The Politics of Women, Peace, and Security in UN Mediation

The first dedicated analysis of how the UN's narratives and practices make it hard to achieve inclusive, gender-sensitive mediation.

Catriona Standfield (Author)

9781009512268, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 January 2025

266 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.515 kg

This groundbreaking book offers a comprehensive analysis of the United Nations' efforts to incorporate the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda into its mediation practices. Based on extensive fieldwork and primary material, the book examines how gendered and racialised ideas about mediation as an 'art' or a 'science' have shaped the UN's approach to WPS. Senior mediators view mediation as an art of managing relationships with mostly male negotiators, meaning that including women can threaten parties' consent to the process. Meanwhile, experts and headquarters units see mediation as a science, resulting in the co-optation of gender expertise and local women to reinforce technical approaches to mediation. This has hindered the WPS agenda's goal of meaningful women's participation in peace processes. This book is an essential read for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners interested in gender, peace, and security.

1. Where are the Women in UN Mediation?
2. The WPS Agenda and UN Mediation
Part I. Narratives
3. Art or Science? Narrative Struggles over the Meaning of UN Mediation
4. The Science of UN Mediation
5. The Art of UN Mediation
Part III. Subjects
6. Femininities in UN Mediation
7. Masculinities in UN Mediation
8. Decolonial Feminist Peacemaking.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]