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This case study is an excerpt from McGlinchey, Stephen. 2022. Foundations of International Relations (London: Bloomsbury).

States in the Global North are often keen to proclaim their support for LGBTQ rights at an international level and to admonish those states that do not respect them. But, in some cases their treatment of LGBTQ migrants would suggest they have some way to go before they can live up to the ideals they espouse. Many governments place the so-called ‘gay conditionality’ on aid donations to states in the Global South, dictating that they must end bans on homosexuality and the persecution of LBGTQ people in order to receive aid. It is a move that resonates with colonial ideas about bringing civilisation and liberal values to the peoples of the Global South (Kahlina and Ristivojecić 2015).

Queer theory offers useful insights here. ‘Gay conditionality’ sets up a simplistic binary between the West and the rest, modern, civilised, liberal values and outdated, barbaric homophobia. Yet, scholars of the Global South note the irony in the fact that in many former colonised states, laws banning homosexuality were drawn up by the very same powers of the Global North that are now trying to force their retraction (Chankia et al. 2013). For example, while institutionalised homophobia in some African states is frequently presented as the result of traditional and cultural values that date back centuries, present day attitudes towards sexuality were heavily influenced and shaped by........

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