Dystopias and Utopias of Women, Peace and Security

This article is published as part of Fridays With MUNPlanet and its series dedicated to world politics and the United Nations. Laura Shepherd (UNSW Australia, and LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security) discusses the possible futures for the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and proposes two different visions for the next decade. The author argues that in a “dystopian” version, one could see “ integration of WPS and CVE further narrowing the scope of the kind of violence we are allowed to talk about preventing,” while in a “utopian” scenario “we might dare to dream that in another decade of WPS activism, analysis and implementation, we might see moves towards peace, disarmament, and demilitarisation.”

In 2015, the international community, including national and international civil society organisations and various United Nations entities, celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. The WPS agenda derives from UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, which was passed in October 2000 as the first of eight resolutions addressing the gender dynamics of peacemaking, peacebuilding, and international peace and security; all eight resolutions are binding on all UN member states and other UN entities.UNSCR 1325 articulates three priority issues: the prevention of violence, particularly sexualised and gender-based violence; the meaningful participation of women in peace and security governance; and the protection of women’s rights and bodies in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Since the adoption of UNSCRC 1325, the Women, Peace and Security agenda has developed in divergent, contested, and sometimes challenging ways. There has been extensive research on the implementation of the resolution at the state level, which usually takes place through the development of National Actions Plans (NAPs), sometimes supported by Regional Actions Plans (RAPs). Many scholars have commented — some with alarm, some more sanguine — on the bifurcation of the WPS agenda into ‘protection’ versus ‘participation’ machineries, noting that the former dimensions seems to enjoy much greater institutional support at present, both within and outside of the UN. (This is perhaps a result of the gendered logics of protection that make it easier, conceptually, to accept a peace and security governance architecture that positions women as victims of violence rather than agents of change.) And, both within the academy and in policy circles, speculation has begun regarding ‘next steps’ and new directions of WPS policy and practice.

This short essay proposes two different futures of Women, Peace and Security: a dystopian and a utopian vision. The value of telling these different stories is to tease out the directions in which the WPS agenda might travel over the next decade, as we look back at and learn from the last decade and a half of activity in this space. My analysis is informed by a workshop that Paul Kirby and I co-hosted at the London School of Economics and Political Science Centre for Women, Peace and Security, in March 2016. Over fifty delegates attended from across five continents; there was a mix of government officials, policy-makers, practitioners, advocates, activists, and academics, all of whom brought fascinating insights into the current state of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, its attendant challenges and ongoing concerns.

You can read the full article on MUNPlanet.

Cover Image: A woman poses in front of a graffiti representing the sun on the occasion of the observance of the World Mental Health Day.6/Oct/2008. Dili, Timor-Leste. UN Photo/Martine Perret, via Flickr.