It has been a while since I last posted on my blog. I am returning to blogging with a renewed sense of the importance of generating discussion with the US-focussed research community. In the months and years to come I will be sharing my thoughts on the impact of women in US foreign policy (USFP) and the impact of USFP on women, as well as discussing UK elite and working class attitudes towards the US during WWII. My role at the Institute for the Study of the Americas is to place this primary material into databases in order to facilitate the research of others i.e. YOU! My hope is that you’ll provide feedback on what you want the databases to be able to do.

For the women and USFP project I will develop an online database with interviews from approximately 50-75 people. In order to make the data from the interviews as useful to you as possible I need your help in determining what questions I should ask.

This is a breakdown of the different categories of people to be interviewed:

1. Women involved in USFP
   • Decision-maker (DM);
   • Policy-maker (PM);
   • Practitioner (P), and
   • Theorist/ Academic/ Analyst (TAA).
2. People involved in promoting women’s issues in USFP
   • Decision-maker (DM);
   • Policy-maker (PM);
   • Practitioner (P), and
   • Theorist/ Academic/ Analyst (TAA).
3. Women affected by USFP
4. People that can talk about women being affected by USFP

I’d like to focus on the first group Women involved in USFP. I think it is important to note that the women in this category work for the US government in foreign policy but do not have to be working on women-related issues. The line of questioning will differ depending on the category the person is in e.g. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a decision-maker. Provisionally, however, I will break the interview down into three substantive parts:

• General questions asking them their opinions on USFP (I need a list of general topics including current affairs ones such as views on the current status of US engagement in Afghanistan);
• Ask specific questions related to the events and issues that they were personally involved in (the more renowned the interviewee the more information I can find on what they did. I also need to break these questions down into career stages/ employment positions), and
• Ask questions specific to their thoughts and experiences on what it is/ has been like to be a women in the USFP arena.

What research are you working on at the moment? Who would you like to be interviewed? What questions would you like to be asked? By answering these questions I can better tailor the research to your needs. If you have any questions please post a comment and I will get back to you ASAP.

Take care, Matthew

Further Reading on E-International Relations

• The Status of African Women in Foreign Policy
• Opinion – What the US Exit from the Paris Accords Means for Women
• 10th Anniversary Post – Why E-IR Is Awesome for Us
• The Impact of White Supremacy on US Foreign Policy towards Africa
• The Growth of Feminist (?) Foreign Policy
• What to Do When You Don’t Like a Topic You Teach?