Moralising geopolitics: Sexual shame and stigma in international relations

Abstract This article theorises the role of sexual shame and stigma in constituting and reproducing international order. Using Russia and the USA as illustrative cases, it argues that anti-queer politics is not an isolated domestic phenomenon but part of a broader geopolitical project of international ordering through sexual stigma. Drawing on queer theory, particularly work on shame and stigma, and connecting this to International Relations (IR) scholarship on stigma and civilisationism, the article develops a conceptual framework that accounts for the structuring role of sexual normativity in international politics. It demonstrates how processes of shaming and stigmatisation operate across scales, from the interpersonal to the international, sustaining hierarchies and legitimising geopolitical projects. Through an analysis of politicised homophobia and homophilia, the article shows how states and civil society actors mobilise sexual shame and stigma to carve out global moral hierarchies. In doing so, it makes the case that sexual normativity is not incidental to, but constitutive of, contemporary geopolitical contests, and that shame and stigma are key mechanisms through which the intimate and the international are linked. To make this argument, it uses two concepts: stigmatic encounter and stigma realignment.