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This thesis explores why gender hierarchy remains resilient and entrenched in contemporary political life, despite efforts to challenge and transform it. I approach this question by focussing on the reproduction of gendered subjects, which I argue is integral to the reproduction of what I term ‘gender orders’. This reproduction is interrogated through an analysis of the reproduction of homosexuality in the contemporary British armed forces. A review of the literature in feminist International Relations (IR) shows feminists have engaged with poststructural thought to develop sophisticated analyses of the subject as an effect of power. I argue that there might be further resources in post structural thought which could be mobilised to expose the incompleteness and failure of all attempts to reproduce subjectivity which might open up new ways to intervene and subvert gender. Drawing on the thought of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler I develop a critical methodology for analysing the reproduction of gendered subjects in the contemporary British armed forces. I argue that the military gender order is traditionally sustained through the segregation of women and the exclusion of homosexuals. As such it is pervasively heteronormative. For this reason I argue that the potential ‘integration’ of homosexuals did pose a significant threat to the gender order. However I will argue the threat posed by the integration of LGBT personnel has been neutralised by a series of responses which ‘re-inscribe’ them into the gender order, although these responses are always unstable. I demonstrate that gender often fails to guarantee the intelligibility it promises, and attempts to order gender necessarily break down. However I will argue that this cannot be exploited instrumentally in order to subvert gender because the gender order is better characterised as being in perpetual crisis, and any attempt to reproduce gender differently will also be unstable and prone to crisis. Consequently critique then becomes a relentless call to question, undermine and deconstruct all attempts to secure political orders, with no guarantees. Ultimately the thesis demonstrates that gender orders are complex, mobile and resilient and argues that modes of feminist critique need to be similarly mobile and responsive to a constantly shifting discursive terrain.

Over the past decade, the United Kingdom has witnessed a proliferation of civil-military initiatives that have engendered overt and celebratory displays of support for the British Armed Forces. This thesis interrogates two of these initiatives: the annual public relations event Armed Forces Day and the military charity Help for Heroes. Significantly, these initiatives have emerged against a backdrop of morally and politically contentious military violence, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hence, these initiatives raise important questions about the type of politics which underwrite them. In this thesis, I address these questions by critically engaging with a figure who occupies a key position within this UK civil-military landscape: the professional soldier. Adopting a Foucauldian approach, I place this figure within a broader political, social and historical context and show how, since the end of the Second World War, the professional soldier has continually remerged to rewrite the conditions of possibility for liberal war-fighting. Drawing on this insight, I identify a professional soldier, I label the biopolitical military professional, who greatly informs the contours of this contemporary UK civil-military landscape. The biopolitical military professional is an important figure because they are able to co-opt "civilian" political subjects into the service of liberal-warfighting despite a conflict's political context. This is made possible because the biopolitical military professional is a figure who incorporates their military expertise and professional concerns within a wider set of life-administering knowledges concerned with the health and well-being of the population. Crucially, the most overt expressions of biopolitical military professionalism are produced through these UK civil-military initiatives. I demonstrate this by showing how these initiatives mobilise a whole host of "civilian" proto-professional subjects into the active service of liberal war-fighting through an appeal to both their military "obligations" and their fitness and wellbeing. An effect of this is that participating in one of these initiatives becomes more than an act of military support it also becomes a way of partaking in a healthy and life-enriching activity. For example, a day out at Armed Forces Day is a way to get children to take part in active play and educational activities. Supporting the armed forces through Help for Heroes may involve running a marathon or taking part in a long-distance cycle ride. Consequently, via the presence of the biopolitical military professional these initiatives achieve a certain resonance with a civilian population disinterested in the politics of war but increasingly concerned with their health and wellbeing.

In 1997, 70% of British Armed Forces roles were opened to women. Women were still excluded from ground close combat (GCC) roles, where the primary purpose is to close in on and kill the enemy at short range, usually under 30 metres, using weaponry or hand to hand combat. Excluding women from GCC roles in the military was covered under Section 85(4) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. In order to legally retain the exclusion, the European Community Equal Treatment Directive stipulated that a review of the role of women in certain ground close combat environments should be undertaken every eight years. In this study I will be using post-structural policy analysis to examine the ways the 2010 and 2016 reviews on women in ground close combat have constructed gender difference. The findings have shown that cohesion and physical capacity have been deemed essential to combat effectiveness, therefore in this study I argue that the subtexts of these “essential” factors of combat are actively limiting the potential for gender equality in the British Armed Forces.

Are drones revolutionary? Reading about military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or 'drones', one could be led to believe that drones are a revolutionary technology, set to fundamentally change warfare. Their fast proliferation, the association with Science Fiction, combined with the secrecy that surrounds drone use has led many to conclude that the 'Unmanned Revolution' is upon us. This thesis studies the Unmanned Revolution. It develops a framework based on the concept of the 'Revolution in Military Affairs' and applies it to the study of three countries' drone uses and integration into their armed forces. It furthermore explores the role that the designation as revolutionary has played for the integration and use of UAVs in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It shows that drones have proven their worth in military operations and compares the three countries' experiences. This thesis' detailed assessment of how the different countries have adopted drones and what implication this adoption has had, makes it a work of reference, in particular with regard to the German and British case studies. Assessing five types of changes - operational, doctrinal, strategic, organisational, and social and societal - this thesis argues that the most fundamental, and possibly revolutionary, change caused by military drones is social, namely, the fundamentally changed experience of war by combatants. In addition, it highlights country-specific changes. It concludes that the designation of drones as revolutionary has had an important impact in one country, Germany, although in the opposite way than initially expected. Namely, the intense debate around UAVs has hindered drone procurement and doctrinal thinking. In the other two countries, the Unmanned Revolution narrative was less prevalent and hence less influential. As drones are proliferating globally, I hope my thesis can be of use to policy-makers, military decision-makers as well as researchers worldwide.