Elizabeth Mesok’s writing has been published in numerous journals and edited volumes; selected publications are linked below. She is also in the process of finalizing her book, Gender is a Weapon: Feminism, Liberalism, and U.S. Counterinsurgency, which is an account of the U.S. military’s weaponization of gender in Iraq and Afghanistan, told through first-hand narratives and interviews of women marines and soldiers deployed in the so-called global wars on terror. Mesok is also co-authoring a book (SAGE), titled War and Peace: A New Introduction which promises to disrupt the fields of international relations and peace and conflict studies by emphasizing queer, feminist, decolonial, and Indigenous approaches.

Select Publications

  1. “Affective Technologies of War: US Female Counterinsurgents and the Performance of Gendered Labor,” Radical History Review (123): 60-86.

  1. “Sexual Violence and the U.S. Military: Feminism: U.S. Empire, and the Failure of Liberal Equality,” Feminist Studies 42 (1): 41-69. * Winner of the Claire Moses Goldberg Award* 

  1. “Men, Masculinity, and Sexual Violence in the U.S. Military,” in Zalewski, M., Drumond, P., Prügl, E. and Stern, M. (eds.) Sexual Violence against Men and Boys in Global Politics. New York: Routledge, pp. 57-70. 

  1. “Counterinsurgency, Community Participation, and the Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Agenda in Kenya,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 33 (4-5): 720-741.

  1. “Beyond Instrumentalisation: Gender and Agency in the Prevention of Extreme Violence in Kenya,” Critical Studies on Terrorism 15(3): 610-631.

  1. “Combat Exclusion Policies and the Management of Gender Difference in the U.S. Military,” in Bailey, B., Doan, A., Portillo, S., and Vuic, K. (eds.) Managing Sex in the U.S. Military: Gender, Identity, and Behavior. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 245-274.
  1. “Police, Fear, and International Compliance in Kenya’s Counterterrorism Agenda.” Security Dialogue (under review). Co-authored with Darja Schildknecht.