Post-Conflict

Citation:

Pupavac, Vanessa. 2005. “Empowering women? An assessment of international gender policies in Bosnia.” International Peacekeeping 12 (3): 391-405.

Author: Vanessa Pupavac

Abstract:

International policy-making promises to empower women in Bosnia through encouraging their participation in the political process, giving them a voice in civil society and providing enhanced opportunities for economic independence. This essay challenges these claims, suggesting that while a narrow echelon of young middle-class urban professionals have benefited from international gender approaches, the prospects for ordinary Bosnian women have not improved. First, the essay considers international attempts to promote the political empowerment of women through quota mechanisms and support for women’s organizations operating in civil society. Secondly, it considers international policies intended to further the economic empowerment of women and how these relate to broader neo-liberal prescriptions for the post-war state. It concludes that international policies, in both the political and economic realms, contain fundamental limitations which look likely to frustrate the long-term advancement of women in Bosnia.

Topics: Civil Society, Class, Economies, Gender, Women, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2005

Citation:

Björkdahl, Annika, and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic. 2014. “Gendered Justice Gaps in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Human Rights Review 15 (2): 201-18.

Authors: Annika Björkdahl , Johanna Mannergren Selimovic

Abstract:

A gendered reading of the liberal peacebuilding and transitional justice project in Bosnia–Herzegovina raises critical questions concerning the quality of the peace one hopes to achieve in transitional societies. By focusing on three-gendered justice gaps—the accountability, acknowledgement, and reparations gaps—this article examines structural constraints for women to engage in shaping and implementing transitional justice, and unmasks transitional justice as a site for the long-term construction of the gendered post-conflict order. Thus, the gendered dynamics of peacebuilding and transitional justice have produced a post-conflict order characterized by gendered peace and justice gaps. Yet, we conclude that women are doing justice within the Bosnian–Herzegovina transitional justice project, and that their presence and participation is complex, multilayered, and constrained yet critical.

Keywords: Gender, gender-just peace, transitional justice, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Critical agency

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2014

Citation:

Reeves, Audrey. 2012. “Feminist Knowledge and Emerging Governmentality in UN Peacekeeping.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 14 (3): 348-69.

Author: Audrey Reeves

Abstract:

Since the 1970s, gender expertise has achieved a high degree of salience in global governance processes in general, and, over the last decade, within institutions concerned with international peace and security in particular. This study addresses the question of what happens when feminist knowledge is incorporated into the discourse of security institutions. It draws on Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality to examine the contingent encounters of feminist discourses with the liberal peace paradigm and traditional conceptions of security in the context of United Nations multidimensional peacekeeping operations over the period 1999–2010. Throughout these encounters, political rationalities of peacekeeping tend to subjugate feminist objectives to the broader goal of conflict resolution. Simultaneously, feminists and women’s rights activists who engage with mainstream peacekeeping rationalities are turning into potentially influential ‘gender experts’, who contest and redefine traditional meanings of peace and security. As bureaucratic machineries become involved in the collection of data on post-conflict gender dynamics, such as violence against women and girls, women’s formal political participation and acts of sexual violence committed by peacekeepers, feminist knowledge increasingly informs technologies of population management in post-conflict settings. In the process, certain gendered and racialized identities are normalized, and certain rationales for military intervention in the post-colonial world are put forward, thus contributing to creating new marginalities and consolidating existing ones.

Keywords: gender mainstreaming, governmentality, peacekeeping, power/knowledge

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Girls, Femininity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, International Organizations, Peacekeeping, Political Participation, Post-Conflict, Security, Sexual Violence, SV against Women

Year: 2012

Citation:

Lemaitre, Julieta, and Kristin Bergtora Sandvik. 2014. “Beyond Sexual Violence in Transitional Justice: Political Insecurity as a Gendered Harm.” Feminist Legal Studies 22 (3): 243-61.

Authors: Julieta Lemaitre, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik

Abstract:

The growing literature on gender in armed conflict and the debates over post-conflict reparations for women, focus on the prevalence and harms of sexual violence. While this focus has recently been critiqued, there are few articulations of other types of gendered injuries. This article decentres the emphasis on sexual violence by examining the intersection between forced displacement and political insecurity. Based on extensive field research in Colombia, and using as an example a case study of an internally displaced women’s grassroots organization in Cartagena, Colombia, this article examines political insecurity as a specifically gendered harm. It reflects on the concrete circumstances of insecurity, on the relevance of traditional gender roles in the constitution of insecurity, and on the challenges for court-ordered remedies. This widening of the scope of attention also invites complex reflection on the possibility of transformative reparations in post-conflict situations.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Displacement & Migration, Forced Migration, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Justice, Reparations, Transitional Justice, Political Participation, Post-Conflict, Security, Sexual Violence, Violence Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2014

Citation:

Gizelis, Theodora-Ismene. 2011. “A Country of their Own: Women and Peacebuilding.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 28 (5): 522-42.

Author: Theodora-Ismene Gizelis

Abstract:

Research on women and post-conflict reconstruction tends to focus primarily on women as victims and passive targets for aid rather than conceptualizing peacebuilding as a process where greater participation by women may help increase the prospects for success. Here, I argue that women’s social status is a dimension of social capital that is largely independent of general economic development. Societies and communities where women enjoy a relatively higher status have greater prospects for successful peacebuilding, as cooperation by the local population with peacebuilding policies and activities increases. Thus, in the presence of a UN-led peacebuilding operation, women’s status has a direct and independent impact on post-conflict reconstruction. The theoretical claims are empirically assessed by looking at variation in levels of cooperation and conflict during the UN peacebuilding missions within the countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Keywords: peacebuilding, United Nations, women's organizations

Topics: Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2011

Citation:

Sriram, Chandra Lekha. 2013. "Making Rights Real? Minority and Gender Provisions and Power-Sharing Arrangements." The International Journal of Human Rights 17 (2): 275-88.

Author: Chandra Lekha Sriram

Abstract:

Power-sharing arrangements have lasting effects on societies where they are put in place, as they can not only allocate access to power to particular groups in the short to medium term but also shape the legal and institutional landscape of the post-conflict country. There are potential risks thus to the protection of human rights inherent in power-sharing arrangements. First, those given the most significant benefits in power-sharing arrangements are usually the protagonists to the conflict, who may have committed serious human rights abuses and will resist accountability for past abuses as well as the legislation of human rights protections. However, it is also possible that power-sharing arrangements will include provisions which may help to promote human rights, such as those setting aside seats in executive cabinets or legislatures, or posts in security forces, or autonomous regions, for minority groups or indigenous people, or all but the final type of provision for women. In principle, such provisions can help to secure greater representation of traditionally underrepresented groups, who in turn might be in a position to promote greater protection of the rights of those groups. This article considers the possible effects, positive and negative, of power-sharing arrangements on rights of women, minorities and indigenous people.

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Indigenous, Post-Conflict, Rights, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2013

Citation:

Cockburn, Cynthia. 2013. “Against the Odds: Sustaining Feminist Momentum in Post-War Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Women’s Studies International Forum 36 (2): 26–35. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.01.003.

Author: Cynthia Cockburn

Abstract:

During the nationalist wars that destroyed Yugoslavia, a women's organization in central Bosnia-Herzegovina was set up to respond to the needs of women raped and traumatized in the fighting. In 1995, as the war ended, the author made a study of the feminist and anti-nationalist thinking and relationships among the doctors, therapists and other staff of Medica Women's Therapy Centre. In 2012 she returned to Bosnia to reinterview women and track developments in this post-conflict period. Medica now supports survivors of domestic violence, on the one hand working in a close partnership with local government services and on the other lobbying the state for improved legislation and provision. In a political system riven by nationalism, women report a retrogression in gender relations and high levels of violence against women. A recent split in Medica signals divergences in feminism and aspirations to a more radical and holistic movement.

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Domestic Violence, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Nationalism, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2013

Citation:

Brown, Kris, and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin. 2015. "Through the Looking Glass: Transitional Justice Futures through the Lens of Nationalism, Feminism, and Transformative Change." The International Journal of Transitional Justice 9: 127-49.

Authors: Kris Brown, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin

Abstract:

In reflecting on the contemporary challenges and future directions of transitional justice theory and practice, this article addresses causality, accountability and political form in a triangulated assessment of nationalism’s power and ‘stickiness’ in the present formulations of transitional solutions. Addressing the identity politics of transitional justice brings us to assess the political forms that enable, define and consume transition with a particular hew to power-sharing and consociationalism-type arrangements in the aftermath of systematic atrocity. The authors provide a pragmatic, perhaps cynical account of the triumph of consociationalism as the preferred transitional accommodation, and point to the ‘dark side’ of governance arrangements in postconflict settings with implications for understanding cycles of violence and repeat conflict patterns. In both contexts, we deploy a feminist lens to understand the implications for women and gender transformation emerging from our framing of the politics of transitional justice in the contemporary moment.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Justice, Impunity, Transitional Justice, Nationalism, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Year: 2015

Citation:

Rimmer, Susan Harris. 2010. “Sexing the Subject of Transitional Justice.” The Australian Feminist Law Journal 32: 123-47.

Author: Susan Harris Rimmer

Abstract:

In the absence of the requisite political will at both the domestic and international level, transitional justice mechanisms can be manipulated or rendered impotent, whilst creating false expectations, waylaying the efforts of human rights advocates and costing millions of donor dollars. A feminist strategic legalist approach would focus on gaining the full participation of women in peace negotiations and key decisions about transitional justice processes and the development of a justice sector, and preserving evidence and acquiring data in relation to international and domestic gender crimes for the day when fair trials can be held. The formal ending of violence does not necessarily mean the achievement of peace, rather it provides a 'new set of opportunities that can be grasped or thrown away'. Law in a transitional period might hold an 'independent potential for effecting transformative politics' and 'liberalising' change. On the other hand, in the context of the societal breakdown caused by armed conflict, feminist scholars may be asking international law to engage in too much 'heavylifting'. If transitional justice represents theory and praxis in a liminal zone between international relations and international law, both of which have proved resistant to feminist analysis, why are many feminists so confident that transitional justice represents an opportunity for transformative change?

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, International Law, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Organizations, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, War Crimes, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Political Participation, Post-Conflict, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2010

Citation:

Chappell, Louise. 2010. “Gender and Judging at the International Criminal Court.” Politics & Gender 6 (3): 484-95.

Author: Louise Chappell

Abstract:

Imagine this: a court presided over by a majority of women judges--many of whom are from racially marginalized backgrounds--and which has a "constitution" that has gender justice at its core. Incredibly, given what we know about gender and judging cross-nationally, this is not some utopian vision but the current reality at the International Criminal Court (ICC). As of May 2010, the 18 member ICC bench consisted of 11 women judges, most of whom were from outside the West and many of whom have expertise in gender-based violence. This development raises a range of important questions, two of which I want to speculate on in the following discussion: How is it that the sex profile of the ICC bench differs so dramatically from domestic-level courts? What difference might this profile make to the transformation of international law in terms of expanding gender justice principles?

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Equity, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, International Law, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Organizations, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Transitional Justice, War Crimes, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2010