Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council

Abstract

The United Nations Security Council interacts with feminist peace and security governance both in an enabling and a limiting way. The Security Council contributes to the development of norms and practice around feminist peace and security values. However, the political power entrenched in structure and processes of the Security Council limits the transformative capacity of feminist peace and security governance and subjects it to co-optation and securitization. The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda - the first connotation when thinking about feminist peace and security governance - has sparked progress in feminist institution- and norm-building but also served the goals of traditional security. This chapter discusses feminist peace and security governance as a framework for the multitude of feminist institutions, norms and ideas. It further explores how feminist institutions, norms and ideas interact with the Security Council and what limitations the Security Council placed on their ability to transform peace and security structures, policy and action. Overall, we conclude that there is no other vehicle - other than the Security Council - capacitated to bring gender equality forward in policy and action, while it remains a major threat to an inclusive feminist peace and security approach.