The Logic of Protection: Narratives of HIV/AIDS in the UN Security Council

Citation:

Jansson, Maria. 2016. “The Logic of Protection: Narratives of HIV/AIDS in the UN Security Council.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (1): 71–85. 

Author: Maria Jansson

Abstract:

When HIV/AIDS was first addressed by the UN Security Council in 2000, it was seen as the culmination of a successful securitization process and a pivotal moment for introducing human security. However, concern for the epidemic was paired with problems in including a nonmilitary issue on the Security Council’s agenda and the fear that peacekeepers were vectors of HIV. Reports of peacekeepers being involved in sexual exploitation and abuse added to these problems. This article aims to understand how gender has informed the efforts to address these issues and to rehabilitate peacekeeping forces and the Security Council from the legitimacy challenges that arose in this context. The article argues that including nonmilitary issues on the Security Council agenda requires adjustment to fit a war/peace logic. Drawing on feminist theories on security and protection, the analysis shows that the security narrative on HIV/AIDS did not form a coherent protection logic until the 2011 reformulation, when HIV/AIDS was constructed as part of the problem of wartime rape. This reformulation is interpreted as an appropriation of gender equality to reproduce a military security doctrine.

Keywords: Gender, HIV/AIDS, UN Security Council, peacekeeping, Securitization

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Health, HIV/AIDS, International Organizations, Peacekeeping, Security, Human Security, Sexual Violence, Rape

Year: 2016