And back to the interview, or not, as the case may be. This interview, as well as all the others, can serve more than one mistress or master. Data can be used to support or refine arguments that a researcher is already making or it can be used as an inspiration for new research. And in line with the premise of this project (as noted in part one) it does not have to be overtly gender focused. The very fact that one is utilising the voices of women on non-gender explicit subjects is itself an essential defining aspect of the project. In order to illustrate the utility of this interview and as an extension, this repository, I will concentrate on the case of national sovereignty versus the responsibility to protect.

The following is one of the questions I asked Secretary Albright:

In discussing the US 1994 proposal to the UN to lead a military mission to oust what you called the ‘illegitimate leaders’ of  Haiti, you mention that ‘several Latin American Ambassadors spoke against the proposed intervention on the traditional grounds of protecting national sovereignty’ [Madam Secretary: A Memoir, p. 200]. Do you see the decision by the Security Council to vote in favour of a US-led military engagement as the beginning of a significant development in a movement towards protecting human security at the expense of national sovereignty?

Albright recounts how the 1990s were a transition period for states determining how to act in an international order where intra-state conflicts were damaging international stability. She suggests that after the Cold War, the role of UN peacekeepers changed from being solely the keepers to a peace between former warring groups to the makers and enforcers of peace. And Haiti was an important first example of dealing with a crisis before it tipped over and became worse. It was a case whereby the sovereign was abrogating its responsibility to protect its citizens, and a decision determined by the international community and by conditions it set and not the Haitian people. In a follow-up question on the emerging competition to the Westphalian notion of protecting national sovereignty by the responsibility to protect doctrine, as enunciated by Gareth Evans, Albright suggests that these two positions will sit uncomfortably side-by-side for the foreseeable future. She poses a number of important questions on this emerging doctrine, the details of which have yet to be fully mapped-out. For example, which agents can be legitimate enforcers of the responsibility to protect; NATO, ad-hoc coalitions? How can the doctrine philosophically combat opposition from countries that see these external forces as modern interpretations of imperial aggressive meddling of developed states with the domestic affairs of developing states?

And what this part of the interview got me thinking about is the rapid emergence of the responsibility to protect doctrine. One of its architects, Gareth Evans, spoke at a symposium on Humanitarian Intervention at the University of Wisconsin, Madison on March 31, 2006. He commented that:

On any view, the evolution in just five years of the ‘responsibility to protect’ concept from a gleam in a commission’s eye to what now might be described as a broadly accepted international norm, creating in the process the context for a far more effective response to conscience-shocking situations than the international community has managed in the past, is an extremely encouraging story.

Can, however, the doctrine be usurped by powerful states as a framework for legitimating their own national interests? Can the language of the responsibility to protect be subverted? When does the language of protecting individuals legitimate the actions that inadvertently or ‘coincidentally’ change a regime?  And are there any recent examples that could be argued in this way?

Libya comes to mind. Can my cynicism of this doctrine be applied to the case of the Libyan sovereign Qaddafi and the Libyan people?

In mirroring the language of this doctrine, in March 2011 the UNSC approved Resolution 1973 which empowered actors to impose a no-fly zone in Libya to protect civilians against what the UNSC said were ‘widespread and systematic attacks’ which ‘may amount to crimes against humanity’.

This is a new topic of interest for me, and I would like to hear your thoughts on the arguments for and against the international community’s intervention in Libya? Was it to halt a humanitarian disaster, whose national interests were served, and how did it serve them?

Take another example of the right to protect language being utilised in part h of Article IV of the 2000 ‘Constitutive Act of the African Union’, whereby the Union has the right ‘to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity’. Interestingly in part i of the same article it notes that there should be ‘non-interference by any Member State in the internal affairs of another’. Do these two not contradict each other?

And what of the differences between collective decision-making at the AU or the UN whereby states support the right to act versus unilateral decision-making? Legally different, yes, but is it morally or ethically different? Maybe not

This project examines the relationship between women and US foreign policy through examining women as makers and recipients of foreign policy, as well as examining how contemporary foreign policy is influenced by a gender agenda aimed at elevating women’s rights to the platform of national interests. It does so, through interviews with four categories of people: Women involved in US foreign policy; People involved in promoting a gender concerned foreign policy; Women affected by US foreign policy; and experts that can talk about the different dimensions to this relationship between women and US foreign policy.

My most recent interview was with someone who could easily be counted in all four of these categories, but in different periods of her life. Madeleine Albright, the US foreign policy practitioner and policy-maker, the women’s rights implementer in foreign policy during her time as a US Ambassador to the UN and as Secretary of State, the daughter of a Czechoslovak dissident who was a recipient of US support during WWII and the Cold War, and finally as the academic examining foreign policy.  

What you get from interviewing the people that made important decisions or were directly impacted by these important decisions are first-hand accounts, it gives us details about personalities that help us understand and empathise. It creates a vertical link from the grower of foreign policy, to the worker that implements the foreign policy to the recipient of that policy. And at times the link between all three is more exigent when all three are talking about the same event. Think for example, of a woman that decides as Secretary of State to use military force and diplomacy to free Kosovars from Serbian aggression in 1999, of a woman that was involved in implementing democratising programmes for USAID in Kosovo, and then of a Kosovar woman who lived in Pristina and was a beneficiary of a USAID project to implement civil society building programmes.

So, I arrive two hours early for my interview. Experience has taught me that when you interview a busy person with a hectic schedule your time slot may not correspond to reality. Therefore, if you come early they may already be there twiddling their thumbs because their schedule has been changed due to someone higher up on the food chain having themselves been delayed due to other plans. It means that you will not lose your opportunity to get the interview. Now, in the case of the former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, there was no one higher and so this did not really apply, but the point remains. Arriving early also gives one an opportunity to get comfy with the surroundings. The most unsatisfying interactions I have with people are when I, or the other, are harried because they are late; it takes a few minutes before the brain catches up with the body and one has fully arrived! It creates a bad juju and the opportunity for a satisfying synergy becomes evermore difficult.

Anyway, as I was saying, I am two hours early. Whilst the busy energised people are frenetically organising the other aspects to Albright’s visit to the LSE, I sit in the 2^nd floor room at LSE Ideas in a state of enforced Zen checking to make sure that the recording equipment is working, batteries, and replacement batteries, are fully charged and that I have the print-out of the questions.

As it turns out, she arrives 20 minutes late. And, after the formalities, our first interaction is quintessentially British, I say; ‘would you like a cup of tea?’ She says ‘Yes’, and she pours me a cuppa.  

The principal difficulty in organising a project aimed at facilitating the research of other academics is to first determine what subject-fields to focus on, who are the academics, and find out what topics they are working on. Obviously, it is impossible to please everyone and it would be dangerous to do so. Asking only one question for those in a plethora of academic disciplines would lead towards superficial discussions with minimal scope for analysis. And with only an hour for each person it would leave no room for follow-ups. As a result, I decided to centre the questions on the following premise. Although essential and important, this project is not just about women’s experiences either on having a career in this field or as a recipient of US foreign policy. It is so much more than that. This in itself would be in contrivance to the underlying, yet explicit aim of this project, which is to elevate the underrepresented voices of women in foreign policy as practitioners, commentators, policy-makers, academics and recipients.

We then sit down, facing each other across the table, and I am nervous. In order to attend to this premise outlined above, I explain how the project is aimed at recording people’s thoughts and experiences on the multidimensional relationship between women and US foreign policy. And that the questions for you are centred on four themes: what got you interested in international relations and foreign policy, including questions on personal experiences of gender discrimination; issues involved with your foreign policy-related career; experiences and knowledge of US engagement with gender issues in foreign policy, and finally personal views on recent foreign policy related issues.    

 Tune in next time for part two!