This special issue aims to bring public diplomacy and nation branding in dialogue with gender, queer and feminist studies. The aim of the special issue is to chart new directions for research and policy interventions by engaging with the gendered dimensions of public diplomacy and nation branding. The editors are particularly interested in exploring how strategic efforts to create and manage favourable images of nation-states relate to the marginalization of ideas, bodies, and identities.
The call for papers follows the growing body of feminist scholarship and gender sensitive perspectives in diplomacy studies (Cassidy, 2017; Aggestam & Towns, 2019), motivated, in part, by a greater inclusion of women, transgender and LGTB diplomats inm Traditionally heteronormative and masculinized foreign service organizations (Aggestam & Bergman- Rosamond, 2016). This issue also recognizes the changing nature of diplomacy in response to the influence of non-state actors, digital technologies and transnational processes of globalization (Pamment, 2012; Zaharna, 2010).