Hillary Doctrine
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First Lady of the United States
U.S. Senator from New York
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The "Hillary Doctrine" is the
The doctrine
The doctrine is most explicitly stated in a December 8, 2010, surprise appearance talk[1] that Clinton made at the TEDWoman Conference in Washington, D.C.:
So the United States has made empowering women and girls a cornerstone of our foreign policy, because women's equality is not just a moral issue, it's not just a humanitarian issue, it is not just a fairness issue; it is a security issue. It is a prosperity issue and it is a peace issue ... Give women equal rights, and entire nations are more stable and secure. Deny women equal rights, and the instability of nations is almost certain. The subjugation of women is, therefore, a threat to the common security of our world and to the national security of our country.[2]
The principle was incorporated into the inaugural Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review that was conducted and published by the State Department during 2009–10, which mentioned women and girls over 130 times and which said "The protection and empowerment of women and girls is key to the foreign policy and security of the United States."[3]
The doctrine was stated again by Clinton in the culminating chapter of Hard Choices, her 2014 memoir of her time as secretary:
... It was no coincidence that the places where women's lives were most undervalued largely lined up with the parts of the world most plagued by instability, conflict, extremism, and poverty. This was a point lost on many of the men working across Washington's foreign policy establishment, but over the years I came to view it as one of the most compelling arguments for why standing up for women and girls was not just the right thing to do but also smart and strategic ... the correlation was undeniable, and a growing body of research showed that improving conditions for women helped resolve conflicts and stabilize societies. "Women's issues" had long been relegated to the margins of U.S. foreign policy and international diplomacy, considered at best a nice thing to work on but hardly a necessity. I became convinced that, in fact, this was a cause that cut to the heart of our national security.[4]
History and analysis
The roots of the doctrine begin with the lineage of Clinton's political career from standing in the shadow of her husband, President
Another important early marker was the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and the National Action Plans that came out of it.[7] And during her U.S. Senate confirmation hearings to become Secretary of State, Clinton stated: "I want to pledge to you that as secretary of state I view [women's] issues as central to our foreign policy, not as adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser than all of the other issues that we have to confront."[7]
The explicit notion of such a thing was first introduced[8] by a Newsweek article entitled "The Hillary Doctrine" and published in March 2011 by journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.[5] In it, Clinton is quoted as saying that she believes "that the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st century."[5] To strengthen her argument for women's rights, Clinton situates this issue within the context of national security, in that, "where women are disempowered and dehumanized, you are more likely to see not just antidemocratic forces, but extremism that leads to security challenges."[5]
In another article by Lemmon, published in
In their 2015 book The Hillary Doctrine: Sex and American Foreign Policy,
Hudson and Leidl then look at the foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration and Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State to see whether their actions reflected commitment to the Hillary Doctrine. In many cases, they found that it did, such as appointing many women to positions of power, increasing funding for the Office of Global Women's Issues by a factor of ten, heavy use of social media, and Clinton's local visits to women's groups.[14] Indeed, Clinton made the empowerment of women worldwide the signature issue of her time as Secretary of State.[14] But they also note a number of occasions where Clinton and the administration were silent about abuses of women or girls due to strategic needs of the U.S., most of all in the "conspicuous silence" about Saudi Arabia's treatment of its female population.[8] Finally, they look at implementation, and find that during the period in question much was done to implement the Hillary Doctrine in Washington by means of setting up a regulatory and legal framework for it, but that there was a more mixed record past that point, with omissions and weaknesses occurring in the program development, contracting, and local implementation phases.[15]
Critiques of the doctrine have suggested that it embodies "imperial feminism", the promotion of
Other formulations
Several other definitions of what a "Hillary Doctrine" might be have appeared in print.[8] Another article titled "The Hillary Doctrine", published in The Atlantic in January 2013 by journalist
In April 2015,
No explicit mention of a "Hillary Doctrine" by name has been made by Clinton herself. Moreover, in Hard Choices, she stated that there was no unified "
Bibliography
- Clinton, Hillary Rodham (2014). Hard Choices. New York: ISBN 978-1-4767-5144-3.
- Hudson, Valerie M.; Leidl, Patricia (2015). The Hillary Doctrine: Sex & American Foreign Policy. New York: ISBN 978-0-231-16492-4.
References
- ^ "Hillary Clinton: Empower girls and women". CNN. December 12, 2010.
- ^ Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, p. 3.
- ^ Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, pp. 4, 53.
- ^ Clinton, Hard Choices, p. 562.
- ^ a b c d Lemmon, Gayle Tzemach (March 6, 2011). "The Hillary Doctrine". Newsweek.
- ^ Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, pp. 7–9.
- ^ a b c Zenko, Micah (June 24, 2015). "Book Review – 'The Hillary Doctrine: Sex & American Foreign Policy'". Council on Foreign Relations. Also published in Newsweek as "Did Hillary Implement a Women's-Issues Foreign Policy?", June 26, 2015.
- ^ a b c d e Smith, Jordan Michael (June 23, 2015). "Does Hillary Really Believe in the Hillary Doctrine?". The New Republic.
- ^ a b c Lemmon, Gayle Tzemach (April 8, 2013). "The Hillary Doctrine: Women's Rights Are a National Security Issue". The Atlantic.
- ^ "Hillary Clinton: Helping Women Isn't Just a 'Nice' Thing to Do". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 20, 2013.
- ^ S2CID 9317559.
- ^ a b Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, pp. 69–73.
- ^ Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, pp. 73–144.
- ^ a b Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, pp. 51–52.
- ^ Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, p. 183.
- ^ a b Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, pp. 33, 60–62.
- ^ Hudson and Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine, p. 234.
- ^ Rohde, David (January 25, 2013). "The Hillary Doctrine". The Atlantic.
- ^ Goldgeier, James M. (April 21, 2015). "The Hillary Clinton Doctrine". The National Interest.
- ^ Clinton, Hard Choices, p. 30.
- ^ a b Goldberg, Jeffrey (August 10, 2014). "Hillary Clinton: 'Failure' to Help Syrian Rebels Led to the Rise of ISIS". The Atlantic.
- ^ a b Cassidy, John (August 11, 2014). "The Hillary Doctrine: 'Smart Power' or 'Back to the Crusades'?". The New Yorker.