While homophobia is commonly characterized as individual and personal prejudice, this collection of essays instead explores homophobia as a transnational political phenomenon. Editors Meredith L. Weiss and Michael J. Bosia theorize homophobia as a distinct configuration of repressive state-sponsored policies and practices with their own causes, explanations, and effects on how sexualities are understood and experienced in a variety of national contexts. The essays cover a broad range of geographic cases, including France, Ecuador, Iran, Lebanon, Poland, Singapore, and the United States.

Combining rich empirical analysis with theoretical synthesis, these studies examine how homophobia travels across complex and ambiguous transnational networks, how it achieves and exerts decisive power, and how it shapes the collective identities and strategies of those groups it targets. The first comparative volume to focus specifically on the global diffusion of homophobia and its implications for an emerging worldwide LGBT movement, Global Homophobia opens new avenues of debate and dialogue for scholars, students, and activists.

Contributors are Mark Blasius, Michael J. Bosia, David K. Johnson, Kapya J. Kaoma, Christine (Cricket) Keating, Katarzyna Korycki, Amy Lind, Abouzar Nasirzadeh, Conor O'Dwyer, Meredith L. Weiss, and Sami Zeidan.

| Cover Title Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Political Homophobia in Comparative Perspective Chapter 2. Why States Act: Homophobia and Crisis Chapter 3. America's Cold War Empire: Exporting the Lavender Scare Chapter 4. The Marriage of Convenience: The U.S. Christian Right, African Christianity, and Postcolonial Politics of Sexual Identity Chapter 5. Gay Rights and Political Homophobia in Postcommunist Europe: Is there an "EU Effect"? Chapter 6. Sexual Politics and Constitutional Reform in Ecuador: From Neoliberalism to the Buen Vivir Chapter 7. Prejudice before Pride: Rise of an Anitcipatory Countermovement Chapter 8. Homophobia as a Tool of Statecraft: Iran and Its Queers Chapter 9. Navigating International Rights and Local Politics: Sexuality Governance in Postcolonial Settings Chapter 10. Theorizing the Politics of (Homo)Sexualities across Cultures Chapter 11. Conclusion: On teh Interplay of State Homophobia and Homoprotectionism Contributors Index | Scholar Award, LGBTQA Caucus of the International Studies Association, 2015. — LGBTQA Caucus of the International Studies Association
|Meredith L. Weiss is an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York and the author of Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow. Michael J. Bosia is an associate professor of political science at St. Michael's College in Vermont.