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"Foreign services globally are undergoing fundamental and rapid gendered change, spurred on by shifting social and governance norms and even the adoption of an explicit feminist foreign policy in some stages. For some, this has resulted in women's rapidly increasingly representation at the frontlines of global governance. Yet, compounded by COVID-19, a rise in right-wing misogyny and extremism, and sometimes archaically slow-moving institutions, progress is marred by women's continued, entrenched under-representation in leadership and devastating experiences of challenges that have in some cases increased, not decreased, in recent years. Women remain frequently side-lined, marginalised, under-valued, and overlooked in international affairs. In short, international affairs has a gender problem, and remains one of the worst-performing sectors of the state. After studying women's leadership and gender relations across four international affairs agencies spanning diplomacy, defence, national security, policing, and intelligence, this book contributes empirical data from the last 30+ years on women's representation in a leading case context - Australia - to understand the disconnect between pockets of progress and undercurrents of resistance. Australia is a global leader in terms of representation of women and policy supports for gender equality in governance. Yet, Australia also demonstrates how deeply gendered, racialized, and heteronormative international institutions remain. Through in-depth interviews with almost 80 global leaders, including with Australia's first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, and first female foreign minister, Julie Bishop, this book delivers a much-needed Intersectional Feminist Institutionalist approach to trace the evolution of inequalities in international affairs and interrogate why women still remain under-represented in international affairs"--

Summary
For the first time in history, women in Australian diplomacy have equal or near-equal representation in leadership whilst the institution they represent is shrinking — in funding, footprint and status. Even if simply a natural shift in policy priorities, this diplomatic 'glass cliff' has specifically gendered effects. Indeed, 'hard' militaristic agencies — where funding and prestige flow — remain pockets of gender resistance in Australian international affairs. This article employs a combination of qualitative interview analysis as well as quantitative longitudinal data on gender representation and agency funding across four case agencies to argue that women are gaining positions of diplomatic leadership just as diplomacy's relative power, influence and funding decreases. It contributes to women's leadership research in finding that women's increased opportunities in leadership are therefore constrained by the declining status or shrinking nature of the institution to which they are gaining access.

International affairs has a gender problem. Despite a rise in feminist‐informed foreign policy in some corners of the globe, gendered (and racialised, heteronormative, classist, and so on) power structures continue to impact women's representation internationally. This paper seeks to know why. Using Australia as a case study, it explores four premier international affairs agencies, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defence (inclusive of the Department of Defence and Australian Defence Force), Department of Home Affairs, and the Australian Federal Police, to answer: Why do women remain under‐represented in international affairs? Using feminist institutionalist theory, this article argues that three core reasons underline women's under‐representation: (1) historical legacies that maintain masculine supremacy in the field; (2) contemporary layering and duplication of gendered challenges across individual, agency, diplomatic field, and society contexts; and (3) the compounding effect of challenges at different stages of women's careers, lives, and posting cycles. In addition, this paper reveals surprising findings, including that more militaristic agency structures result in more proportional representation of women compared with more bureaucratic agency structures, inverting conventional theory on militaries as the most male‐dominated and patriarchal spheres of the state.

In among the silencing and invisibility of their stories, queer women operate as critical leaders in international affairs. They face multiple marginalisations: (1) challenging the archetypical diplomat or security leader as a heteronormative (white) male; and (2) operating in different cultural contexts with varying negative attitudes towards women in power and homosexuality in general. Providing both empirical and theoretical contributions to the fields of diplomacy, feminist and queer theory, this article gains unique access to Australian lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, and intersex diplomats and attachés to understand: what are the experiences of queer woman leaders in international affairs?

PurposeThis paper aims to explore synergies between feminist, first nations and queer theories and social, circular and climate entrepreneurship, to build a framework for supporting climate just entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on an extensive qualitative review of the literature on gender justice, equality, social entrepreneurship, the circular economy, climate entrepreneurship and climate action, as well as theorising feminist, first nations and queer approaches to climate action through entrepreneurship.FindingsWhilst climate change is a "threat multiplier" for existing gender (and other) inequalities, gaps remain in engraining gender equality and gender justice principles in social, circular and climate entrepreneurship. Through analysing the literature for critical gaps and theorising at the intersection of climate entrepreneurship and feminist, first nations and queer theories, the authors advocate that a framework for climate just entrepreneurship could play a pivotal role in combining proactive climate action and gender equality measures through entrepreneurship. It could also be a significant step towards ensuring entrenched, systemic inequalities are not perpetuated in nascent and rapidly evolving fields such as the circular economy, social enterprise and climate entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThe literature on climate entrepreneurship is burgeoning, yet key entrepreneurial concepts lack an explicitly feminist or gender lens approach, even whilst being inextricably linked to effective climate action. This paper seeks to rectify this gap by promoting climate just entrepreneurship as a model for effective climate action.

Summary
Much of the research on gender and diplomacy has focused on those already let into the 'club'. This article analyses the 'threshold' to diplomacy: security clearance processes. Security vetting ultimately determines who progresses, and what level of clearance (and therefore seniority or position) a diplomat can achieve. This article seeks to trace the journey for individuals entering a diplomatic career. It argues that security vetting is simultaneously based on legitimate processes for assessing potential national security threats, and on values interpretation (such as loyalty, maturity and trustworthiness) which may invite bias or lead to illegitimate processes of exclusion. By excavating the gendered history of vetting, we can better understand the limitations of the current de-historicised and 'impartial' process. We argue that clearance processes have not sufficiently evolved over the past decades of social progress, which has negative implications for the evolution of diplomacy as a social practice.

Abstract
Intelligence services are important sites of contestation, often the foci of reform and calls for greater transparency. Yet, while growing attention has been paid to intersectionality, gender equality reform, and progress in other areas of international affairs, little of this same transparency and attention has been paid to diversity in the intelligence sector. This paper seeks to bridge the gap, comprising a systematic review of the literature on diversity in the intelligence sector to improve our understanding of what is known and what can be known about the history and current make-up of the intelligence sector—and those who "do intelligence work". By identifying strengths and gaps in the literature and setting an agenda for future research within these "secret institutions", this paper argues that the lack of transparency, data, and knowledge on the interplay of gender, race, and sexuality, among other aspects of diversity in intelligence, is deeply troubling. It hampers our knowledge of how the sector may be "gendered" or otherwise experienced, as well as how this particular area of the security sector may or may not be integrating gender and other perspectives into their work. This paper finds that diversity in the intelligence and national security sectors is both an asset and a liability to be managed. Diversity is seen as a source of intelligence gathering and analysis strength, as well as a potential threat to hegemonic masculinity in intelligence practice. Further, language and processes for promoting diversity in intelligence can reinforce stereotyped knowledge of marginalized groups that ultimately hamper calls for greater representation, diversity, inclusion, access, and opportunities in the intelligence sector.