The Women, Peace and Security Agenda: The Unfinished Story of Feminist Revolution versus Compromise in Global Politics
Abstract
The adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on
women, peace and security (WPS) in 2000 has prompted the development
of an extensive WPS scholarship within the field of feminist International
Relations. The dynamic scholarly debate is characterised by certain tensions
between two feminist groups – the radical revolutionary one which
advocates a redefinition of the global order and is more sceptical of the
agenda, and the pragmatist one accentuating the compromise towards the
existing peace and security governance. This article explores the two main
subjects of the WPS research – the discourse and implementation, as they
have been informed by the revolutionary and pragmatist approaches. The
article shows that while the academic inquiries into the WPS discourse
reveal disappointment with the compromises made regarding the
revolutionary vision, this disappointment is also present in the literature on
implementation. The latter literature nonetheless acknowledges feminist
pragmatism as a way forward given the realities on the ground.
Keywords
UNSCR 1325, Women, Peace and Security Agenda, feminist critique, revolution, pragmatism
Author Biography
Míla O'Sullivan
Míla O’Sullivan is a Researcher at the Institute of International Relations
Prague and a PhD Candidate at the IIR and Metropolitan University Prague.
She is primarily researching Women, Peace and Security in the context of
Central and Eastern Europe, focusing in particular on Czech foreign policy
and the conflict-affected Ukraine. She serves as an academic advisor on
gender in Czech foreign policy in various government bodies.