1st Edition
Gender, Governance and International Security
The United Nations Security Council, in 2000, unanimously passed a resolution calling for women’s increased participation in conflict prevention and peacebuilding, as well as their protection during conflict. This marked the first time that the UN Security Council explicitly addressed gender issues in ‘conflict’ and ‘post-conflict’ situations. But what difference has this international agenda on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ made to women’s lives on the ground and to the governance of international peace and security?
This volume provides a critical evaluation of the mainstreaming of gender issues in matters of international peace and security resulting from the passage of Resolution 1325 in 2000. It considers how this agenda actually plays out in different contexts, and with what implications for women’s activism and for peace and security.
The picture that emerges is not uniform, obliging us to reconsider the links between gender, conflict, different visions of peace and, consequently, different projects of peacebuilding. Consequently, the book poses new questions for transnational feminist scholars and activists.
This book was based on a special issue of the International Feminist Journal of Politics.
1. Introduction: Critically Examining UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security 2. Sex, Security and Superhero(in)es: From 1325 to 1820 and Beyond 3. No Angry Women at the United Nations: Political Dreams and the Cultural Politics of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 4. UNSCR 1325 and Women’s Peace Activism in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 5. Resolution 1325 and Post-Cold War Feminist Politics 6. ‘Women, Peace and Security’: Addressing Accountability for Wartime Sexual Violence 7. Configurations of Post-Conflict: Impacts of Representations of Conflict and Post-Conflict upon the (Political) Translations of Gender Security within UNSCR 1325 8. Feminist Knowledge and Emerging Governmentality in UN Peacekeeping 9. Leveraging Change: Women’s Organizations and the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 in the Balkans
Biography
Nicola Pratt is Reader of the International Politics of the Middle East at the University of Warwick, U.K. She researches and writes about gender, civil society and security in the Middle East. She is also joint leader of the ‘Reconceptualising Gender’ research network between Warwick and Birzeit University (Palestine).
Sophie Richter-Devroe is lecturer in Gender and Middle East Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University, U.K. She is the author of several prize-winning articles on Palestinian women’s activism against Israeli occupation. More recently her research focuses on Palestinian refugees and the Naqab Bedouins.
'Gender, Governance and Security offers a timely and ethically relevant collection of essays that all critically engage with the virtues and shortcomings of United Nations (UN) Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. Pratt and Richter-Devroe and their contributors raise very important ethical questions regarding the universal applicability of 1325 and critically take on board the essentialist discourses and practices that surround the resolution and as such helping to deconstruct the protection myth that underpins so much of international relations scholarship. The book is an indispensible contribution to debates about the lack of intersectional awareness amongst policy-makers charged with the task of furthering women’s peace and security in international society. It offers telling feminist insights into the misuse of 1325 to justify, amongst other things, military intervention and brute force more generally.' - Annika Bergman Rosamond, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Lund University, Sweden.
'This remarkable collection offers a timely opportunity to engage and reflect upon the impact of SC Resolution 1325 some 10+ years after its adoption. Lauded as one of the most important accomplishments concerning women, peace and security at the UN while simultaneously drawing sharp criticisms from feminist activists and academics alike, this volume captures the contours of that debate with nuance and sophistication in both theoretical and empirical terms. It is a must read for anyone interested in questions of gender, governance and security.' - Sandra Whitworth, Professor of Political Science, York University, Former Editor, International Feminist Journal of Politics
'The Women, Peace and Security agenda began in the United Nations Security Council with Resolution 1325 but has since fanned out across the world to UN peacekeeping missions in conflict, post conflict and non-conflict member states. It portends to make the participation of women in peace processes, the prevention of conflict and protection against gender-based and sexual violence central to international security policymaking. That has not happened even after a decade of ‘gender mainstreaming’ efforts. Gender, Governance and International Security explains why – interrogating the assumptions and the practices promoted by UNSCR 1325 at the highest level and on the ground in conflict and post-conflict settings. It demonstrates that feminist research and transnational activism are needed more than ever not just to hold states to account but to transform a problematic resolution into a critical engagement with the gendered nature of security politics.' - Professor Jacqui True, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Australia
