Suchergebnisse

Engagement with the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda by military actors has caused concern among some of its civil society advocates. For example, NATO has adopted the WPS agenda as an increasingly visible part of its self-narrative. Yet what had distinguished NATO's engagement with WPS from many other actors is that it came without civil society involvement. The establishment of a Civil Society Advisory Panel (CSAP) on WPS in 2014 is therefore highly significant for both NATO and the WPS agenda. Despite this, the efficacy of such consultation is not clear-cut nor its potential to mitigate militarised understandings of WPS and support transformative engagement with the agenda, particularly given the wariness of some civil society to engage with NATO. Drawing on interviews with civil society, this article interrogates their perceptions of NATO in order to understand the potential of such engagements to support transformative understandings of WPS and more broadly the efficacy of civil society engagement with military institutions. In so doing, it examines how such consultation adds to our understanding of NATO as an institution of international hegemonic masculinity.

NATO's public diplomacy plays an important role in constituting the alliance's identity in global politics, yet has remained marginal to many scholarly accounts of the alliance. This article considers NATO's increasing footprint in digital diplomacy and the role of gendered narratives in shaping it. The central point of analysis is NATO's 'story of Afghanistan', told in the web-documentary Return to Hope, which was released to much acclaim in September 2014 to coincide with the drawdown of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan. It finds personal narratives given precedence over historical events, key temporal omissions and the silencing of Afghan women. As such, it provides an important critique of the masculinist protection logic underpinning NATO's efforts, which has served to instrumentalize (Afghan) women and falls short of expectations given the alliance's commitment to UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

International security institutions play a pivotal role in the realisation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda through their adoption and implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. This article examines NATO's adoption of UNSCR 1325, drawing upon Cynthia Enloe's conception of NATO as a 'teaching machine' disseminating lessons on gender. In doing so, it finds UNSCR 1325 has been understood to be of 'added-value' to the Alliance in two respects: first, to support NATO's long-established agenda to increase the representation of women in NATO forces; second, as a tool to increase operational effectiveness. I find that NATO's adoption of UNSCR 1325 emerged as part of a counter discourse. The fact that this counter discourse was put forward by partner states challenges dominant understandings of the direction of policy dissemination within NATO. This case provides salient lessons on the opportunities for – and hindrances to – change through the pursuit of a feminist agenda within an international security institution.

The European Union has historically sought to project outwards its identity, values and raison d'être during times of uncertainty and crisis. One of the core values stated to be at the heart of the European Union's identity is gender equality. Yet, while gender equality features more visibly in the European Union's external discourse as it seeks to position itself as a global leader in equality and human rights, the internal challenge posed by crisis presents a real obstacle to future developments in this area. This article examines digital diplomacy, specifically Twitter presence, as a discursive site for constituting meaning. We thus take the digital space afforded by Twitter as a site where the European Union's internal and external identity is constructed in a process of articulation and contestation. Digital diplomacy is now a salient part of public diplomacy, increasingly prioritised over 'traditional' approaches. Using data gathered from Twitter on the European Union's 60th anniversary and International Women's Day in 2017, this article provides the first in-depth study of the European Union's approach to digital diplomacy. We find the marginalisation of gender issues from the European Union's core narratives bringing into question the place of gender equality as a core value of the European Union.

Both camps made extensive use of social media during the referendum, both to mobilise existing supporters and to convert new ones. However, the three main groups—Stronger In, Vote Leave and Leave.EU—each took differing strategies within this. Drawing on tweets published by the groups, the article compares the use of different positive and negative frames, as well as the thematic content. While reinforcing other work that shows differentials in focus on specific themes—economics for Stronger In, politics and immigration for the Leave groups—the analysis also highlights the use on both sides of 'sticks' (capitalisation on the other side's errors) and 'stones' (new issues and framings that the group brings to the debate). If the latter constituted the pre-game plan, then the former became a substantial part of the practical application during the campaign, a development reinforced by the nature of the medium itself.

In this article, we identify Brexit as a critical juncture, wherein the EU has had the opportunity to reflect on and reinforce its identity, as a promoter of gender issues within the security domain. It draws on this identity from a foundational myth of the EU as gender equality polity, resulting in the creation of a socio-legal order and sustained discourse on gender inclusivity in all policy areas. Existing scholarship has drawn attention to the EU's particular success in gender equality promotion in the areas of social inclusion at member state level, including in the UK. But, is the EU's reach comprehensive beyond this policy sphere? We examine the ways in which gender is manifested in the area of foreign policy, an area where the UK has consistently shown some leadership on the integration of gender perspectives in its foreign policy through its international development programmes and the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda. It is therefore timely to consider what impact Brexit has on EU policies, practices and the promotion of gender equality in this policy domain. Using a critical feminist lens, this article looks at the evolution of gender equality as a dimension of EU foreign and security policy in the context of EU–UK relations, and the divergences, opportunities and constraints that are crystallised by the Brexit process.