Diplomacy as Crisis: An Institutional Analysis of Gender and the Failure to Negotiate Peace in Israel

Citation:

Aharoni, Sarai B. 2018. "Diplomacy as Crisis: An Institutional Analysis of Gender and the Failure to Negotiate Peace in Israel." In Gendering Diplomacy and International Negotiation, edited by Karin Aggestam and Ann E. Towns, 193-211. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Sarai B. Aharoni

Abstract:

This chapter presents a feminist new-intuitionalist analysis of peace diplomacy and strategic dialogue through a historical reading of Israeli women’s participation in: (1) the secret meetings of Golda Meir and King Abdullah in 1947/8; (2) the Oslo peace process 1993-2000; and (3) the 2007 Annapolis Peace Summit. Women’s pattern of participation in all three examples was viewed through the lens of temporality—the status of peace negotiations as a crisis event or a state of emergency; and authority—the ability to produce institutional discourses on foreign policy. The cases demonstrate that war and peace politics create unstable mechanisms in which formal and informal institutional practices firmly restrict women’s access to diplomacy. The implications of extreme conditions of militarization, secrecy and structurelessness are further discussed.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Peace Processes Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Israel

Year: 2018