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ABSTRACT
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has rarely been considered in scholarship on gender and security, even though it was one of the regional security organisations whose gender policy predated the United Nations Security Council’s call for more international attention to issues related to women, peace and security in October 2000. Based on an analysis of official OSCE documents and on semi-structured interviews, we trace the integration of gender issues in the OSCE and explore the rationale behind and the challenges associated with it. We identify two phases of gender policy change in the OSCE and show how the integration of UNSCR 1325 brought about an expansion of OSCE gender policy from an exclusive focus on “soft” security issues towards increased inclusion of gender in the area of “hard” security. Drawing on historical and feminist institutionalism, we argue that reform coalitions were crucial for the policy changes in the OSCE but that they encountered institutional and ideational barriers, which hampered implementation of the gender policy. In light of rising opposition, our analysis warns of a backlash that might jeopardise current achievements.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Folke Bernadotte Academy (Sweden) for its financial support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Anne Jenichen is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, UK. She holds degrees in political science from Free University Berlin and the University of Bremen, Germany. Her research interests include international organisations and the impact of international norms, particularly in Europe, and human rights governance, with a special focus on women's rights and the rights of religious minorities.
Jutta Joachim is Professor of International Relations at Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MA in International Studies from the University of South Carolina. Her areas of expertise are international security, international organisations, nonstate actors, and gender and international relations.
Andrea Schneiker is Junior Professor of Political Science at the University of Siegen, Germany. She holds degrees in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Münster, Germany, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Lille, France. Her research focuses on IR theories, international organisations and nonstate actors, primarily NGOs, transnational networks and private military and security companies, and on security, humanitarian assistance, gender and migration.
Notes
1 In total, the OSCE’s comprehensive concept of security consists of three dimensions. In addition to the two dimensions mentioned, it also includes the economic and environmental dimension (e.g. sustainable economic growth and international economic cooperation to counter security threats, cooperation on environmental issues to prevent conflict) (for more information, refer to the OSCE’s website: www.osce.org).
2 The CSCE was founded in 1975 to provide a forum for consultations and negotiations between governments of the Eastern and Western blocs. It was transformed into a formal organisation, the OSCE, in 1995.
3 At each implementation meeting on the human dimension, ODIHR organises a seminar on one issue area in the human dimension of security. The topics for these seminars are proposed and selected by state delegations.
4 Interview, Vienna, 22 October 2002.
5 Interviews, Vienna, October 2002.
6 The OSCE was the only intergovernmental security organisation of which Switzerland was a member at that time. The decision to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme was still pending, and membership of the UN followed later, in 2002.
7 Interviews with civil society actors, 16 December 2002 and 23 April 2003.
8 Interviews, Vienna, October 2002.
9 See the website of the Swedish government on its gender equality policies: http://www.government.se/government-policy/gender-equality/ (last access on 27 November 2017).
10 Telephone interviews, July and August 2016.
11 Our review of OSCE Annual Reports shows that almost half of the gender activities implemented by OSCE institutions between 1996 and 2000 and more than a third of those implemented between 2001 and 2004 referred to the promotion of the participation of women, primarily in the political sphere, but also in the public, societal and economic spheres (this analysis excludes anti-trafficking activities, because although trafficking is often regarded as an issue of violence against women and as another outcome of the integration of gender issues into the OSCE, we consider the organisation’s anti-trafficking agenda to be separate from its gender mainstreaming agenda given that human trafficking is not exclusively a gender issue).
12 The aspect of prevention of and protection from violence against women was covered by the Ministerial Council Decision on violence against women of the same year, which mentioned UNSCR 1325 also only in passing.
13 Interviews, Vienna, 04 November 2015, and via telephone, 15 December 2015.
14 Telephone interview, 04 August 2016.
15 Our interview partners were reluctant to disclose who these sceptics were. The OSCE documents available to us did not reveal this information either. Therefore, we can only speculate that, based on their open opposition later, the Holy See and Russia were among them.
16 Interviews, Vienna, November 2015, and via telephone, December 2015, July and August 2016.
17 The only exception is the Holy See, which is a full member of the OSCE but has only consultative status at the UN.
18 Interview, Vienna, 05 November 2015.
19 Interview, Vienna, 05 November 2015, and via telephone, 15 December 2015.