Gender, Representation and Power-Sharing in Post-Conflict Institutions

Abstract

An emerging tension characterizes conflict resolution practice: promoting power-sharing between ethnic groups while simultaneously mandating women's inclusion in peace processes and in post-conflict institutions. Scholars of ethnic conflict have not adequately theorized the gender implications of power-sharing, and practitioners have failed to implement mechanisms that would make power-sharing representative of constituencies beyond ethno-national cleavages. There is no substantive reason why the representation of women and ethnic groups should be in tension. Nevertheless, gender is often ignored in the power-sharing literature and gender-mainstreaming practices appear irreconcilable with power-sharing practice. Drawing on three cases of post-conflict power-sharing – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, and Northern Ireland – this article identifies reasons why this tension remains in practice, especially the overriding emphasis in power-sharing on ethno-nationalist elites and conflict protagonists.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. We also thank John McGarry, Richard Simeon and participants at the 2011 ‘Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Critiques’ workshop at the Munk School of Global Affairs; and Cheryl Collier, our discussant at the 2011 CPSA annual meeting, for their valuable feedback on early iterations of this paper. We extend a special thanks to representatives from Zene Zenama and the Gender Equality Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Notes

Rachel Rebouché and Kate Fearon, ‘Overlapping Identities: Power Sharing and Women's Rights’, in Ian O'Flynn and David Russell (eds), Power Sharing: New Challenges for Divided Societies, London: Pluto, 2005, p.163.

Ibid.

Christine Bell, On the Law of Peace: Peace Agreements and the Lex Pacificatoria, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008; Christine Bell and Catherine O'Rourke, ‘Peace Agreements or Pieces of Paper? The Impact of UNSC Resolution 1325 on Peace Processes and Their Agreements’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol.59, No.4, 2010, pp.941–80.

John Darby and Roger Mac Ginty (eds), Contemporary Peacemaking: Conflict, Violence and Peace Processes, London: Palgrave, 2003.

Hilary Charlesworth, ‘Are Women Peaceful? Reflections on the Role of Women in Peace-Building’, Feminist Legal Studies, Vol.16, No.3, 2008, pp.347–61; Carol Cohn, ‘Mainstreaming Gender in UN Security Policy: A Path to Political Transformation?’, in Shirin M. Rai and Georgina Waylen (eds), Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp.185–206; Laura J. Shepherd, Gender, Violence & Security, London: Zed Books, 2008; Dianne Otto, ‘A Sign of “Weakness”? Disrupting Gender Certainties in the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325’, Michigan Journal of Gender and Law, Vol.13, No.1, 2006–07, pp.113–75.

United Nations, ‘Report of the Secretary-General: Women's Participation in Peacebuilding’, 7 Sept. 2010, UN doc. A/65/354–S/2010/466. (at: http://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N10/508/20/pdf/N1050820.pdf?OpenElement).

Bell and O'Rourke (see n.3 above), p.955.

UN (see n.6 above), p.9.

Sanam Anderlini and John Tirman, What the Women Say: Participation and UNSCR 1325. A Case Study Assessment, Cambridge, MA: MIT Center for International Studies, 2010, pp.3–6.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which lobbied for the adoption of a Resolution 1325, maintains an online repository of key related texts, including links to national action plans (at: www.peacewomen.org/naps/list-of-naps).

Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977.

Rupert Taylor, ‘The Promise of Consociational Theory’, in Taylor (ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O'Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict, London: Routledge, 2009, pp.1–12.

A gender expert was not part of the initial team composition but was added later; the team currently appoints experts on security arrangements, power-sharing, constitutions, gender, natural resources and process design. UN, ‘Stand-by Team of Mediation Experts’ (at: www.un.org/wcm/content/site/undpa/standby_team).

Walker Connor, ‘The Nation and Its Myth’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol.33, No.1, 1992, p.53.

John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary, ‘Power Shared after the Death of Thousands’, in Taylor (ed.) (see n.12 above), 2009, p.26.

Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty (eds), Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures, New York: Routledge, 1997; Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation, London: Sage, 1997; Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, London: Zed, 1986; Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Joane Nagel, ‘Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol.21, No.2, 1998, pp.242–69; Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990.

Simona Sharoni, ‘Gendering Conflict and Peace in Israel/Palestine and the North of Ireland’, Millennium, Vol.27, No.4, 1998; Chatterjee (see n.16 above), p.156; Enloe (see n.17 above), p.54.

Anne McClintock, ‘“No Longer in a Future Heaven”: Gender, Race and Nationalism’, in McClintock, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Shohat (eds), Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997, p.109.

John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary, ‘Iraq's Constitution of 2005: Liberal Consociation as Political Prescription’, International Journal of Constitutional Law, Vol.5, No.4, 2007, pp.670–98.

Ibid, p.675.

Rebouché and Fearon (see n.1 above), p.161.

Arend Lijphart, Thinking About Democracy: Power Sharing and Majority Rule in Theory and Practice, London: Routledge, 2008, p.68.

McGarry and O'Leary (see n.15 above), pp.36–7.

Marc Weller and Stefan Wolff, ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina Ten Years after Dayton: Lessons for Internationalized Peacebuilding’, Ethnopolitics, Vol.5, No.1, 2006, p.1.

The NAP is available (at: www.peacewomen.org/assets/file/bosniaherzegovina_nationalactionplan_2010.pdf).

Inter-Parliamentary Union, Women in National Parliaments (at: www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm).

OSCE, ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina General Elections’, 3 Oct. 2010 (at: www.osce.org/odihr/74612).

Anna Lithander, ‘Engendering the Peace Process: A Gender Approach to Dayton and Beyond’, Stockholm: Kvinna till Kvinna, 2000, p.20.

Ibid, p.26.

Žene Ženama, ‘Monitoring Implementation of UNSCR 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina’ (at: www.zenezenama.org/eng/document/1325FinalReport2007.pdf), p.18.

Ibid.

Taylor (see n.12 above), p.10.

Cera Murtagh, ‘A Transient Transition: The Cultural and Institutional Obstacles Impeding the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition (NIWC) in its Progression from Informal to Formal Politics’, Journal of International Women's Studies, Vol.9, No.3, 2008, pp.41–58; Bronagh Hinds and Jacqueline Nolan-Haley, ‘Problem-Solving Negotiations: Northern Ireland's Experience with the Women's Coalition’, Journal of Dispute Resolution, Vol.387, 2003, pp.387–402; Fionnuala Ni Aoláin, ‘Peace Agreements as a Means for Promoting Gender Equality and Ensuring Participation of Women’, Paper EGM/PEACE/2003/EP.4, presented at the UN Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) Expert Group Meeting on ‘Peace agreements as a means for Promoting Gender Equality and Ensuring Participation of Women – A Framework of Model Provisions’, Ottawa, 10–13 November 2003 (at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/peace2003/reports/EP4NiAolain.PDF).

Kate Fearon, Women's Work: The Story of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1999.

See ‘Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity’, in Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations, 10 April 1998, para. 3 (at: http://www.nio.gov.uk/agreement.pdf); The Northern Ireland Act 1998, section 75.

‘Constitutional Issues’, in Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations (n.36 above), para 1 (v).

Brendan O'Leary, ‘The Nature of the British-Irish Agreement’, New Left Review, No.233, 1999, pp.73, 77–8.

The Electoral Office for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland election data (at: http://www.eoni.org.uk).

Murtagh (see n.34 above), p.48; Donald L. Horowitz, ‘Explaining the Northern Ireland Agreement: The Sources of an Unlikely Constitutional Consensus’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol.32, No.2, 2002, p.195.

Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics, 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly Election (at: www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/NIelectionhtmls/2011%20Northern%20Ireland%20Assembly%20Election.doc).

Northern Ireland Women's European Platform, ‘Submission to the Committee on the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW): VIth Periodic Report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’, Mar. 2008, p.5.

Northern Ireland Women's European Platform, ‘Response to UK Government One Year On: Report to CEDAW Committee’. 1–5 Jan. 2010 (at: www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/NIWEP_UK_FU.pdf), p.4.

Monica McWilliams, ‘From Peace Talks to Gender Justice’, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series, 29 Sept. 2010 (at: (http://catcher.sandiego.edu/items/peacestudies/McWilliams_DLS_Booklet.pdf), p.39.

McGarry and O'Leary (see n.15 above), pp.82–3.

Burundi's constitution is available (at: http://confinder.richmond.edu/admin/docs/Constiution_de_Burundi_(French).pdf).

IPU (see n.27 above).

Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, ‘Security Council Resolution 1325 Civil Society Monitoring Report: Burundi’, New York: Global Network Of Women Peacebuilders, 2011 (at: www.gnwp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/burundi1.pdf), p.63.

Kristina Bentley and Roger Southall, An African Peace Process: Mandela, South Africa and Burundi, Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2005, p.153.

Åshild Falch, ‘Women's Political Participation and Influence in Post-Conflict Burundi and Nepal’, Oslo: Peace Research Institute, 2010, p.11.

Miriam Anderson, ‘Transnational Feminism and Norm Diffusion in Peace Processes: The Cases of Burundi and Northern Ireland’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol.4, No.1, 2010, p.4.

Ustinia Dolgopol, ‘Women and Peacebuilding: What We Can Learn from the Arusha Peace Agreement’, Australian Feminist Studies, Vol.21, No.50, 2006, pp.257–73.

Falch (see n.50 above), p.13.

Ibid., pp.13–4; Clare Castilljo, ‘Building a State that Works for Women: Integrating Gender into Post-Conflict State Building’, Working Paper 107, Madrid: Fundación Para Las Relaciones Internacionales Y El Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), 2011, pp.5–7.

Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, ‘Women Count: Security Council Resolution 1325 Civil Society Monitoring Report: Burundi’, New York: Global Network Of Women Peacebuilders, 2011 (at: http://www.gnwp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/gr2012.pdf).

Dogopol (see n.52 above), p.260.

Castilljo (see n.54 above).

Dogopol (see n.52 above), p.258.

Peacebuilding Commission, ‘Strategic Framework for Peacebuilding in Burundi’, PBC/1/BDI/4, 2007 (at: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=PBC/1/BDI/4); Torunn Tryggstad, ‘The UN Peacebuilding Commission and Gender: A Case of Norm Reinforcement’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.17, No.2, 2010, pp.159–71.

Tryggstad (see n.59 above), p.165.

Interview by one of the authors, Sarajevo, Jun. 2011. Interviewees also felt the NAP helps even further in this regard because it includes concrete measures for implementation and names the state ministries responsible for implementation.

Martha Walsh, ‘Aftermath: The Impact of Conflict on Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, Working Paper 302, Washington DC: Centre for Development Information and Evaluation, 2000.

Vanessa Pupavac, ‘Empowering Women? An Assessment of International Gender Policies in Bosnia’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.12, No.3, 2005, pp.391–405; Falch (see n.50 above).