Description
Successful international peacebuilding outcomes relies on the forging of connections. The publication of the UN Secretary General’s report on ‘Our Common Agenda’ and its key proposals are a powerful reminder that contemporary challenges such as ending war, preventing armed conflict and building peace can only be achieved through cooperation and a collective commitment towards a better future. Within this context, the interrogation of the connections that are forged, threatened, broken down, and remade through war/armed conflict and peacebuilding processes is crucially important in explaining global change and rethinking our engagement with key questions about human rights and justice in international political life.
By adopting a feminist lens, the panel moves beyond existing critiques of the distinction between different levels of analysis in international politics (micro, meso, macro). Instead, it examines connections across and between these levels, and how those connections are created, sustained, and reinforced by different actors and through violent or peaceful means. By building on empirical material drawn from a variety of geographical, political, and social contexts, the panel raises methodological and theoretical questions about the role, types, and effects, and locations of connections that exist within peace and conflict. It explores familial ties and (ex)combatants; the creation of networks of resistance through art within peacebuilding contexts; furthermore, professional networks of gender experts are investigated, highlighting how sustaining these networks are central to effective responses to gender-related crises in international peace and security. Finally, the panel explores women in leadership positions and their relation to peacebuilding by assessing how women’s meaningful participation in peacebuilding and their representation in leadership positions are associated with the success of peace processes.
