Sex, Geopolitics, and the Emergence of an 'Anti-Woke’ International

Abstract

In this seminar, Cooper-Cunningham examines the moral economy around sex as a constitutive force in contemporary geopolitics. Drawing on queer theory and International Relations scholarship, he suggests that ideas about "normal" sexuality—heterosexuality, monogamy, and binary gender—have long structured international order, from European colonialism's exportation of sexual norms to present-day geopolitical contests. Russia's construction of "Gayropa" serves as a central empirical site for building this argument, illustrating how moralising discourses around sexuality and "traditional values" are mobilised to challenge the Liberal International Order and legitimise projects such as the war in Ukraine. Such discourses are increasingly echoed transnationally by far-right actors as well as the USA framing "traditional values" as a global struggle against “wokeness". To account for these dynamics, I develop two interconnected frameworks—heteronormative internationalism and queer realism—showing how sexual shame and stigma sustain international hierarchies across scales, and how non-state actors use words, images, and bodies to resist heteronormative geopolitical projects.

Bio

Dean Cooper-Cunningham is an Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on gender, sexuality, visual politics, and international security. He is particularly interested in how global political actors strategically mobilise pro- or anti-queer agendas in domestic and foreign policy. Some of his more recent work focuses on atrocity prevention. 

Cooper-Cunningham was part of a pioneering project with Jess Gifkins and the NGO Protection Approaches, which focused on integrating queer experiences and perspectives into atrocity prevention frameworks in order to better prevent mass atrocity and violence. His most recent book The International Politics of Sex: Bodies, Images, and Russian State Homophobia was published by Oxford University Press in 2026. 

Chair: Ov Cristian Norocel, Associate Professor in Gender Studies, Department of Sociology, Lund University