"New Wars"

Citation:

Author: Megan H MacKenzie

Abstract:

Maintaining security in a post-conflict country is often seen to be dependant on peace-building and reconstruction. One can hardly escape terms such as building sustainable peace and post-conflict construction. The disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, and rehabilitation, or DDR-R process for former combatants is being touted as an ideal model for ensuring that post-conflict societies return to peace. These four simple steps to lasting security have been used as a model in war torn countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola. The logic is that these steps aid in restoring countries to more secure, stable times. More specifically, this model streamlines former combatants from soldiers to citizens. Given that the task of this process is to encourage combatants to shed their roles as fighters and to return to their former pre-war roles, it seems intuitive that the way that women and girls go through this process is of particular interest. In fact, despite the ascendancy of this DDR-R model, there has been little critical analysis of the implications of this process for women in war-torn countries. Using Sierra Leone as a case study, I explore how women and girls have been included and treated at each phase of this process. I look specifically at the tendency of organizations and agencies operating DDR-R programs to promote a return of women and girls to their pre-war roles and the tension that women and girls feel between the power they gained as combatants and the social pressure to reintegrate. I also examine the implications, for women and girls, of international and national organizations commitment to equating security with the return to pre-war society rather than rethinking relations of power. I include testimonies from 50 former girl soldiers who talk about their roles during the conflict and their hopes for themselves today.

Keywords: women, conflict, development, security, post-conflict, reintegration

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, "New Wars", Combatants, Child Soldiers, Female Combatants, DDR, Gender, Women, Girls, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Post-Conflict, Security, Human Security Regions: Africa Countries: Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2007

Citation:

Author: Valentine Moghadam

Abstract:

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Development, Gender, Women, Girls, Gendered Power Relations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Peacebuilding, Security, Human Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2011

Citation:

Author: Saba Gul Khattak

Abstract:

Afghan women have been the symbolic target of competing discourses and political strategies. The US-led bombing of Afghanistan used the rhetoric of women’s emancipation as a major reason for the attack without pursuing real ‘liberation’. The misogynist Taliban discourse, as it was promulgated in the Pakistan-based refugee camps and heavily funded by the western world, marked a severe deterioration in Afghan women’s rights. After the US-led military intervention of 2001, the Karzai government’s unfounded claims vis-‡-vis women’s betterment have not been realized. Afghan women, a clear majority of the Afghan population, are not at the centre of the government’s concerns or those of the international community. Engaging these problematics, this article claims that conventional politics, informed by statist and masculinist ideologies and practices, are incapable of ensuring Afghan women’s emancipation.

Keywords: Afghanistan, military, masculinity, violence, United States, women

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Combatants, Male Combatants, Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gender Analysis, Gendered Discourses Regions: Asia, Central Asia Countries: Afghanistan, United States of America

Year: 2004

Citation:

Jacobson, Ruth. 2013. "Women 'after” Wars." In Women and Wars, edited by Carol Cohn. Cambridge: Polity Press. 215-42

Author: Ruth Jacobson

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Development, Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Refugees, Refugee/IDP Camps, Economies, Gender, Women, Girls, Gender Analysis, Gender Balance, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Equity, Globalization, Governance, Constitutions, Post-Conflict Governance, Health, HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health, Infrastructure, International Financial Institutions, International Organizations, Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, NGOs, Peacekeeping, Political Participation, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Privatization, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Year: 2013

Citation:

Mann, Bonnie. 2006. “How America Justifies Its War: A Modern/Postmodern Aesthetics of Masculinity and Sovereignty.” Hypatia 21 (4): 147-163. 

Author: Bonnie Mann

Abstract:

The lies about the reasons for the U.S. war against Iraq provoked no mass public outcry in the United States against the war. What is the process of justification for this war, a process that seems to need no reasons? Mann argues that the process of justification is not a process of rational deliberation but one of aesthetic self-constitution, of rebuilding a masculine national identity. Included is a feminist reading of the National Defense University document Shock and Awe.

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Discourses, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Terrorism Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2006

Citation:

Coe, Kevin, David Domke, Meredith Bagley, Sheryl Cunningham, and Nancy Van Leuven. 2007. "Masculinity as Political Strategy: George W. Bush, the 'War on Terrorism,' and an Echoing Press. Journal of Women, Politics and Policy 29 (1): 31-55. 

Authors: Kevin Coe, David Domke, Meredith Bagley, Sheryl Cunningham , Nancy Van Leuven

Abstract:

Scholars have demonstrated the centrality of masculinity as an ideology in the American presidency, but have devoted insufficient attention to the manner in which political leaders can emphasize masculine themes to gain strategic advantage, and how media organizations can be encouraged to adopt such themes in news coverage. With this in mind, in this research we analyze President George W. Bush's public communications prior to and immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and NBC network television news coverage and New York Times and Washington Post editorials during the latter dates to elucidate the nature of masculinity as a political strategy. Findings indicate that in the aftermath of September 11 Bush enacted a highly masculine ideology through his treatment of the press and emphasis upon two masculine themes–strength and dominance–and that this approach facilitated wide circulation of his masculine discourse in the press.

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, "New Wars", Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Discourses, Media, Governance, Terrorism Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2007

Citation:

Chinkin, Christine, and Mary Kaldor. 2013. “Gender and New Wars.” Journal of International Affairs 67 (1): 167-87.

Authors: Christine Chinkin, Mary Kaldor

Abstract:

War plays an important role in the construction of gender, or the social roles of men and women. This article analyzes the gendered experience of what Kaldor calls "new wars." It shows that new wars are largely fought by men in the name of a political identity that usually has a significant gender dimension. They use tactics that involve deliberate attacks on civilians, including systematic rape as a weapon of war, and are financed by predatory economic activities that tend to affect women more than men. The article describes the ways in which laws relating to gendered violence have been strengthened since the 1990s, arguing that implementation has been very weak. The article concludes that the construction of masculinity in new wars, in contrast to the heroic warrior of "old wars," is much more contradictory and insecure. On the one hand, extreme gender differences can only be secured through continuted violence; on the other hand, the very contradictory and insecure character of masculinity offers a potential for alternatives. By looking at new wars through a gender lens, it is possible to identify policy options that might be more likely to contribute to a sustained peace. These include support for civil society, which tends to involve a preponderance of women, implementation of law at local and international levels, and greater participation of women in all aspects of peacemaking, including peacekeeping and law enforcement.

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Civil Society, Combatants, Male Combatants, Economies, Gender, Women, Men, Masculinity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, SV against Women, Violence

Year: 2013

Citation:

Harrington, Carol. 2011. “Resolution 1325 and Post-Cold War Feminist Politics.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 13 (4): 557–75. doi:10.1080/14616742.2011.611662.

Author: Carol Harrington

Abstract:

Social movement scholars credit feminist transnational advocacy networks with putting violence against women on the United Nations (UN) security agenda, as evidenced by Resolution 1325 and numerous other UN Security Council statements on gender, peace and security. Such accounts neglect the significance of superpower politics for shaping the aims of women's bureaucracies and non-governmental organizations in the UN system. This article highlights how the fall of the Soviet Union transformed the delineation of ‘women's issues’ at the UN and calls attention to the extent that the new focus upon ‘violence against women’ has been shaped by post-Cold War US global policing practices. Resolution 1325's call for gender mainstreaming of peacekeeping operations reflects the tension between feminist advocates’ increased influence in security discourse and continuing reports of peacekeeper perpetrated sexual violence, abuse and exploitation.

Keywords: Cold War, transnational advocacy networks, new wars, democratization, peacekeeping, human rights, feminism, violence against women, United Nations

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Democracy / Democratization, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Gender-Based Violence, Gender Mainstreaming, International Organizations, NGOs, Peacekeeping, Rights, Human Rights, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Sexual Violence, SV against Women Regions: Asia, Europe Countries: Soviet Union (former)

Year: 2011

Citation:

Gray, Chris Hables. 2003. “Posthuman Soldiers in Postmodern War.” Body & Society 9 (4): 215–26. doi:10.1177/135703403773684739.

Author: Chris Hables Gray

Abstract:

The centrality of human-machine weapon systems is a key aspect of postmodern war. Since 1939 such systems have proliferated while improved interfaces have led to several types of actual cyborg soldiers. As the crisis of postmodern war deepens it is producing a series of quite different militarized bodies. Cyborgs proliferate in type so it is no surprise that we have pilot-cyborgs and tele-operators, info-cyborgs (from political operatives to clerks and including all the servants of the computers and weapons systems), and various fighting cyborg soldiers and sailors. There has also been a resurgence of a type of irregular warrior that many commentators describe as bestial. It is not a coincidence that while humanity is on the verge of producing real posthumans (quite possibly for military applications) so-called “prehuman” types of war have broken out across the globe. War is based on bodies and its skewed logics have driven many cyborgian developments. Now, both war and our cyborg society are involved in a linked crisis fueled by the relentless march of technoscience that has made modern war impossible and posthumans probable. The future of the human, and of a multitude of potential posthumanities, will largely be determined by how this crisis is resolved.

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Gender, Masculinity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Violence, Weapons /Arms

Year: 2003

Citation:

Peterson, V. Spike. 2008. “‘New Wars’ and Gendered Economies.” Feminist Review 88 (1): 7–20. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400377.

Author: V. Spike Peterson

Abstract:

This paper draws on the ‘new wars’ literature and global political economy research to explore how feminists and other critical analysts might investigate linkages between, and the gendering of, licit and illicit informal activities in relation to transnational financing of new wars. The paper considers the interdependence (co-constitution) of reproductive, productive and virtual economies, and aims to illuminate the intersection of race, gender, and economic inequalities (within and among states) as structural features of neoliberal globalization. Finally, the paper develops an analytical framing of coping, combat and criminal informal economies, which overlap and interact but entail distinctive sets of actors, motivations, and activities. A brief description of each economy is followed by suggesting how it is gendered and how this might inform feminist theory/practice in relation to war. (Palgrave Macmillan)

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Economies, Feminisms, Gender, Globalization, Political Economies

Year: 2008