From a critical mass to critical act(or)s: the substantive representation of women in peace processes

Abstract

A growing awareness of the gender-specific experiences of women in war and post-war conditions have gradually introduced the term “substantive representation of women” to the attention of institutions and individuals concerned with peace and security, from whose agenda it had thus far been absent. Both scholars and policy-makers dealing with the issue of gender and security have reached a general agreement that peace processes should reflect women’s substantive representation, meaning that women’s interests should be included in official peace agreements. The main purpose of this paper was to answer the question, what are the factors accounting for the substantive representation of women in peace. That was done through an in-depth analysis of the peace processes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Colombia, combining within-case process tracing with cross-case comparison. The occurrence of the substantive representation of women in peace processes was analysed focusing on three dimensions – location of representational activities, critical actors, and means of expressing SRW. What emerged from the analysis are six factors accounting for more gender-sensitive peace agreements, substantively representing women’s interests: (1) inclusiveness of the peace process in terms of civil society and public involvement; (2) strength and autonomy of women’s organizations; (3) links between the informal and formal arenas of a peace process; channels for accessing the negotiation process; (4) co-operation between the critical actors in different representational arenas; (5) ability to create a coherent women’s agenda; (6) advocacy from the key stakeholders at the negotiating table. There is further research required on several subsequent issues, including: how well the gender-specific provisions of final peace agreements reflected the diversity of women’s concerns and the extent to which these provisions have been implemented in post-conflict settings. Notes: women, substantive representation, peace processes