Gendered securitisation: Trump's and Putin's discursive politics of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Abstract This article presents a study of the discursive politics of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and Russia from its early onset to 30 April 2020. We examine how official securitisation discourses in the two countries draw on gendered constructions of national identity and discuss what linkages and potential implications they have for the state, its policy, and its society. Our analysis shows that both the US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin instrumentalise hierarchical gendered identities to securitise COVID-19. They mobilise gendered narratives, imageries, and practices to affirm particular understandings of the threat and create a homogeneous national ‘we’, portraying themselves as its guardians.