UNIVERSITY of TARTU Faculty of Social Sciences Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by DSpace at Tartu University Library UNIVERSITY OF TARTU Faculty of Social Sciences Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies Elina Libek FROM A CRITICAL MASS TO CRITICAL ACT(OR)S: THE SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN PEACE PROCESSES BA thesis Supervisor: Louis Wierenga, MA Co-supervisor: Alar Kilp, PhD Tartu 2017 Olen koostanud töö iseseisvalt. Kõik töö koostamisel kasutatud teiste autorite seisukohad, ning kirjandusallikatest ja mujalt pärinevad andmed on viidatud. ………………………………….. Elina Libek Kaitsmine toimub …………………………………../kuupäev/ kell …………../kellaaeg/ ………………../aadress/ auditooriumis ……………./number/. Retsensent: ………………………………….. /nimi/ (…………./teaduskraad/), ………………………………….. /amet/ ABSTRACT A growing awareness of the gender-specific experiences of women in war and post-war conditions have gradually introduced the term “substantive representation of women” to the attention of institutions and individuals concerned with peace and security, from whose agenda it had thus far been absent. Both scholars and policy-makers dealing with the issue of gender and security have reached a general agreement that peace processes should reflect women’s substantive representation, meaning that women’s interests should be included in official peace agreements. The main purpose of this paper was to answer the question, what are the factors accounting for the substantive representation of women in peace. That was done through an in-depth analysis of the peace processes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Colombia, combining within-case process tracing with cross-case comparison. The occurrence of the substantive representation of women in peace processes was analysed focusing on three dimensions – location of representational activities, critical actors, and means of expressing SRW. What emerged from the analysis are six factors accounting for more gender-sensitive peace agreements, substantively representing women’s interests: (1) inclusiveness of the peace process in terms of civil society and public involvement; (2) strength and autonomy of women’s organizations; (3) links between the informal and formal arenas of a peace process; channels for accessing the negotiation process; (4) co-operation between the critical actors in different representational arenas; (5) ability to create a coherent women’s agenda; (6) advocacy from the key stakeholders at the negotiating table. There is further research required on several subsequent issues, including: how well the gender-specific provisions of final peace agreements reflected the diversity of women’s concerns and the extent to which these provisions have been implemented in post- conflict settings. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 6 1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................................ 9 1.1. The descriptive and substantive representation of women ..................................... 9 1.2. The substantive representation of women in the context of peace processes....... 12 1.2.1. The dynamics of peace processes .................................................................. 12 1.2.2. Gendered understandings of peace and security ........................................... 13 1.2.3. Peace processes and the representation of women’s interests ...................... 15 2. METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................... 17 2.1. Research design .................................................................................................... 17 2.2. Analytical considerations ..................................................................................... 19 2.3. Case selection ....................................................................................................... 20 2.4. Data ...................................................................................................................... 21 3. THE SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN EL SALVADORAN, GUATEMALAN AND COLOMBIAN PEACE PROCESSES ..................................... 22 3.1. A brief overview of the cases ............................................................................... 22 3.2. The pre-negotiation phase .................................................................................... 24 3.2.1. El Salvador .................................................................................................... 25 3.2.2. Guatemala ...................................................................................................... 26 3.2.3. Colombia ........................................................................................................ 28 3.3. The negotiation phase ........................................................................................... 30 3.3.1. El Salvador .................................................................................................... 30 3.3.2. Guatemala ...................................................................................................... 31 3.3.3. Colombia ........................................................................................................ 34 3.4. Comparison of the cases and conclusions ............................................................ 36 SUMMARY .................................................................................................................... 40 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 42 Resümee .......................................................................................................................... 48 TABLES Table 1. The main representational arenas and actors in a peace process ...................... 20 Table 2. The substantive representation of women in El Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Colombian peace processes............................................................................................. 37 FIGURES Figure 1. The substantive representation of women in peace processes ......................... 39 INTRODUCTION War and peace can be seen as gendered concepts themselves, being often represented within a dichotomous frame in which war is masculine and peace is feminine. That, however, is only one facet of the complex gendered dimensions present in war, peace and security notions. A growing awareness of the gender-specific experiences of women in war and post-war conditions has taken place both in academia and in practice, one of the most important landmarks being the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) adopted in October 2000. In light of UNSCR 1325, three general themes concerning women, peace and security have emerged: protection, participation, and insertion of a gender perspective. These three pillars, serving as a normative ideal, can be tied together with the concept of substantive representation of women (SRW). Against this background, both scholars and policy-makers dealing with the issue of gender and security have reached a general agreement that peace processes should reflect women’s substantive representation, meaning that women’s interests should be included in official peace agreements. There is, however, less consensus about how this can be achieved effectively. Given the overall content of UNSCR 1325 and traditional theoretical approaches of SRW, the underlying assumption is that the more women participate in the formal peace process (descriptive representation), the more likely the peace agreement will refer to women’s needs (substantive representation). A growing body of literature, however, suggests that women’s inclusion is more complicated than a mere matter of presence, therefore the participation of women in peace negotiations does not automatically guarantee gender-sensitivity of resulting agreements (Ellerby 2016; Waylen 2014; Reimann et al. 2013). Given that context, one might rightfully ask, if women’s presence at the peace table is not the most important factor accounting for the SRW, what are they? The research question this paper aims to answer is: what are the factors accounting for women’s substantive representation in peace processes in terms of their interests being represented in official peace accords? To elaborate on this question, this research paper uses a heuristic case study design for the purpose of developing general theoretical propositions regarding the factors accounting for the SRW in the context of peace processes. A method of comparative process tracing is applied to identify key factors affecting how the pre-negotiation and negotiation phases of a peace process can be gendered and translated into peace agreements substantively representing women’s interests. This is done through a within-case comparison of the peace processes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Colombia. The comparative study of the three cases relies on the conceptual framework of SRW presented by Celis et al. (2008). The process-focused framework moves further from a simple assumption that an increase in women’s descriptive representation will automatically translate into an increase in the substantive representation of women and offers a more holistic approach of SRW. Reflecting from the analytical questions presented in the framework, three dimensions of the representational process are analysed in the El Salvadoran,