Feminist Foreign Policy Principles in Czechia: Practitioners’ Perspectives and Ways Forward

Reuters

Through a participatory SWOT analysis, researcher Míla O'Sullivan and researcher Ondřej Horký-Hlucháň summarise the perspectives of practitioners on the application of the five principles of feminist foreign policy in Czech practice.

This participatory SWOT analysis examines how practitioners perceive the application of feminist foreign policy’s five principles – Intersectionality, Empathetic Reflexivity, Meaningful Participation, Accountability and Active Peace Commitment – in the Czech context. Feminist foreign policy extends beyond focusing on women and girls and promoting gender equality. Still, the feminist label can be off-putting to many potential supporters; a better approach might be to work with its principles through individual topics such as meaningful participation, rights at large, or social and climate justice.

A viable strategy could be to focus on a single, tangible issue – such as reproductive rights – in order to gradually shift public discourse toward a feminist approach in both domestic and foreign policy. The informal feminist foreign policy network should be sustained, with greater efforts to engage men in its activities.