Power-Sharing Pacts and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Siobhan Byrne, Allison McCulloch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000487077
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book offers a comparative lens on the contested relationship between two leading conflict resolution norms: ethnopolitical power-sharing pacts and the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda.

Championed by national governments and international organizations over the last two decades, power-sharing and feminist scholars and practitioners tend to view them as opposing norms. Critics charge that power-sharing scholars cast gender as an inconsequential political identity that does not motivate people like ethnonationalism. From a feminist perspective, such thinking serves the interests of ethnicized elites while excluding women and other marginalized communities from key sites of political power. This edited volume takes a different tack: while recognizing the gender gaps that still exist in power-sharing theory and practice, contributors also emphasize the constructive engagements that can be built between ethnopolitical power-sharing and gender inclusion.

Three main themes are highlighted:

• The 'gender silences' of existing power-sharing arrangements
• The impact of gender activism and advocacy on the negotiation and implementation of power-sharing pacts in divided societies
• The opportunities for linkages between power-sharing and the women, peace and security agenda.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Is Power-Sharing Bad for Women?
• 1 Power-Sharing, Conflict Resolution, and Women: A Global Reappraisal
• 2 Navigating Consociationalism’s Afterlives: Women, Peace and Security in Post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina
• 3 The Impact of Women’s Activism on the Peace Negotiations in Cyprus
• 4 Female Party Attachment in a Power-Sharing Polity: The Erosion of Protestant Support in Northern Ireland
• 5 Between Co-Option and Radical Opposition: A Comparative Analysis of Power-Sharing on Gender Equality and LGBTQ rights in Northern Ireland and Lebanon
• 6 Allies or Opponents? Power-Sharing, Civil Society, and Gender
• 7 The Feminist Institutional Dimensions of Power-Sharing and Political Settlements
• Index