The futures past of the Women,Peace and Security agenda

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has developed at the United Nations over the course of the past 15 years, and there have been critical engagements with it for nearly as long. In this article, we first take stock of the operationalization of the WPS agenda, reviewing its implementation across a number of sectors. In the second section, we expose the tensions that have marked the WPS agenda from the start. With others, we argue that there has been a narrowing of the agenda's original scope, reducing it to the traditional politics of security rather than reimagining what security means. We highlight this reduction primarily through an analysis of the tension between the ‘participation’ and ‘protection’ pillars of the agenda. Further, we argue that the WPS agenda faces a current challenge in terms of the actors entrusted with it. Although in some ways involving civil society, the consolidations and implementation of WPS principles at the national and international levels have become increasingly state‐centric. Third, we imagine some possible futures of the agenda, from a trajectory characterized by increasing marginalization or even irrelevance, to new avenues like the emergent, albeit tentative, ‘Men, Peace and Security’ agenda. We close with an argument for a revival of the WPS agenda beyond a fixation on states, beyond a narrow heteronormative or essentialist focus on the ‘Women’ of the WPS resolutions, and moving towards the radical reimagining of security as peace that inspired the original architects of these important resolutions.     

The Women,Peace and Security agenda: Australia and the agency of girls

This article argues that young women and girls are significant stakeholders in peace and security efforts. Understanding their roles, views and capacity is essential to an adequate perspective on peace and security. Yet girls remain the most marginalised group when it comes to peace and security efforts globally. Gender- and age-based hierarchies often leave their interests ignored. Excluding girls hinders prospects for sustainable peace by denying their rights, entrenching inequity and affecting future chances for increasing women's participation. Australian government statements on Women, Peace and Security are evaluated on how they relate to young women and girls. The article presents a series of cases to analyse how young women are impacted by security factors, how they are actively working to create peace and security, and how to better include girls in seeking peace. Options for action by Australian policymakers are discussed.

本文指出,青少年女性是和平与安全努力的重要相关方。正确的和平安全观需要理解这些青少年女性的角色、观点和能力。但全世界但凡涉及和平安全,女孩都是一个最边缘化的群体。性别及年龄的等级制忽视了她们的利益。对女孩的排斥拒绝了她们的权利,强化了不平等,妨碍了妇女未来的参与,这都不利于未来的持久和平。作者评估了澳大利亚政府关于妇女、和平及安全的宣示与青少年女性有多大关系。本文分析了安全因素如何影响年轻女性,青年女性右如何积极致力于创建和平及安全,和平事业该如何吸收女孩等等。作者还讨论了澳大利亚政策制定者的行动选择。     

Gendering normative power Europe: lessons of the Women,Peace and Security agenda

The European Union is seen to operate at the international level by promoting ideas and values, rather than by exerting military or economic power. As a gender actor, the EU has played a key role in the development of formal equality, which is presented as a foundational principle of European integration. It therefore follows that normative power Europe should seek to promote these values in external affairs. This article interrogates the role of the EU as a normative gender actor in relation to its implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, set out in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and related resolutions. Documentary analysis will be supplemented by a detailed assessment of speeches and public statements about the role of the EU as a gender actor in external affairs. This data will be used to assess whether there is a disjuncture between the dominant narrative about gender equality as a fundamental value of the EU and the actions of the organization. It will also allow us to assess whether gender mainstreaming is a tool for public diplomacy or has made a significant change to the way the external relations agenda is formulated and implemented. Additionally, the article will draw attention to the institutional obstacles to the EU performing a role as a gender actor in external affairs. It identifies a critical tension between framing the WPS resolutions as an extension of the EU's equality on the one hand, and understanding that gender mainstreaming is a mere policy tool in international affairs. In doing so, it highlights how competing institutional demands can ultimately undermine core values (e.g. equality) when they are used instrumentally.     

Decolonizing branded peacebuilding: abjected women talk back to the Finnish Women,Peace and Security agenda

This article interrogates the sexual ideology of Finnish peacebuilding, the country's foreign policy brand and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda by examining the experiences of women ‘written out of history’. Using the method of ‘writing back’ I juxtapose the construction of a gender‐friendly global peacebuilder identity with experiences in Finland after the Lapland War (1944–45) and in post‐conflict Aceh, Indonesia (1976–2005). Although being divided temporarily and geographically, these two contexts form an intimate part of the abjected and invisible part of the Finnish WPS agenda, revealing a number of colonial and violent overtones of postwar reconstruction: economic and political postwar dystopia of Skolt Sámi and neglect of Acehnese women's experiences in branding the peace settlement and its implementation as a success. Jointly they critique and challenge both the gender/women‐friendly peacebuilder identity construction of Finland and locate the sexual ideology of WPS to that of political economy and post‐conflict political, legal and economic reforms. The article illustrates how the Finnish foreign policy brand has constructed the country as a global problem‐solver and peacemaker, drawing on the heteronormative myth of already achieved gender equality on the one hand and, on the other, tamed asexual female subjectivity: the ‘good woman’ as peacebuilder or victim of violence. By drawing attention to violent effects of the global WPS agenda demanding decolonialization, I suggest that the real success of the WPS agenda should be evaluated by those who have been ‘written out’.     

‘Transformation in contact’: learning the lessons of modern war

The US and British armies have faced intelligent and adaptive enemies in Iraq and continue to do so in Afghanistan. While both armies have proved adept at fighting high‐intensity conflict, their initial performance against asymmetric threats and diffuse insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated how much each army had to learn about conducting counterinsurgency operations. This article examines one important means by which the US and British armies have transformed themselves into more flexible and responsive organizations that are able to harness innovation at the front effectively. It traces the development of the lessons‐learned systems in both armies from the start of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq to today. These changes have resulted in significant development within the organization of both armies. Reform of US and British army learning capabilities offers an important insight into the drivers of military change. The reformed lessons‐learned systems have been better integrated into training, experimentation, and doctrine and force development. While there are still challenges to be overcome, both armies have created robust structures that facilitate the movement of knowledge from recent experience at the front to the rest of the organization. As such, these reforms provide us with a useful case‐study that enhances our understanding of the role of ‘bottom‐up’ initiatives in military innovation.     

‘To Women in the Year 2000’: Norwegian Historians of Women,c.1900–c.1960

The lives and writings of three women who during the first half of the twentieth century wrote books on women's history are the subject of this article. Ragna Nielsen, a teacher and an amateur historian, in 1904 published her account of women's lives during the first part of the nineteenth century, stressing the sad consequences of patriarchal attitudes, but also the importance of women's contribution to the maintenance of a national identity. Anna Caspari Agerholt and Mimi Sverdrup Lunden, both with masters' degrees in history, belonged to the next generation. Agerholt is mainly remembered for her impressive book of 1927 on the Norwegian women's movement, while Lunden's books of 1942 and 1948 on women's work were important contributions to social history. The writings of these three women's historians are related to dominant positions within Norwegian historiography of their times, highlighting how they helped change central concepts by adding gender to class analysis and to the process of constructing a national identity, stressing the importance of voluntary organisations to the formation of politics and widening the concept of work.     

Anthropology, ‘Native Schooling’ and Maori: the Politics of ‘Cultural Adaptation’ Policies

This paper examines three policies of ‘cultural adaptation’ formulated in colonial contexts in the 1920s and 1930s — that of the British Colonial Office for education in Africa, that of the New Zealand Native Schools and that of Maori leaders. While clearly inter-related, these policies were developed and promoted by their respective proponents to serve widely different political goals. Particularly significant is the role played by anthropology in that context. Proponents of all three policies looked to anthropologists for insights and scientific validation of their political agendas. Anthropologists, in turn, not only accepted this role but, particularly in the case of the British Colonial education policy, actively claimed it, involving themselves in the processes of colonial control.     

The Peace of God,the ‘weakness’ of Robert the Pious and the struggle for the German throne, 1023–5

The author of The Deeds of the Bishops of Cambrai accused Bishops Berold of Soissons and Warin of Beauvais of overstepping the boundaries of episcopal authority and usurping royal rights by promoting the Peace of God and attributed their initiative to the weakness of King Robert the Pious. This paper argues that the author was misrepresenting the situation to hide the vulnerability of the bishop of Cambrai during the succession of Conrad II. Instead, Berold and Warin's peace council was patronized by Robert the Pious and was a symptom of French royal assertiveness in the period 1023–5. The reasons for the Cambrai author's distortions are to be found in the significance of kings in the rallying of support on a local and regional level.     

The ‘new home front’ and the war on terror: ethical and political reframing of national and international politics

This article adopts the notion of the ‘new home front’ to consider the spatial complexity of the war on terror and the blurring of domestic and foreign policy divides. It considers the politics and ethics of the war in three main areas: new media and everyday life; liberalism under strain; and citizens’ lives, multiculturalism and gender. It discusses the increasing role of horizontal (bottom up) influences alongside vertical (top down) ones, not least in the context of new media, which adds the sociospatial (virtual) realm of online communications to the familiar geospatial (physical) world of politics. Implications of the extended nature of the war on terror are assessed, as well as the potential for developments that have been part of it to impact on the broader sphere of liberal international politics in the future.     

NRM Regions in Australia: the ‘Haves’ and the ‘Have Nots’

This paper identifies external factors affecting the capacity of Australia's now‐formalised 56 regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies and their community‐based Boards to meet planning and management responsibilities. It demonstrates that little is known about the basic capacity‐related characteristics of NRM regions, despite the lengthy and elaborate process of regionalism that Australia has embarked upon, with its associated and substantial devolution of responsibilities and resources. A suite of indicators is used to develop an ‘exploratory’ capacity typology of NRM regions. The ten regional ‘types’ identified are found to attract varying budget allocations under the Natural Heritage Trust Extension and National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. There are indications that State and regional interests within and outside NRM can significantly influence the distribution of resources. An examination of resources allocated to capacity‐building activities shows significant differences between regions in the scale of resources allocated (0–96% of total budget). The paper argues the case for intervention to reduce the gap between ‘have’ and ‘have not’ regions, and for further exploration of disparities in the allocation of resources to capacity‐building activities. Clarification is needed of the extent to which capacity‐building activities adequately target regional NRM bodies and their Boards.     

The problem with ‘radicalization’: the remit of ‘Prevent’ and the need to refocus on terrorism in the UK

This article questions the utility of the term ‘radicalization’ as a focus for counter‐terrorism response in the UK. It argues that the lack of clarity as to who the radicalized are has helped to facilitate a ‘Prevent’ strand of counterterrorism strategy that has confusingly oscillated between tackling violent extremism, in particular, to promoting community cohesion and ‘shared values’ more broadly. The article suggests that the focus of counterterrorism strategy should be on countering terrorism and not on the broader remit implied by wider conceptions of radical‐ization. This is not to diminish the importance of contextual or ‘root cause’ factors behind terrorism, but, if it is terrorism that is to be understood and countered, then such factors should be viewed within the terrorism‐counterterrorism discourse and not a radicalization‐counter‐radicalization one. The article goes on to consider the characterization of those presenting a terrorist threat to the UK as being ‘vulnerable’ to violent extremism. While it argues that the notion of vulnerable individuals and communities also lends itself to a wider ‘Prevent’ remit, it cautions that the impetus towards viewing terrorism as the product of vulnerability should not deflect us from what has generally been agreed in terrorism studies—that terrorism involves the perpetration of rational and calculated acts of violence.     

The ‘Global’ versus the ‘Local’: Cognitive Processes of Kin Determination in Aboriginal Australia

ABSTRACT Morgan and his informants' interpretation of Australian social categories as ‘marriage classes’ has survived in Dumont's (and Viveiros de Castro's) distinction of a ‘local’ (Dravidian systems) and a ‘global’ (Australian systems) formula. This paper explains that the ‘global formula’ is neither a necessary nor an applied device in Australian kin category determination, even when genealogical memory is short and when there is a non‐limitation of range in the extension of categories. Instead, a heuristic model, which is called the relational triangle, is proposed. This model depicts the procedure through which Australian people pragmatically determine and extend kin categories. Moreover, it also offers a visualisation of the cognitive schema and processes framing discourse and behaviour in relation to kinship and draws some parallels with Greenberg's hypotheses on markedness in kinship classes.     

‘White Skins‘, ‘Real People’ and ‘Chinese’ in Some Spatial Transformations of the Western Province,PNG1

To understand more fully contemporary forms of colonialism in PNG I argue we need to move our analysis beyond local narratives of encounters with Europeans to include narratives about non-Europeans. Through a consideration of Kamula accounts of Europeans, especially missionaries, and Chinese I show how the Kamula model two quite different experiences of colonialism. In one, local people are able to transform Europeans into analogues of themselves and in the other, currently more associated with the Chinese, the emphasis is on difference, rather than on commonalities. These interrelated representations of two distinct kinds of colonialists are, in part, complex signifiers of national, and especially local, concerns about ‘development’ based on logging. I outline how these accounts of Europeans and Chinese express the different forms of power which are currently deployed to transform space in the Western Province. I conclude by speculating that to understand these powers adequately we may need to follow Latour and Callon and extend our analysis of colonialism to include non-human agents.