Translating UNSCR 1325 from the global to the national: protection, representation and participation in the National Action Plans of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda

Abstract

A decade and a half after the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, gendered peace gaps in post-conflict societies are still wide and deep. This raises pressing questions concerning how UNSCR 1325 and concomitant resolutions on women, peace and security (WPS) constitute women and gender, and how they as particular discursive configurations impact on post-conflict societies. In this article we zoom in on the role of National Action Plans (NAPs) for the implementation of 1325 in national contexts. We undertake a discursive analysis of Bosnia-Herzegovina's and Rwanda's NAPs in order to trace how the 1325 agenda of protection, representation and participation is translated into national contexts. We conclude that the NAPs to a large degree perpetuate the status quo and are not used as instruments for greater societal transformation that support women's authentic participation. The article ends with a reflection on how to imagine agency beyond the scripted protection, representation and participation that the NAPs (re)produce and we suggest a possible role for the latest WPS resolution UNSCR 2122 as a vehicle for transformation.