Description
This paper explores how global norms addressing gender equality are mainstreamed, operationalised and implemented in post-conflict states by international organizations (IOs), taking the international community in Kosovo as the primary case study. Research has shown that war and state collapse can serve as a window of opportunity and give rise to opportunities for women to participate in social and political spaces in ways in which they were previously unable to. IOs and their entities tasked with implementing global normative commitments at the global-local nexus constitute an important node in these potential processes of post-conflict transformation. Surprisingly, however, relatively little scholarly attention has been devoted thus far to an exploration of the translation processes and implementation practices of these norms by international organizations at the ground level of practice. To what extent do international gender norms, enshrined in global policy frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), travel to post-conflict settings and affect everyday practice?
To answer this question, this paper adopts a feminist approach to norm diffusion, focussing on a specific sub-set of gender equality and women’s rights norms – United Nations (UN) norms that relate to women’s economic empowerment – and their implementation in the case of Kosovo. Drawing on documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, this paper engages in a qualitative study of Kosovo, to analyse the processes through which the international community has implemented global norms on women’s economic empowerment. Despite over two decades of efforts and interventions in the name of women’s economic empowerment, there has been little improvement in women’s material lives as reflected in their participation in the formal labour market. It is the process leading up to this outcome – the practices of domestic norm implementation involving interactions between various norms, stakeholders and domestic structures – that this paper seeks to explain. The paper brings together scholarship on feminist political economy, IR norm diffusion and international organizations to shed light on the oft-neglected economic aspects of peace- and state-building interventions and how these interact with women’s lived realties.
