Norm negotiation in the Australian Government’s implementation of UNSCR 1325

ABSTRACT

The Australian National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (NAP) offers an apt example of norm negotiation in implementing United Nation Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). Launched in 2012, the NAP is nearing completion due June 2019. The purpose of this article is to understand how far and in what ways the NAP has thus far supported the achievement of the transformative ambitions of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda to bring about greater gender equality for conflict-affected women. I argue that whilst this transformative agenda failed to diffuse vertically throughout the Australian NAP, this has simultaneously encouraged horizontal diffusion. That is, the sophisticated discourse on gender equality presented in the narrative part of the NAP did not translate into a robust framework for action (vertical diffusion). This failure has, however, allowed the WPS agenda to be negotiated within individual implementing agencies (horizontal diffusion). Through the juxtaposition of policy analysis with semi-structured interviews with NAP implementers, this article demonstrates that the lack of precision around the implementation strategy has—paradoxically—resulted in significant policy development on UNSCR 1325. Simultaneously, it has led to untargeted implementation, ultimately constraining the possibilities for meaningful impact on the ground.

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• national action plan
• UNSCR 1325
• norm negotiation
• gender equality

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Monash University Graduate Scholarship and Faculty of Arts International Postgraduate Research Scholarship. I am indebted to Associate Professor Katrina Lee-Koo for her invaluable comments on the draft. I would also like to extend my thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and supportive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Barbara K. Trojanowska completed her PhD at the Monash University’s Research Centre for Gender, Peace and Security. Her research focuses on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and its implementation through national and regional action plans in Asia and the Pacific. Barbara is the International Coordinator of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Academic Network and a Steering Member of the Australian Civil Society Coalition on Women, Peace and Security. She published for Critical Studies on Security and has a forthcoming article in International Feminist Journal of Politics.