Gender, Human Security and the United Nations

Security Language as a Political Framework for Women

Natalie Florea Hudson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415622233
• eBook ISBN: 9781135196929
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book examines the relationship between women, gender and the international security agenda, exploring the meaning of security in terms of discourse and practice, as well as the larger goals and strategies of the global women's movement.

Today, many complex global problems are being located within the security logic. From the environment to HIV/AIDS, state and non-state actors have made a practice out of securitizing issues that are not conventionally seen as such. As most prominently demonstrated by the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2001), activists for women's rights have increasingly framed women's rights and gender inequality as security issues in an attempt to gain access to the international security agenda, particularly in the context of the United Nations. This book explores the nature and implications of the use of security language as a political framework for women, tracing and analyzing the organizational dynamics of women's activism in the United Nations system and how women have come to embrace and been impacted by the security framework, globally and locally. The book argues that, from a feminist and human security perspective, efforts to engender the security discourse have had both a broadening and limiting effect, highlighting reasons to be sceptical of securitization as an inherently beneficial strategy.

Four cases studies are used to develop the core themes: (1) the campaign to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325; (2) the strategies utilized by those advocating women's issues in the security arena compared to those advocating for children; (3) the organizational development of the UN Development Fund for Women and how it has come to securitize women; and (4) the activity of the UN Peacebuilding Commission and its challenges in gendering its security approach.

The work will be of interest to students of critical security, gender studies, international organizations and international relations in general.

Natalie Florea Hudson received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Connecticut and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Dayton. She specializes in gender and international relations, human rights, international security studies, and international law and organization.

1 Women, peace, and security

An introduction

I am of two minds on this regarding human rights, meaning that I believe that in an ideal world we should be caring and paying attention to and promoting and protecting human rights because they are so fundamental to the dignity of human beings not because they can become threats to security. At the same time, I know that politicians, the political establishment in general, not just the establishment, but political people who are in politics in general—whether civil society or government—they respond, their lights go up when they hear security aspects, you know, conflict. It’s sort of sexy and alive, you know buzzers. And so, then what is left to strategizers like me when I have to deal with sometimes, very often, marginalized issues and peoples. I have to remind them—those politicians, whether in the UN or government or whatever—on the threat of security. So, if you don’t take care of these people they are going to revolt and have a revolution—you know, briefly speaking.

Interview, UN official 2006

As the quotation above demonstrates, language is arguably one of the most powerful tools in world politics today. The words one chooses, the tone one takes, and the arena in which one speaks all constitute important decisions with often lasting political implications. Essentially, how one frames an issue matters greatly (Butler & Boyer 2003), and language must be seen as more than mere rhetoric (Cohn 1987). Framing not only determines whether and how issues get onto the political agenda, but also how issues are given meaning, operationalized, and adopted into the norm-building process even before becoming part of the official agenda (Keck & Sikkink 1998a; Joachim 2007). Framing governs the actors that are engaged and those that are excluded; frames control the issues that are on and off the agenda (Bob 2005; 2008). In this way, discursive positioning and conceptual frameworks are critical for those involved as well as those not involved in the process (Carpenter 2005; 2007). Nowhere is the power a particular discourse—the “framings of meaning and lens of interpretation” (Hansen 2006: 7)—more evident than the case of framing women’s rights and gender equality as matters essential to the promotion and protection of international peace and security.

In analyzing how a particular global network of women activists has used the language of security, this research sheds light on the nature and implications of the security framework as a political process. More specifically, activists for women’s rights and gender equality concerns have recently framed their concerns as security issues attempting to make them integral to the international security agenda, particularly in the context of the United Nations (UN).¹ From gender-mainstreaming initiatives to the “Interagency Taskforce on Women, Peace, and Security,” there has been a clear push from UN agencies, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) specifically, as well as from certain middle-power national governments, such as Canada and Norway, and various non-governmental organizations, chiefly the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace, and Security (NGOWG) to put women’s rights on the security agenda.² This group of state and non-state actors constitutes a dynamic transnational network, known as the Women, Peace and Security (WPS). One of the most concrete and prominent policy outcomes from this network has been UN Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1325, the first Council decision recognizing the importance of women in international peace and security, making women and women’s needs relevant to negotiating peace agreements, planning refugee camps and peacekeeping operations, reconstructing war-torn societies, and ultimately making gender equality relevant to every single Security Council action (Rehn & Sirleaf 2002).³ Although this project is about much more than SCR 1325, this “living document” does inform and underscore every aspect of this research as it is a “productive force” in shaping ideas and actions on women and gender as well as the discursive construction and conduct of security by the UN and the relationship between the two regimes (Cohn et al. 2004).⁴

This strategy of securitizing women’s rights within the UN system can also be understood in the context of the broader push by many global actors to humanize security. As my research demonstrates, however, humanizing security is not necessarily the same as securitizing “non-traditional” security concerns and this has significant implications for a range of actors and issues attempting to become part of the security mainstream. Today, many complex global problems are being located within the security logic. Issues, such as the environment (Deudney 1990; Kakonen 1994; Litfin 1999) and HIV/AIDS (Price-Smith 2001; Chen 2003; Prins 2004; Elbe 2006), are just a couple of examples that demonstrate how both state and non-state actors use the security framework to draw attention to their particular concerns, challenging the conventional and narrow definitional boundaries associated with international security. This framework relies upon the utilitarian assumption that these issues need to be addressed because they are essential elements to establishing international peace and security. This justification has led to a debate on what should be considered in the realm of international security, as many scholars have made a practice out of securitizing issues that are not conventionally seen as such. And for better or for worse, this strategy of securitizing non-military matters is not limited to the academic community.⁵ International organizations, particularly the UN, also employ this security discourse attempting to raise international awareness and policy-oriented attention toward various issues. In light of the human security rhetoric (recognizing the individual as the referent of security), it is not surprising that the concerns of women are increasingly framed within the security discourse.

Although the purpose of this book is not necessarily to demonstrate the many ways in which the lack of women’s rights and gender inequality present valid security concerns, the critical role that women and gender issues play in constructing enduring international peace and security, particularly as far as the UN is concerned, will become manifest throughout my case studies.⁶ The aim of this book is to explore the process of securitization: whether or not it leads to audience acceptance, the ability of the securitizing actor to “break free of procedures and rules he or she would otherwise be bound by” (Buzan et al. 1998: 25), and what this process means for both the international security agenda as well as the world’s women.⁷ Clearly, invoking specific gendered understandings of security not only affects the nature of security, but such frames can impact the women’s movement at various levels. Working from the assumption that the UN is a norm-influencing global governance institution, and what happens in the Security Council has real implication for the meaning and practice of security as we move into the twenty-first century, three basic questions emerge and guide the rest of the book:

1. How is security defined and practiced within the context of international organization?
2. In what ways, if any, has women’s activism been able to challenge traditional conceptions of security?
3. What are the implications of the “security framework” for the broader goals of the women’s movement?

Overall, these questions interrogate the meaning of security, in terms of discourse and practice, particularly from a feminist perspective. But it is not just a matter of what women or a gender perspective does for the security agenda, but understanding the implications of the security framework for the global women’s movement as well.

In short, this project goes beyond a debate of security at the conceptual level to examine how the application of this security framework affects policy and practice for these non-traditional security issues and actors. In other words, does the security framework really help bring global attention to issues and groups of people that are normally marginalized? Has it meant more resources and more involvement by state and non-state actors? These questions not only have important policy implications, but normative ones as well. Should these issues be framed as security issues? Can we really assume that the security language is inherently beneficial for those concerned with empowering women around the world?

As these more normative questions suggest, there is reason to be skeptical of the security discourse as a necessarily “good” framework when it comes to women’s emancipation (Whitworth 2004). How movements frame their causes matters, in terms of outcomes, strategy, actors involved, opportunity structures, and in this case, future gender roles and relationships in societies transitioning from conflict and war. Thus, it is important to ask not only what women’s activism brings to the security arena, but what the arena does for women—what does it mean to securitize women’s rights and gender equality. This latter point reflects a gap in the existing research on gender mainstreaming in all arenas, as it “tends to ignore the challenge faced by feminist activists in remaining true to their political goals when they are caught up in a mainstreaming policy ‘victory’ that may be very real, but also very compromised” (Cohn 2003–04: 11). This project addresses this gap in terms of theoretical, practical, and normative consequences.

Research design

This research is both theoretically driven and policy-oriented. With regard to the former, this project offers the building blocks necessary to advance theory making in three respects (Van Evera 1997). First, it addresses a real need to expand the scope of security studies beyond military–strategic research to something more reflective of the range of security threats that the world currently faces (Klare 1998). Even in the last decade, scholars where critiquing security scholarship; for example, Baldwin (1997: 9) argues, “Paradoxical as it may seem, security has not been an important analytical concept for most security studies scholars.”⁸ This is particularly true from the perspective of feminist security theory (Blanchard 2003) and those advocating for human security (Axworthy 2001). Second, this research traces and analyzes the organizational dynamics of women’s activism in the UN system and how women have come to embrace and have been impacted by the security framework, globally and locally. Lastly, this project provides insight into practical strategies utilized by transnational advocacy networks in the development and implementation of international human rights norms. From a policy perspective, this research explores the utility of mechanisms, such as the security discourse, in empowering groups advocating for women’s rights and gender equality. As important, this research examines how such language may also be limiting for the world’s most marginalized sect of society.⁹

Scope and limitations

It is necessary to explain a number of caveats before proceeding in order to guide the reader’s expectations in terms of the scope and limitations of this project.

Theory

With regard to theory, this project utilizes three theoretical paradigms that taken together help to answer the research questions. While it is ambitious to take up three bodies of literature—critical security studies, feminist international relations theory, and women’s activism as a transnational network and social movement—each provides the insights and context necessary to develop a comprehensive and intelligent analysis. By beginning with security studies, one can easily see how traditional approaches to security have been inadequate, substantively and methodologically. Concepts, such as human security and securitization, help to demonstrate security as a process to be widened and deepened and as an analysis that serves a political and normative role. Feminist international relations theorists have long been critical of such traditional approaches to security and can help explain the conceptual, cultural, and linguistic barriers and practices that have segregated women’s rights and gender equality norms from security discourse in both theory and practice. Feminist theory also provides useful warnings regarding the adoption of gender language for politically expedient ends. Lastly, by placing women’s activism in the context of theory on transnational advocacy and social movement strategy, the research is able to situate the security framework within the broader goals of the global women’s movement, contributing to our understanding of strategies utilized by contemporary social movements. These theoretical perspectives are explored in more detail in Chapter 2.

Why the UN?

Although there are many locales to explore security discourse or women’s activism, the UN is the most logical starting point for studying the two together at the global level.¹⁰ The mere fact that the UN Security Council—the center of UN power and primary decision-making body in the area of international peace and security—recognized with SCR 1325 the need to adopt a gender perspective and to make women central to all aspects of the peace process, as both victims and agents of conflict and conflict resolution, is momentous. The world’s largest international organization has now publicly declared that attention to women and gender is integral to “doing security.” As Carol Cohn rightly argues, “even if at this point the Security Council’s re-visioning of security is more rhetorical than practical, it still puts the UN far ahead of any academic security studies or international relations programme” (Cohn et al. 2004: 139).

Furthermore, despite American feminists’ general disregard for the UN, this global body remains a significant o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Women, peace, and security: an introduction
• 2 Women's activism in the context of the security debate: theoretical underpinnings
• 3 The security framework in practice: the case of Security Council Resolution 1325
• 4 Women and children: comparative frameworks and strategies within the Security Council
• 5 The United Nations Development Fund for Women: working its way into the security sector
• 6 The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission: a litmus test for assessing the status of women, peace, and security
• 7 Women, peace, and security: not the final analysis
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• References
• Index