Engendered Security: Norms, Gender and Peace Agreements

Abstract

As civil conflicts continue to be the most prevalent form of war, women and children are disproportionately affected by intrastate violence. In response to such findings, the United Nations, at the behest of a transitional activist network, passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which outlined how to include more women in formal security practices.Because of the normative qualities of the Resolution, I employ a norms framework to explore the properties and evolution of when and how women are part of peace agreements. Before exploring the norm of engendered security, I present a review of feminist security studies and how engendered security is understood using a gender lens. To first establish what a norm is, I developed a three-level approach which illuminates the principles, properties and policies that constitute a norm; I then apply this model to the norm of engendered security. I then use this norm to study peace agreements, and develop graphs and tables illustrating the varied levels of engendered security in different peace processes.Then, to address the ways in which this norm has evolved, I employ a norm lifecycle model which includes four stages: innovation, emergence, enactment and routinization. Subsequent chapters explore the first three phases of engendered security's development into a norm. This includes a discussion of Guatemala as a norm innovator, in which a strong domestic women's movement and feminist leaders promoted a high level of engendered security in their peace process. Norm emergence focuses on the agenda-setting of a Peacewomen's Network who promoted Resolution 1325; it includes an analysis of the developing discourses of security and women, culminating in global recognition of women's insecurity in conflict. The final chapter explores norm enactment and the ways in which norms become common practices and policies in various security-related institutions. This chapter concludes with a study of Sudan's two peace processes and the role the international community played in producing very different levels of engendered security.Ultimately, the views of leaders during peace processes, the presence of an organized women's movement and agenda and gender-conscious mediators seem to account for higher levels of engendered security.