External networks and institutional idiosyncrasies: the Common Security and Defence Policy and UNSCR 1325 on women, peace and security

Abstract

In 2008, the Council of the European Union (EU) adopted a ‘Comprehensive Approach’ that outlines a strategy for securing gender mainstreaming; two years later, the Council introduced a set of indicators to assess its implementation. The EU was responding to the United Nations Security Council’s call for regional institutions to assist in implementing Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, adopted on 31 October 2000, concerning ‘women, peace and security’. This resolution sought to meet the ‘urgent need to mainstream a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations’. Considering that prior exposure to gender issues, resources and well-established relations with civil society and gender advocates are lacking, the adoption of both the Comprehensive Approach and the indicators, as well as the structures and procedures established since then as part of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, requires some explanation. This article draws on feminist institutionalist approaches to argue that the impetus for change came from individuals and groups within the EU who were involved in external networks, both above and below the supranational level, who seized on institutional idiosyncrasies that also shaped the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in important ways.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Folke Bernadotte Academy, Sweden, for their financial support, Rafael Biermann, David Galbreath, Joachim Koops, Anna van der Vleuten, and Bertjan Verbeek for their constructive comments, and Henriette Lange, Jakob Wiedekind, Nina Wüstemann for their invaluable research support.

Notes

¹ However, even among those who favour a particular interpretation, opinions differ as to exactly what is meant by ‘outcome’, ‘strategy’ or ‘process’. For a presentation of the different positions, see Joachim and Schneiker (2012).

² An integrated approach such as the one described is not specific to feminist institutionalism; indeed, it is reflective of the facts that rapprochement in the field has been coming for some time and that ‘the development of institutional analysis has muted the conventional distinctions among institutionalisms’ (Clemens and Cook 1999, 446).

³ For example, the first gender advisor to the EU Op HQ was appointed for the EU’s military operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (EUFOR DR Congo) in 2006 (EU Op HQ 2006).

⁴ A pre-deployment gender training package was issued for the European Union Police Mission (EUPOL) in Afghanistan in 2007 (Gya 2007), and the Policy Unit of its Directorate-General 9 conducted a gender mainstreaming seminar for heads of CSDP missions (Gya 2007, 5). The first training course on gender and CSDP was conducted in Hungary in 2007 with the support of the German EU Presidency (Gya 2007, 4).

⁵ One of the EU’s Battlegroups to assist it in crisis management (Swedish Armed Forces 2016).