Diplomacy GenDip Research Network, especially Ann Towns, Birgitta Niklasson, Susan Harris Rimmer, and Elise Stephenson. Thank you to Stefano Guzzini, and my cohort in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University. Nigel Boyle at Pitzer College, whose support helped me earn a Fulbright Fellowship to Sweden, and whose mentorship shaped my diplomatic career. I want to acknowledge a host of colleagues, friends, and peers who graciously supported me personally and professionally to complete this research over the years: Allegra Wiborg, Manuel Guzman, Indra Ekmanis, Dustin Welch, Willa Jeffers, Matthew Crosston, Dylan O’Connor, Lisbet Rodriguez-Perez, Shellwyn Badger, Justin Loustau, Susan Dicklitch-Nelson, Indira Rahman, and David Paternotte.
Conducting international research is costly, and I am grateful for the financial support of multiple organizations to complete this book project: the Swedish Women’s Education Association of San Francisco, whose funding enabled original field work in Sweden, and the University of Washington’s (UW) European Union Center of Excellence for funding my research to the European Union. Thank you as well to the UW Graduate School and the UW Jackson School of International Studies for travel funds for field work. I also thank the Swedish Women’s Education Association (SWEA) of Portland, the American Public University Faculty Research Grant, and the University of Washington’s Department of Scandinavian Studies’ Synnove Fielding Fund for Excellence for support in the final research, writing, and editing of the manuscript.
Preface
In 2009, on a bright December afternoon in Washington, DC, I sat in Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall auditorium waiting for my boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to deliver her “Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century” speech. 1 This speech was Clinton’s first significant public articulation of the Obama administration’s vision to reshape the United States’ human rights foreign policy. Her policy priorities, and how she would revitalize US engagement in human rights foreign affairs, were not yet known to the wider public.
In 2009, LGBTI rights was not a pillar of American foreign policy. At the time, homosexuality was illegal in more than seventy countries and punishable by death in nine nations. 2 At the same time, there was rapid development of improved laws for LGBTI rights in many liberal democracies. While some progress had been achieved, violence and trauma against LGBTI communities existed in every continent; LGBTI rights concepts were a relatively new issue for public discourse as all states grappled with public policies intended to curb persistent violence toward LGBTI people. Even though the United States had enacted some domestic legal reforms by 2009, American diplomats, including myself, were barred from raising LGBTI rights concerns in diplomatic engagements prior to the Obama administration. Until 2008, the United States worked with other nations seeking to block pro-LGBTI rights reform in the United Nations (UN). American diplomats working in Jordan, Pakistan, or Russia would remain silent when an LGBTI person was stoned to death, disappeared by security forces, killed by their family or a public mob, or jailed for life because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. 3 In the early 2000s, only a handful of Northern European nations addressed LGBTI rights in international affairs.
As Clinton took to the stage at Georgetown University, it was still to be determined how human rights in US foreign policy would be handled under the Obama administration; it was not inevitable that LGBTI rights would become an issue of diplomatic concern. Thus, foreign dignitaries and ambassadors, leaders from the State Department and National Security Council, human rights practitioners, activists, scholars, and university students came to document the speech. I was there as an officer in the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), the central policy bureau in the State Department responsible for shaping US foreign relations related to human rights policies and programs. My colleagues and I were unsure as to what, if any, changes Clinton would make to address LGBTI rights in US foreign policy. Many of us were career civil servants and had worked for numerous secretaries of state and presidents within both Democratic and Republican party administrations. As a huge portion of American human rights foreign policy is mandated from Congress and outlined under US law, it is bureaucratically difficult to change major policy mandates in the State Department. 4 State Department career personel are familiar with the transition to new administrations and how new leadership can potentially invigorate or, con