Nicola Christine Pratt

Critically Examining UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security

Here, we introduce the articles that comprise this special issue of IFJP, entitled, ‘Critically Examining UNSCR 1325’. The aim of this special issue is to examine the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and its implications for womens activism and for peace and security. Given that the articles in this volume approach UNSCR 1325 from various perspectives and in different contexts, our aim in this introduction is to point out a number of conceptual, policy and practical issues that are crucial in the debates around UNSCR 1325 specifically, and women, peace and security more broadly. We do this in four parts: first, problematizing the resolution in relation to changes in global governance; second, examining the Resolutions assumptions about (gendered) agency and structure; third, examining the Resolutions assumptions about the links between conflict and gender; and, fourth, comparing different contexts in which 1325 is implemented. To some degree, differences between contributors may be accounted for by different understandings of feminism(s) as a political project. Different feminisms may underpin different visions of peace and, consequently, different projects of peacebuilding. Ultimately, this volume, while answering the questions that we originally posed, throws up new questions about transnational feminist praxis.

Bringing politics back in: examining the link between globalization and democratization

This article considers current explanations of the link between globalization and democratization in light of an empirical case study: that of a 1998–99 campaign led by Egyptian NGOs against government restrictions on the freedom of association. The article calls attention to the need to ‘bring politics back in’ to theories of the link between globalization and democratization, by studying the political strategies of actors, the longer-term local, historical context against which these strategies are formed and their impact upon existing relations of power. The first part of this article reviews some of the major arguments regarding the link between globalization and democratization in order to highlight their focus on structural changes in explaining democratization. The second part proposes an alternative explanatory framework, based on the Gramscian concepts of hegemony and counter-hegemony. The third and fourth parts operationalize this framework through presenting the context for the actions of NGOs in Egypt and the case study of NGO efforts for greater democratization. Finally, the conclusion brings together the conceptual and empirical discussions.

The Queen Boat case in Egypt: sexuality, national security and state sovereignty

The government’s targeting of homosexuality in May 2001, following years of ‘turning a blind eye’ to Cairo’s gay scene, is studied here in terms of the links between the sphere of interpersonal relations and notions of national security within international relations. The persecution of men for alleged same-sex relations not only filled newspaper columns and created a spectacle to divert people’s attention away from the government’s failings. More importantly, the event represented an opportunity for government officials, the media and other civil society activists – both within Egypt and abroad – to ‘perform’ a discourse of national security through which national sovereignty was (re)produced and political order was maintained. However, this national security threat was not only posed by the external threat of Western governments, international NGOs and other transnational actors concerned with respect for human rights within Egypt. More importantly, this threat was constructed as originating with those people failing to conform to the ‘norm’ of heterosexual relationships.

Identity, culture and democratization: the case of Egypt

This article seeks to present an alternative approach to understanding the failure of democratization in the Arab world by locating the problem of democracy-building within the logic of the process of reproducing national identity and culture. The conceptual framework draws on the writings of Antonio Gramsci and postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said. Taking Egypt as a case study, I examine a series of events surrounding a human rights report about police brutality in Egypt to illustrate how the struggle to reproduce Egyptian national identity impacts upon the practice of democracy. In the course of searching for an “authentic” Egyptian identity, uncorrupted by Western influences, a critical mass of Egyptian civil society participates in producing a political consensus in which civil and political freedoms may be legitimately sacrificed in the name of national unity and security. This is despite attempts by some Egyptian activists to challenge dominant conceptions of national identity and culture in order to open up democratic spaces.

women's organizing and the conflict in Iraq since 2003

This article examines the development of a womens movement in Iraq since the invasion in 2003. It describes the types of activities and the strategies of different women activists, as well as highlighting the main divisions among them. The article also discusses the various ways in which the ongoing occupation and escalating violence in Iraq has shaped womens activism and the object of their struggles. Communal and sectarian tensions had been fostered by the previous regime as well as by the political opposition in exile prior to 2003, but the systematic destruction of national institutions, such as the army and the police, by the occupation forces, has led to a flare-up of the sectarian conflict. The article concludes by evaluating womens activism in terms of its contributions to conflict on the one hand and national reconciliation on the other.

Weaponising feminism for the "war on terror", versus employing strategic silence

The post-9/11 period appears to constitute a paradox for feminists. On the one hand, Western societies are experiencing probably the most militarised moment since the Second WorldWar. Brown University Costs ofWar Project estimates that the US had spent between

Iraqi Women and UNSCR 1325: An Interview with Sundus Abbas, Director of the Iraqi Women's Leadership Institute, Baghdad, January 2011

2.3 and

The Gender Logics of Resistance to the ‘War on Terror’: constructing sex–gender difference through the erasure of patriarchy in the Middle East

2.7 trillion dollars until 2011 on the “war on terror” and that this figure could rise to more than

Gender, protest and political transition in the Middle East and North Africa

4 trillion, thereby approaching the costs of the Second World War in current prices (Cornwell 2011). On the other hand, the US administrations of both George Bush and Barack Obama have made women’s rights and empowerment a consideration in US foreign policy. The abuse of “women’s empowerment” as a justification for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are well documented under the Bush administration (see, among others, Cloud 2004; Riley, Mohanty, and Pratt 2008; Al-Ali and Pratt 2009; Enloe 2010). Obama’s administration has also “championed” women. The US National Security Strategy 2010 lists “supporting the rights of women and girls” as a national security objective, on the basis that “[e]xperience shows that countries are more peaceful and prosperous when women are accorded full and equal rights and opportunity. When those rights and opportunities are denied, countries often lag behind” (US State Department 2011). Can militarisation and securitisation really be reconciled with feminism? Here, I argue that since 9/11, feminism, or particular strands of feminism that are dominant in the West, have been increasingly instrumentalised by the US and UK governments and NATO to justify continuing military and political intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Arab World, to normalise violence against Muslim men that is illegal under international law and to even increase the “effectiveness” of counterinsurgency measures in these countries. Many feminists argue that such an instrumentalisation of feminism is not “real feminism”, but rather a cynical use of the rhetoric of women’s rights and empowerment in order to “camouflage” the war aims and methods of the US and its allies (Hunt and Rygiel 2007), and as a “sexual decoy” for the “imperial democracy” of the US administration (Eisenstein 2007). Indeed, in reality, the “war on terror” has set back the situation of women in Iraq, whilst the sustainability of any gains for women in Afghanistan is severely compromised by the insecurity and poverty experienced by a great number of Afghans (Kandiyoti 2007; Rostami-Povey 2007; Al-Ali and Pratt 2009). Yet, merely noting the gap between rhetoric

Palestinian women and the right to rights

Nicola Pratt: What is the role of UNSCR 1325 in helping Iraqi women to participate in Iraqi politics since the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime? Sundus Abbas: Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, women’s political participation was limited. [...] After 2003, the Iraqi women’s movement wanted to increase women’s participation in decision making. Thanks to extensive efforts by Iraqi women, the Transitional Administrative Law of 2004 specified that women should occupy no less than 25 per cent of all seats in parliament and other elected bodies. Thanks to the quota, in the first elections after the overthrow of the Ba’th regime, in January 2005, women won 31 per cent of parliamentary seats, while the percentage of women in local councils was 28 per cent. Women’s NGOs were active in raising awareness among women about voting in the elections, as well as in training women candidates to run their campaigns. There was wide voter turnout amongst women. In the government formed after the election, however, there were only six women ministers (out of thirty-six ministers). In the drafting of the Iraqi constitution in the summer of 2005, the committee included only nine women out of fifty-five members. And there were only two women included in the committee for constitutional amendments! In the parliament elected in December 2005, the number of elected women fell to 75 (less than 25 per cent of parliamentary seats), with only four women appointed as ministers. There was a similar situation with regards to the local council elections. In this context, Resolution 1325 is one of the instruments used by women in Iraq (1) to maintain the quota, and (2) to push for women’s involvement in decision making positions and national reconciliation. However, in reality, there is limited implementation of the resolution’s contents due to a limited