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Abstract
This article was selected as the runner-up for the 2018 Enloe Award. The committee commented:
“This article provides a solid and nuanced account of UN mediation processes around the WPS agenda, drawing on Annick Wibben’s narrative approach to document how the notion that mediation is a science rather than an art leaves little room for complexity. It is a very well-researched piece with a clear, polished, and coherent argument.”
“The article’s meticulous engagement with a bureaucratic procedure reminds the reader of its life-and-death consequences, all the while providing a sophisticated and solid gender analysis. It is also important for revealing the complexities – how masculine–feminine assumptions and expectations work, or that one method is not necessarily better than another for gender inclusiveness. The author’s conclusion is a generative one: it recognizes the need to explore the question in other settings and points to a future research agenda.”
ABSTRACT
The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has not yet had a large or lasting impact on United Nations (UN)-brokered peace processes. I argue that we can understand the challenges to incorporating the WPS agenda by examining the changes that UN mediation has undergone in the post-Cold War era. UN mediation has moved from being seen as a diplomatic art to being seen as a professionalized science. Narratives about mediation as an “art” or as a “science” have distinct implications for how the UN has incorporated the WPS agenda in mediation. To examine these narratives, I adopt Wibben’s feminist narrative approach. I analyze texts including UN guidance documents on mediation, notes from participant observation of training sessions on mediation and gender, and 37 interviews with UN mediation personnel. I find that the narrative of mediation as a science constructs a linear process with little room for complexity. In doing so, it depoliticizes gender relations and constrains the participation of women. The narrative of mediation as an art privileges experience, consent, and trusting relationships. Including women and gender issues appears risky because it endangers consent. Meanwhile, building trust may rely upon excluding certain groups of people. These findings contribute to our understanding of how institutional contexts affect the implementation of the WPS agenda.
KEYWORDS:
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Audie Klotz, Eric Blanchard, Nneka Eke, Lindsay Burt, Elizabeth Davis, Sunghee Cho, and Jaisang Sun for thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this article, as well as the IFJP reviewers. She also wishes to acknowledge the Andrew Berlin Family National Security Research Fund and the Maxwell African Scholars Union for research support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this insight.
2 Training participants were UN staff from headquarters and field missions who either self-selected into the training or were required to attend.
3 Interview 20176. I also have slides from a similar training session held in Oslo in 2016 which contain very similar content to those from the training I observed.
4 Interview 20181.
5 Interview 20181.
6 Interview 20173.
7 Interviewee 20181 made a similar claim.
8 The MSU’s library of guidance documents is available at: https://peacemaker.un.org/resources/mediation-guidance.
9 Interview 20173.
10 Interview 20176.
11 Interview 20173.
12 Interview 20173.
13 Interview 20165.
14 Interview 20165.
15 UNDPPA WPS Training, December 2017.
16 Interview 20181.
17 UNDPPA WPS Training, December 2017; slides from High-Level Seminar, Oslo, May 2016.
18 Interview 20168.
19 Interviews 201610, 20168, and 20169.
20 Interview 20164.
21 UNDPPA WPS Training, December 2017; slides from High-Level Seminar, Oslo, May 2016.
22 Interview 20168.
23 Wibben (Citation2011, 66) describes security talk as “closed narrative structure consisting of four main elements: threats locating danger, referents to be secured, agents to provide security, and means to contain danger … Security narratives that do not conform to this structure … are not recognized as security talk.”
24 Interview 20168.
25 Interview 201815.
26 Interview 20182.
27 Interview 20169.
28 Interview 20164.
29 Interview 201818.
30 Interview 201815.
31 Slides from High-Level Seminar, Oslo, May 2016.
32 Interview 20165.
33 Interview 20165.
34 Interview 20168.
35 Interviews 20167, 20164, and 20177.
36 Interview 20167.
37 Interviews 20182 and 20165.
38 Interview 20167.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Catriona Standfield
Catriona Standfield is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on responses to gender reforms in international mediation and diplomacy.